What Is the Shortest Verse in the Bible?
“Jesus wept” — two words at a graveside, and why the Bible's smallest verse may be its most comforting.
The shortest verse in the English Bible is John 11:35 — “Jesus wept” — two words spoken at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. (In the Greek, 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice evermore,” is marginally shorter.) Its brevity is its power: God incarnate, crying at a grave he was about to empty.
The scene around the two words
Lazarus of Bethany had died; his sisters Martha and Mary each met Jesus with the same half-reproach — Lord, if thou hadst been here. Jesus knew the ending: he had already announced the resurrection standing in front of them. And still, seeing Mary weeping and the mourners weeping, “he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled” — and wept. The bystanders drew the right conclusion: “Behold how he loved him!”
Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
Why the tears, if he knew?
Jesus wept minutes before working his greatest public miracle — proof that knowing the resurrection doesn’t forbid grieving the grave. He wept, it seems, simply because his friends were weeping and death is an enemy worth weeping at. The shortest verse is therefore a complete theology of comfort: God does not stand outside our sorrow explaining it; he enters it, at full emotional price.
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
“A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” — the tears were in character.
The verse after the verse
The tears were not the end of the story: “Lazarus, come forth” followed within minutes, and the mourning house became a feast. That sequence — real weeping, then real resurrection — is the Christian map of grief itself: sorrow fully felt, hope fully kept. The Bible’s shortest verse sits inside its loudest promise: “I am the resurrection, and the life.”
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
Quick answers
- Is “Jesus wept” really the shortest verse?
- In English, yes — two words. In the original Greek, “Rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16) is shorter by letters. The Bible’s shortest verses command weeping and rejoicing — Romans 12:15 in miniature.
- What is the longest verse in the Bible?
- Esther 8:9 — a single sprawling sentence about the king’s scribes and provinces, some ninety words in the KJV.
- Did Jesus cry anywhere else in Scripture?
- Twice more recorded: over unrepentant Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and “with strong crying and tears” in prayer (Hebrews 5:7) — griefs of love, city-sized and cosmic.
