This verse suggests that a crowd is following Jesus, telling about the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, and another crowd (the crowd of this verse) comes out from Jerusalem because of what it has heard from the first crowd.

This miracle is literally “this sign” (see 2.11). In the Greek sentence structure, the demonstrative pronoun this is in the emphatic position.

The final clause Because they heard that he had performed this miracle constitutes an emphatic repetition of the reason for the crowd’s meeting Jesus. In a sense it repeats the contents of verse 17. One may make the relation more specific by saying “The crowd went out to meet Jesus because they heard that he had performed this miracle.”

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 .