The time is just before the last siege of Jerusalem, and Karshish, journeying through Jericho, and up the pass, stays for a few days at Bethany and meets Lazarus.

His case amazes him, and though he thinks his interest in it unworthy of a man of science in comparison with the new herbs and new diseases he has discovered, yet he is carried away by it and gives a full account of it to his master.
I do not think that Browning ever wrote a poem the writing of which he more enjoyed.

The creation of Karshish suited his humour and his quaint play with recondite knowledge.

He describes the physician till we see him alive and thinking, in body and soul.

The creation of Lazarus is even a higher example of the imaginative power of Browning; and that it is shaped for us through the mind of Karshish, and in tune with it, makes the imaginative effort the more remarkable.