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Bible Dictionaries
Sleep
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or SLEEPING, SLUMBERING, is taken either for the sleep or repose of the body; or for the sleep of the soul, which is supineness, indolence, stupidity; or for the sleep of death, "You shall sleep with your fathers;" you shall die, as they are dead. Jeremiah 51:39 , threatens Babylon, in the name of the Lord, with a perpetual sleep, out of which they shall not awake. Daniel 12:2 , speaks of those that sleep in the dust of the grave. "Lazarus our friend sleepeth; let us go and awake him," John 11:11; he is dead, let us go and raise him up. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," Ephesians 5:14 . Here St. Paul speaks to those that were dead in sin and infidelity. St. Peter says of the wicked, "Their damnation slumbereth not," 2 Peter 2:3 . God is not asleep, he will not forget to punish them in his own due time. Isaiah 65:4 , speaks of a superstitious practice among the Pagans, who went to sleep in the temples of their idols, to obtain prophetic dreams: "They remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments." The word, which we translate "monuments," signifies places "kept" or "observed." Some interpret it of idol temples, some of caves and dens, in which the Heathens used to worship their idols; and some of tombs or monuments for dead persons. Thus also the superstitions and idolatrous Jews, in contempt of the prophets, and of the temple of the Lord, went into the tombs and temples of idols to sleep there, and to have dreams that might discover future events to them. The Pagans for this purpose used to lie upon the skins of the sacrificed victims.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Sleep'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/s/sleep.html. 1831-2.
