'Asleep' in the Bible

Yet when they had devoured them, it could not be detected that they had eaten them, because they were still as thin and emaciated as before. Then I awoke [but again I fell asleep and dreamed].

So David took the spear and the jug of water from beside Saul’s head, and they left, and no one saw or knew nor did anyone awaken, because they were all sound asleep, for a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen on them.

At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry out with a loud voice, for he is a god; either he is occupied, or he is out [at the moment], or he is on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened!”

He lay down and slept under the juniper tree, and behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.”

“When they are inflamed [with wine and lust during their drinking bouts], I will prepare them a feast [of My wrath]And make them drunk, that they may rejoiceAnd may sleep a perpetual sleepAnd not wake up,” declares the Lord.

Then the sailors were afraid, and each man cried out to his god; and to lighten the ship [and diminish the danger] they threw the ship’s cargo into the sea. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship and had lain down and was sound asleep.

Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria;Your nobles are lying down [in death].Your people are scattered on the mountainsAnd there is no one to gather them.

Now while the bridegroom was delayed, they all began to nod off, and they fell asleep.

The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints (God’s people) who had fallen asleep [in death] were raised [to life];

But Jesus was in the stern, asleep [with His head] on the [sailor’s leather] cushion. And they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are about to die?”

[stay alert,] in case he should come suddenly and unexpectedly and find you asleep and unprepared.

And He came back and found them sleeping, and He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Were you unable to keep watch for one hour?

Then falling on his knees [in worship], he cried out loudly, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them [do not charge them]!” When he had said this, he fell asleep [in death].

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was buried among his fathers and experienced decay [in the grave];

After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, the majority of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep [in death].

But now [as things really are] Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, [and He became] the first fruits [that is, the first to be resurrected with an incorruptible, immortal body, foreshadowing the resurrection] of those who have fallen asleep [in death].

Listen very carefully, I tell you a mystery [a secret truth decreed by God and previously hidden, but now revealed]; we will not all sleep [in death], but we will all be [completely] changed [wondrously transformed],

Now we do not want you to be uninformed, believers, about those who are asleep [in death], so that you will not grieve [for them] as the others do who have no hope [beyond this present life].

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again [as in fact He did], even so God [in this same way—by raising them from the dead] will bring with Him those [believers] who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

For we say this to you by the Lord’s [own] word, that we who are still alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede [into His presence] those [believers] who have fallen asleep [in death].

And in their greed they will exploit you with false arguments and twisted doctrine. Their sentence [of condemnation which God has decreed] from a time long ago is not idle [but is still in force], and their destruction and deepening misery is not asleep [but is on its way].

and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming [what has become of it]? For ever since the fathers fell asleep [in death], all things have continued [exactly] as they did from the beginning of creation.”