Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:54–58
There is sleep and there is death in the Bible, but there is also a strange category of sleep that is near to death, a death-sleep. This death-sleep runs from creation to the saints in the New Covenant, and it is worthy of our consideration to see the work of Jesus Christ and what that means for us, his people. This category of death-sleep helps to illuminate more of the saving work of Jesus on behalf of his people in undoing and overcoming the curse of sin and setting us free from death. From Adam before the fall to humanity under the curse to the saints set free from the curse, death-sleep advances from glory to terror to glory again.
Death-Sleep Before the Fall
Adam is placed into death-sleep by God in Genesis 2:18–22. We read the familiar story,
Then Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” And out of the ground Yahweh God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought each to the man to see what he would call it, and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept, then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And Yahweh God fashioned the rib, which he had taken from the man, into a woman, and he brought her to the man” (emphasis mine).
The Hebrew for deep sleep is tardemah, which is built on the Hebrew root radam,meaning “to sleep” or “to be unconscious.” I refer to tardemah as death-sleep because, as we will see, this kind of sleep is something that God brings upon people in a supernatural way. It is not the normal sleep that all men fall into at the end of the day but a direct activity of God upon a person. Tardemah implies that God is about to do something.
God caused Adam to go into death-sleep. And we know that Adam was in death-sleep and not normal, tired sleep because God ripped his side off. Normally, even after a very hard day of labor, if someone attempted to tear a piece of your body off, you would wake up.
God plucks the side off Adam after God had placed him into death-sleep, and Adam did not wake up from the action. This is a supernatural sleep. From that bloody side of meat and bone, God makes woman. God glorifies man when he rises from this death-sleep that God put him in because woman is the glory of man (1 Cor 11:7). God, as loving Father to his son, Adam, placed him into death-sleep, and from his bloody side, glorified him with a bride.
Before the Fall, tardemah led to glory. The curse of sin had not entered the world. To be brought to a comatose, death-like state by God did not place man under the shadow of death as something to be feared.
Death-Sleep After the Fall
Death-sleep after the Fall takes on a new dimension because of sin and the curse of death. When Adam rebelled, death became the punishment for sin, and this curse was placed upon all men. When tardemah falls on a person after the events in Genesis 3, dread, fear, and the possibility of descending to Sheol are incorporated into the experience.
The next instance of death-sleep is when Abraham (then called Abram) went into tardemah in Genesis 15:12: “Now it happened that when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.”
We see here the added dimension, “terror and great darkness fell upon him.” Abraham, although faithful and forgiven, is still a sinner, and when God places him into death-sleep it comes as a moment of potential judgment. Death is the penalty for all sinners, but when God brings a person into death-sleep, there is a possibility of dying under God’s judgment and departing to Sheol, the place of the dead (Hades in Greek).
Abraham, the father of all the faithful, does not receive judgment, however. Abraham goes down into death-sleep and comes out the other side in a new covenant relationship with God and with the land. Abraham is glorified in a new position as the head of the covenant.
Death-sleep does not always lead to glory and the promises of God, however. There are instances of death-sleep that do not bring the person up from tardemah but sends them farther down into the dead.
In the book of Judges, the wicked general Sisera is said to be in death-sleep, and his end is not the same as Adam’s before the Fall or faithful Abraham’s after the Fall. With Sisera, God shows how he judges the wicked when he places them into death-sleep. The most blessed of women, Jael, crushes Sisera’s head: “Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and placed a hammer in her hand and went secretly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went through into the ground; for he was sound asleep [death-sleep] and exhausted. So he died” (Judg 4:21).
God had brought Sisera, the seed of the serpent, to the tent of a faithful mother in Israel who crushed his head while he was in death-sleep.
The two examples of Abraham and Sisera show the paths that tardemah leads to. One who goes into death-sleep either rises from it to a new position, to glory like Adam, or one receives judgment for their sin and departs to the dead.
More examples in Scripture help elucidate this death-sleep. In 1 Samuel 26, Saul and his men are hunting David, God’s newly anointed king. David sneaks into Saul’s army camp, and one of David’s men is about to run King Saul through with a spear. But David is not willing to kill God’s anointed: “So David took the spear and the jug of water from beside Saul’s head, and they went away, but no one saw or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a sound sleep [death-sleep] from Yahweh had fallen on them” (26:12).
