The most emphatic element in this sentence is the verb that Good News Translation translates had reported what had happened (literally “were witnessing” or “were testifying”). The verb “to witness” is used in John’s Gospel in various ways; it is discussed in some detail in 1.7. New American Bible here translates “kept testifying to it”; New English Bible “told what they had seen and heard”; Jerusalem Bible “were telling how they had witnessed it.” In Greek the verb is in the imperfect tense and perhaps indicates action in progress, as these translations indicate.

In the Greek text Jesus is literally “he.” In place of when (hote) some Greek manuscripts read “that” (hoti), which changes the meaning somewhat. If the reading “that” is accepted, the statement he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from the death becomes the content of the verb had reported. The following translation would then result: “The crowd that was with Jesus had reported that he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from death.” Most translations, however, accept the same reading as Good News Translation, because it is supported by better manuscript evidence. The other reading is evidently an attempt to smooth out the difficulty concerning the mention of the various crowds in this narrative.

The order of constituent clauses in verse 17 produces some difficulty, since the linguistic and temporal orders are not parallel. The presence of the people with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from death is prior to the time in the verb had reported, but this time in turn is after what is contained in the report, namely, what had happened. However, verse 17 is prior to the content of verse 18 and also prior to the content of verse 16. Note also that the content of verse 17 constitutes the reason for the behavior of the crowd in verse 18. These problems of relative time may make it necessary to recast verse 17 as “When Jesus called Lazarus to come out of the grave and raised him from death, the people who were there with Jesus later reported what had happened to Lazarus.” This rendering may then constitute an introduction to verse 18, for example, “Because of what these people said, the crowd went out to meet Jesus.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .