in the word chosen.  The Hebrew word shenah which does mean 'sleep', is Never

used in the phrase, 'He slept with his fathers' which is strange if the

conception that death can be likened to sleep is true of all men.  Job uses

this word when he says:

'Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out

of their sleep' (Job 14:12),

but when the appointed time arrived he knew that he would awake:

'Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: Thou wilt have a desire to

the work of Thine hands' (Job 14:15).

We turn now to the New Testament and discover that there are three

words translated sleep, hupnos, which gives us the word 'hypnosis', and

'hypnotism', katheudo, and koimaomai.  Hupnos occurs but six times.  Three

times in the Gospels (Matt. 1:24; Luke 9:32; John 11:13), twice in the Acts

(Acts 20:9), and once in the epistles, where it is used for the first and

last time in a figurative sense (Rom. 13:11).  This word, therefore, need not

detain us further here.  Katheudo occurs twenty-one times, of which seventeen

references are found in the Gospels, and four in the epistles.  The

references in the Gospels refer to ordinary physical sleep; the references in

the epistles refer to culpable unwatchfulness, rather than the involuntary

falling asleep in death.

'Awake thou that sleepest' (Eph. 5:14).

'Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober' (1

Thess. 5:6, see also 7,10).

Two references will call for consideration after the next Greek word is

considered, namely Luke 8:52 and 1 Thessalonians 5:10, but they will be more

clearly seen when the comparison with koimaomai has been made.  This Greek

word occurs eighteen times.  Katheudo means to compose oneself to sleep, in

contrast with koimaomai which means to fall asleep out of sheer weariness or

under the hand of death.

'He found them sleeping for sorrow' (Luke 22:45).

'lf her husband be dead' (1 Cor. 7:39).

'For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep' (1

Cor. 11:30).

When the Lord assured the mourning family that the little girl 'was not

dead, but sleepeth', they laughed Him to scorn (Luke 8:52), but we believe

His word implicitly and without debate.  The word chosen by the Lord in this

context was katheudo.  The apparently parallel passage in John 11:11 'our

friend Lazarus sleepeth' uses the word koimaomai, and whereas in Luke 8, the

Lord said, 'She is Not Dead', in John 11, He said plainly, 'Lazarus Is Dead'.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 the argument of the apostle revolves around

the figure of sleep, but with this difference.  In chapter 4, it is the

involuntary sleep of death, whereas in chapter 5 it is the culpable

sleepiness of the unwatchful.  Let us observe the process of the two

'concerning them which are asleep (i.e. dead) ... them also which sleep

in Jesus (those that die in the Lord, no unwatchful believer is

"unwatchful in Jesus") ... We which are alive and remain unto the