Saul rises from death-sleep and repents (1 Sam 26:21–25). That is, he rises from death-sleep and is glorified. This glory is seen in Saul’s new, restored position relative to David. Saul is brought to death’s door, and rather than sinking under judgment, he rises in repentance seeking to restore his relationship with David.
To show further the terror and dread of tardemah after the Fall, the book of Job gives us more information about this death-sleep experience. In the first instance, we have Eliphaz telling Job how he knows that all of Job’s troubles have come because of Job’s sins:
Now a word was brought to me stealthily,
And my ear received a whisper of it.
Amid disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep [death-sleep] falls on men,
Dread came upon me, and trembling,
And made the multitude of my bones shake in dread.
Then a spirit swept by my face;
The hair of my flesh bristled up (Job 4:12–15)
This death-sleep that Eliphaz speaks of is a haunting and terrifying sleep. He says that when men go down into death-sleep they are among the spirits, although the person is not actually dead yet. It is a place full of ghosts that makes your hair stand on end in fright. Tardemah is associated with Sheol, the place of the dead. It is as though when God places someone in death-sleep, he brings them to the doors of Sheol, and that person is in danger of falling into the realm of the dead where the departed spirits are. This is the cause of dread and fear.
Later, in Job 33:12–18, Elihu steps into the conversation to challenge everyone:
Behold, let me answer you; you are not right in this,
For God is greater than mortal man.
Why do you contend against him?
For he does not give an answer for all his doings.
Indeed God speaks once,
Or twice, yet no one perceives it.
In a dream, a vision of the night,
When deep sleep [death-sleep] falls on men,
While they slumber in their beds,
Then he opens the ears of men,
And seals in their discipline,
That he may turn man aside from his conduct,
And keep man from pride;
He holds back his soul from the pit,
And his life from passing over to death by a weapon.
When God places men into death-sleep, it is as though God has placed them at the gates of Sheol, and it is only God’s merciful hand that keeps them from the land of the dead. The Hebrew Sheol is what the Greek New Testament calls Hades. Sheol/Hades is the place of the dead; it is the place of departed spirits. In verse 18, Elihu says that God holds back a man’s soul from going into the pit.
When Sisera goes into death-sleep, God, through Jael, sends Sisera to Sheol, the place of the dead. However, when Adam went into death-sleep before the Fall and the curse of sin, death was not a punishment. There was no fear or dread in Adam’s experience, and God brought Adam away from the door of death and gave to him a glorious bride.
In Psalm 76:1–7, we read more of this death-sleep,
God is known in Judah;
His name is great in Israel.
So his tabernacle is in Salem;
His dwelling place is in Zion.
There he broke the flaming arrows,
The shield and the sword and the battle. Selah.
You are shining,
Majestic from the mountains of prey.
The stouthearted were plundered,
They sank into sleep;
And none of the warriors could use his hands.
At your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
Both chariot rider and horse slumbered into a deep sleep [death-sleep].
But you, you are fearsome;
And who can stand in your presence when once you are angry?
In the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus, when the Hebrews and the faithful multitude of Gentiles passed through the Deep to new life, the wicked Egyptians traveled down into the Deep and stayed there. Indeed, God throws the chariot rider and horse into death-sleep and slips them into Sheol.
Proverbs 19:15 mentions this death-sleep as well: “Laziness casts into a deep sleep [death-sleep], and a slack-handed soul will suffer hunger.” Laziness, the sinful refusal to honor God by upholding the dominion mandate in working six days, leads to judgment. Laziness itself is a precursor to death. Laziness leads to Sheol.
In Isaiah 29:9–10, we read of God’s judgment upon his unfaithful people in giving them over to death-sleep,
Astonish yourselves and be astonished,
Blind yourselves and be blind;
They become drunk, but not with wine;
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
For Yahweh has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep [death-sleep];
He has shut your eyes, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, the seers.”
Here we see the connection between tardemah, God’s judgment, and his prophets.
There is also an account of one of God’s prophets who is placed into death-sleep. In Jonah 1:5, we read, “Then the sailors became fearful, and every man cried to his god, and they hurled the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down below into the innermost part of the vessel, lain down, and fallen deep asleep.” Jonah had received death-sleep from God as a judgment upon him. Jonah was sent into death-sleep while he was running from God’s command to go to Nineveh. Jonah goes into tardemah, and then the sailors toss Jonah overboard, and he is swallowed by a great fish. Jonah’s confession of the experience is that God had brought him down to Sheol:
I called out of my distress to Yahweh,
(Jon 2:1, 6)
And he answered me.
