There is such an analogy between death and sleep, that there is nothing more ordinary than to express death by sleep in Scripture, Deuteronomy 31:16 2 Samuel 7:12 1 Kings 1:21 2 Kings 20:21 Job 7:21, Job 14:12 Daniel 12:2, and in a multitude of other texts, both in the Old Testament and in the New; so as it was evident our Saviour meant he was dead, which he knew as he was God, though as yet he had received no relation of it from the friends of the deceased. But I go (saith our Saviour) to raise him up again from the dead, which he calls awaking him; pursuing the former metaphor, where he had compared death to a sleep.
Related Commentaries of John 11:11
John 11:11
11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.