John 11:12

Study note

Setting — His disciples answer Jesus after He announces their journey to Bethany to retrieve Lazarus. They address Him as "Lord" and interpret His metaphor literally.

The words — The verb κεκοίμηται (kekoimētai) literally means "he has fallen asleep." Jesus applies this term to Lazarus in John 11:11, but the disciples hear it in its physical sense.

The thread — This lexical shift between metaphorical sleep and literal death appears in Daniel 12:2 and 1 Corinthians 15:51, where sleep denotes bodily death awaiting resurrection.

Why it lands — The text demands recognition of how spiritual metaphors can be misread as literal promises. It requires the reader to align their understanding with the speaker’s intended meaning rather than their own assumptions.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.