I cried for help from the belly of Sheol;
You heard my voice …
I went down to the base of the mountains.
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever,
But you have brought up my life from the pit, O Yahweh my God.
Jonah goes down to the gates of Sheol and rises out of the depths to bring salvation to the Gentiles in Nineveh. His experience of tardemah resulted not in judgment, but in glory.
Furthermore, in Daniel 8:15–18 we read the following:
Now it happened when I, Daniel, had seen the vision, that I sought to understand it; and behold, standing before me was one who had the appearance of a man. And I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Ulai, and he called out and said, “Gabriel, give this man an understanding of what has appeared.” So he came near to where I was standing, and when he came I was terrified and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.” Now while he was talking with me, I sank into a deep sleep [death-sleep] with my face to the ground; but he touched me and made me stand upright.
Daniel, upon seeing visions of the work of the glorified Christ, falls down as a dead man in death-sleep, but the angel raises him up. Faithful Daniel does not remain in death; he does not go to Sheol in judgment. Rather, he is raised up to life. This happens to Daniel again in 10:4–10:
And on the twenty-fourth day of the first month, while I was by the bank of the great river, that is, the Tigris, I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen, whose loins were girded with a belt of pure fine gold of Uphaz. His body also was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. Now I, Daniel, alone saw the vision that appeared, but the men who were with me did not see the vision that appeared; nevertheless, a great terror fell on them, and they ran away to hide themselves. So I alone remained and saw this great vision that appeared; yet no might remained in me, for my outward splendor turned to a deathly pallor, and I retained no might. But I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a deep sleep [death-sleep] on my face, with my face to the ground. Then behold, a hand touched me and set me shaking on my hands and knees.
We have all the ingredients here: great terror, death, death-sleep. One dimension that is new here is that the vision Daniel receives is that of Jesus Christ, which makes a clear parallel to the Apostle John, who sees the risen and glorified Jesus and likewise falls before him as a dead man in Revelation 1:17. It is the glorified Lord who touches John and raises him up from his station of death.
When God places you into tardemah after the Fall, he actively brings you down to death’s door (Sheol/Hades), and one of two things will happen. You will rise from death-sleep to a new and better world, as did Abraham, Jonah, and Daniel, who rose from death-sleep to receive the gift of glory, new situation, and station. Or, you don’t wake up, and you are crushed under the judgment of God, as was Siserah with Jael’s tent peg hammered into his head.
When you go down into death-sleep, you rise to new life, or you stay there.
Death-Sleep and Jesus
One of the grand promises of God is that he would intervene in history and deal with death. He would redeem those who are under the fear of death. He would guide his faithful through the Valley of Shadow. He would undo the curse of sin and do away with death. These promises, of course, come to fulfillment in Jesus. So, how does Jesus change the experience of tardemah for fallen man?
Jesus is the Greater Jonah, and he experiences something parallel to the prophet on the run from God. In Matthew 8:23–27 we read,
And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves, but Jesus himself was sleeping. And they came to him and got him up, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you so cowardly, you men of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. And the men marveled, and said, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”
The parallels are clear. Jesus, like Jonah, is on a ship in the middle of a great storm that the sailors cannot manage, and Jesus, like Jonah, is dead asleep in the midst of it. Like Jonah, Jesus is in a death-sleep. Both men are in a specific kind of sleep that even the storm of a raging sea cannot wake them.
Although the Greek word for “sleep” in Matthew’s account can just mean sleep, it is also used elsewhere in the New Testament, and the connections are quite telling. Let’s explore.
In the next chapter, Matthew 9:18–26, we read this account:
While he was saying these things to them, behold, a synagogue official came and was bowing down before him and said, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did his disciples. And behold, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be saved from this.” But Jesus turning and seeing her, said, “Daughter, take courage; your faith has saved you.” At once the woman was saved from her hemorrhage. And when Jesus came into the official’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, he said, “Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.” And they began laughing at him. But when the crowd had been sent out, coming in, he took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And this news spread throughout all that land. (emphasis mine)
The girl is not dead; she is in death-sleep. Like with Daniel in death-sleep and later with John who falls down as a dead man, the touch of Jesus raises this girl to life. Jesus is the one who has the power to bring people out of Sheol. Remember that God is the one who places people into death-sleep, and God is the one who either pushes them into the place of the dead or raises them to new life. What we see in the gospel accounts is that Jesus, the God-man, is the one with the power over death. Death-sleep has two potential outcomes. Some rise again, and others remain there and go into the pit.
