<p>12:11- see on Jn. 12:42.</p><p><i>Because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus</i>- The idea of the Greek is that they 'withdrew'; understanding &quot;the Jews&quot; as the Jewish leadership, there is no evidence they actually did this at this stage, but rather that they secretly believed. If as suggested on :9, &quot;the Jews&quot; refers to the Jerusalem Jews; then these people would have been amongst those who came out openly for the Lord at Pentecost. Perhaps here we see how inspiration records the weak faith and commitment of others in generous, positive terms (e.g. the disciples 'sleeping for sorrow'). The tragedy is that the Jewish leadership condemned the Lord to death when 'many' of them believed in Him. This is a classic feature of human beings once they get into groupings together; a group position is upheld even when the majority are against it, and even when the position is the most terrible of all, in this case, the killing of God's Son. Again we note how the Lord had thought that some from &quot;the crowd&quot; would be converted (see on 11:42), when what happened was the opposite; the crowd, of whom we read in 12:12 (RV and some manuscripts &quot;<i>the</i> crowd&quot;), were those who violently turned against Him, and the converts were made from within the Jewish leadership. The Lord was human, and misplaced hopes and inaccurate suppositions of the immediate future are all part of being human.</p><p><i>Many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus</i>- The chief priests wanted Lazarus put to death simply because &ldquo;many of the Jews went away&rdquo; from the synagogue because of him, and it would have meant the tithes were lost or at least put in jeopardy. And this cannot be ruled out as a major factor why they wanted Jesus out of the way too, and why they persecuted the early church so fiercely, seeing that thousands of tithe-paying members were being turned against them.</p>