What Does John 11:13 Mean?
But Jesus had spoken of his death, though they thought he had spoken of rest in sleep.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.THE KEY
Jesus speaks of death through the language of sleep, while the disciples hear only an ordinary nap.
THE MEANING
When you meet the word sleep here, the verse lets you hear two readings at once: ordinary rest and the death Jesus is speaking about. The image of sleep can still carry the possibility of waking, as the surrounding words make clear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that Jesus means only an ordinary nap: the verse says he is speaking of death.
THE ROOT
κοιμήσεως
koimēseōs
GROWS FROM
κοιμ-
koim-
Sleep, or lying down to rest.
“rest in sleep” in this verse is koimēseōs. The Greek word for sleep belongs to the same word family used for lying down, and it can serve as an image for death. That connection lets the verse name death while keeping the language of rest, and the possibility of waking, within earshot.
ALSO GROWS
koimáō: To sleep or fall asleep.
κοιμάω
This verb is used in the preceding verse, where Jesus says Lazarus sleeps and that he will awaken him.
koimētḗrion: A sleeping place; the source of the word cemetery.
κοιμητήριον
The same word family describes a place for the dead through the image of sleep.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses sleep as an image for death that leaves room for awakening.
He said these things, and after this he said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go, so that I may wake him from sleep.And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground shall awake, some to the life of the ages, and some to exposure and contempt for the ages.But now the Anointed One has been awakened from the dead, and has become the first portion of those who have lain down to sleep.THE THREAD
He said these things, and after this he said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go, so that I may wake him from sleep.The word translated “sleepeth” comes from the same Greek word family as “sleep” in this verse. Jesus joins that word to “awake him,” revealing how the sleep image can hold both the disciples’ surface reading and the death he means.
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