John 20:5

5 And looking in, he saw the linen bands on the earth; but he did not go in,

John 20:5 Meaning and Commentary

John 20:5

And he stooping down and looking in
That is, John; when he came to the sepulchre, stooped down to look into it, and see what he could see; he only went into the court, or stood upon the floor, where the bearers used to set down the bier, before they put the corpse into one of the graves in the sepulchre, which were four cubits lower; (See Gill on Mark 16:5). Hence he was obliged to stoop down, ere he could see anything within: when he

saw the linen clothes lying;
in which the body had been wrapped, but that itself not there:

yet went he not in;
to the sepulchre itself, but waited in the court or porch, till Peter came; and perhaps might be timorous and fearful of going into such a place alone; the Arabic version reads it, "he dared not go in".

John 20:5 In-Context

3 So Peter and the other disciple went out to the place of the dead.

4 They went running together, and the other disciple got in front of Peter and came first to the hole in the rock;

5 And looking in, he saw the linen bands on the earth; but he did not go in,

6 Then Simon Peter came after him and went into the hole in the rock; and he saw the linen bands on the earth,

7 And the cloth, which had been round his head, not with the linen bands but rolled up in a place by itself.