What Does John 11:13 Mean in the King James?
Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
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.
These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.THE THREAD
These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of 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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