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.
Ver. 11. Lazarus sleepeth] The saints are said to die in Christ, to sleep in Jesus,Revelation 14:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:14. The Greeks call their churchyards dormitories, sleeping places (κοιμητηρια). The Germans call them God's Acre, because their bodies are sown there to be raised again. The Hebrews Bethchajim, the house of the living.