Greek word · G2838
κοίμησις
koimēsis
sleep
From κοιμάω, 'put to bed, lull to sleep'; middle/passive κοιμάομαι, 'lie down, fall asleep'. Κοίμησις is 'a lying down, sleeping, rest'. The verb was also a very common gentle way of saying someone had died ('fell asleep').
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
From κοιμάω, 'put to bed, lull to sleep'; middle/passive κοιμάομαι, 'lie down, fall asleep'. Κοίμησις is 'a lying down, sleeping, rest'. The verb was also a very common gentle way of saying someone had died ('fell asleep'). This was true in Greek generally, in the Greek Old Testament, and in early Christian speech.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'taking of rest' and YLT 'repose' keep the 'lying at rest' sense. BSB 'actual sleep', NIV 'natural sleep' and NASB 'literal sleep' join κοίμησις and ὕπνος into one idea. That is accurate, but it hides the wordplay: κοίμησις belongs to the same family as the verb Jesus used for death in v. 11.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The Greek Old Testament regularly says kings 'slept with their fathers' (ἐκοιμήθη μετὰ τῶν πατέρων, e.g. 1 Kings 2:10, 11:43). Sirach 46:19 speaks of Samuel's 'time of eternal sleep' (κοιμήσεως αἰῶνος) for his death. In the New Testament the verb means death in Matt 27:52, Acts 7:60, 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 20, 51 and 1 Thess 4:13–15. The noun κοίμησις itself appears only here. Later Christians called a burial ground κοιμητήριον, a 'sleeping place', which gives English 'cemetery'.
Where it appears
John · 1
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John 11:13 κοιμήσεως rest
They thought that Jesus was talking about actual sleep, but He was speaking about the death of Lazarus.
Here: The act or state of lying asleep. It comes from the same root as the verb Jesus used in v. 11 (κεκοίμηται, 'has fallen asleep'). The word appears only here in the New Testament.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.