💫WEB · John 11:13
What does John 11:13 mean?
"Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep."
— John 11:13 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.”
He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”
The disciples therefore said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep.
So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead.
I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”
Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go also, that we may die with him.”
Explanation
John 11:13 is a brief explanatory note inserted by the author of the Gospel to clear up a potential confusion in the story. Just before this verse, Jesus had told his disciples, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awaken him" (John 11:11). The disciples took this literally, assuming Jesus meant that Lazarus was simply resting and would recover on his own. John steps in as narrator to explain that Jesus was actually speaking about Lazarus's death, using "sleep" as a euphemism, but the disciples missed the deeper meaning and thought he meant ordinary physical rest.
The context is the larger account of Lazarus's death and resurrection in John 11, one of the most significant miracle narratives in the Gospel. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was a close friend of Jesus living in Bethany. When word reached Jesus that Lazarus was gravely ill, he delayed his arrival, knowing that Lazarus would die and that God would be glorified through what was about to happen. The Gospel of John was written, according to its own stated purpose, "that you may believe
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