“It has already been four days”
Take away the stone… Lord, by now he stinks… It has already been four days. (John 11:39 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A gruesome practical objection.
The cultural key
'Four days' was a threshold, not just a duration. A belief attested in later Jewish sources held that the soul lingered near the body for three days, hoping to return, and departed on the fourth when decomposition made the face unrecognizable. (The sources are later than the Gospel, so hold the custom's exact currency loosely; the fourth-day finality it expresses fits the story's logic either way.) John has also told us Jesus deliberately delayed two days on hearing the news: the timing is chosen.
Recovered meaning
Day four means past every borderline: no swoon, no lingering spark, no ambiguity for hope to hide in. Jesus arranges to arrive on the far side of all deniability, so that 'I am the resurrection and the life' is demonstrated on a case nobody could explain away.