In Matthew 25:1–13 we have a connection with sleep and judgment:
Then the kingdom of heaven may be compared to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the prudent, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the prudent answered, saying, “No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut. And later the other virgins also came, saying, “Lord, lord, open up for us.” But he answered and said, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know the day nor the hour. (emphases mine)
Here, the five foolish virgins slept their way into judgment and separation from the Groom.
Paul may have this theme in mind when he writes in Ephesians 5:13–14, “But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, ‘Awake, sleeper, [the same phrase the captain of the ship shouts to the Prophet Jonah!] / And arise from the dead, / And Christ will shine on you.”
In fallen Adam, the wayward bride of humanity is asleep near death, at Death’s Door, and Jesus the New Adam, the Greater Jonah, the Bridegroom of Life, has come to wake humanity from death-sleep. To do this, Jesus must go down to death and rise from the dead to new life. His resurrection life, set free from Hades, is the life that is given to his people now.
A striking parallel to the parable above is found in Acts 20:7–12 when the church gathers for worship on the first day of the week. The Apostle Paul is teaching well into the night. It is midnight, and there are many lamps in the upper room where the saints are gathered. This is one of the few places in the New Testament where this particular word for “lamps” is used, connecting it directly to the parable in Matthew 25. Eutychus falls asleep (the LSB accurately translates this as “into deep sleep”), and then he falls to his death. Paul descends from the upper room to the fallen Eutychus and, like Elisha, Paul falls on the body of Eutychus, embracing him. He tells the congregation not to be troubled, for there is life in him. Eutychus is raised up from deep sleep and death to join the saints in the upper room to break bread.[1]
Furthermore, Jesus gives his disciples a wonderful promise in Matthew 16:18, that the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church. Usually, because of a mistranslation, we think Jesus is saying here that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church. If that is what Jesus is saying, then we have something very strange going on. If Hell has gates, what in the world is the church doing, trying to besiege and storm Hell? Do we really want to go in there? Are we intending to break the gates of Hell down from the outside? What would be the purpose? To let the enemies of God out? It makes little sense. God justly places the rebellious in Hell, and we have no business trying to do anything to the gates of Hell that he erects.
Thankfully, Jesus does not say, “the gates of Hell.” The Greek word here is not Gehenna (usually translated as Hell) but Hades. Hades is the place of the dead, which the Hebrew calls Sheol. It is the place of departed spirits for both the faithful and the wicked (see Lk 16:19–31). It is “the gates of Hades” that Jesus says will not prevail against the church.
Hades is the same place where Jesus descends to when he dies, as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed. Jesus goes down into death, into Abraham’s Bosom, and breaks the door of Hades from the inside, like the mighty bridegroom Samson ripping out the gates of Gaza from the inside (Judg 16:1–3). Death is the thing that will not prevail against the church. Jesus sets the faithful free from the bondage of Death (Is 9:2) because death could not contain Him (Ac 2:24).
Jesus, the new Adam, goes into darkness on the cross. Terror overwhelms him, and he cries out his feeling of forsakenness. His Father puts him into death, and from Jesus’ side, like Adam’s, comes water and blood. This is the means by which the church, the Bride, is made for her Husband. From Jesus’ death, a new humanity arises. Jesus goes into death, down to Hades, and rises glorified, and we with him.
So, when Christians die now, the Apostle Paul tells us that they are not dead, but rather asleep. Death has no claim on us, the sting of death is gone, and when we depart this mortal coil, it is as though we have passed into sleep, which is nothing to be feared. Jesus has blazed the trail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Ps 23:4), and where he goes, we go.
As the Apostle Paul says,
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:16–22).
Jonah Barnes is pastor of Emmanuel Church (CREC) in Helena, MT.
[1] Thanks to Christopher Kou for pointing out the connection between Matthew 25 and Acts 20.