While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. The bridegroom tarried - The coming of the bridegroom to an individual may imply his death: his coming to the world - the final judgment. The delay - the time from a man's birth till his death, in the first case; in the second, the time from the beginning to the end of the world.
Slumbered and slept - Or, ενυϚαξαν και εκαθευδον, they became drowsy and fell asleep. As sleep is frequently used in the sacred writings for death, so drowsiness, which precedes sleep, may be considered as pointing out the decays of the constitution, and the sicknesses which precede death. The other explanations which are given of this place must be unsatisfactory to every man who is not warped by some point in his creed, which must be supported at every expense. Carelessness disposed them to drowsiness, drowsiness to sleep, deep sleep, which rendered them as unconscious of their danger as they were before inattentive to their duty. The Anglo-Saxon has hit the meaning of the original well - of which my old MS. Bible gives a literal version, in the English of the 14th century: forsothe-alle nappeden and sleptyn.