κοιμάω
to sleep
‘to sleep’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Aorist-tense verb in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
Voice
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
Case
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms 12 distinct
- Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Aorist, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Present, Passive, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Perfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Aorist, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (6%)
+4 more forms (4 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 18 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G2837 appears — 18 distinct verses across 7 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
Matthew 2 verses
Luke 1 verse
John 2 verses
- John 11:11 κεκοίμηται perf pass ind 3sg He said these things, and after that, he said to them, "Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep."
- John 11:12 κεκοίμηται perf pass ind 3sg The disciples therefore said, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover."
Acts 3 verses
- Acts 7:60 ἐκοιμήθη aor pass ind 3sg He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, don't hold this sin against them!" When he had said this, he fell asleep.
- Acts 12:6 κοιμώμενος pres pass ptcp nom sg masc The same night when Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains. Guards in front of the door kept the prison.
- Acts 13:36 ἐκοιμήθη aor pass ind 3sg For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw decay.
1 Corinthians 6 verses
- 1 Corinthians 7:39 κοιμηθῇ aor pass subj 3sg A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whoever she desires, only in the Lord.
- 1 Corinthians 11:30 κοιμῶνται pres pass ind 3pl For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.
- 1 Corinthians 15:6 ἐκοιμήθησαν aor pass ind 3pl Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep.
- 1 Corinthians 15:18 κοιμηθέντες aor pass ptcp nom pl masc Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
- 1 Corinthians 15:20 κεκοιμημένων perf pass ptcp gen pl masc But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.
- 1 Corinthians 15:51 κοιμηθησόμεθα fut pass ind 1pl Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
1 Thessalonians 3 verses
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13 κοιμωμένων pres pass ptcp gen pl masc But we don't want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don't grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:14 κοιμηθέντας aor pass ptcp acc pl masc For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those who have fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:15 κοιμηθέντας aor pass ptcp acc pl masc For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left to the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.
2 Peter 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
κοιμαω (koimáō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to sleep.” It first appears in Matthew 27:52. Spanning 18 verses in 7 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. 1 Corinthians dominates its distribution — 6 of 18 verses. Its lexical range runs to 2 senses. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2837 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 18
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 18 distinct verses.
- 7 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 7 of 27 New Testament books.
- #664
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 664 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 18 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Corinthians 6 verses 33%
- Acts 3 verses 17%
- 1 Thessalonians 3 verses 17%
By section of the New Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 18 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 9 verses · 50%
- Gospels 5 verses · 28%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 4 verses · 22%
- Johannine 2 verses · 11%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 6%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Sleep 3×, Slept 3×, Are asleep 2×
- American Standard Version: Are fallen asleep 2×, Fell asleep 2×, Sleep 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Have fallen asleep 6×, He fell asleep 2×, Sleep 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Sleeping 4×, Having fallen asleep 3×, Fell asleep 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2837 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G2837 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2837 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2837 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 senses Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- to cause to sleep, put to sleep
- metaph.
Word origin
Derived from κειμαι (keîmai) (G2749) — to lie.
From G2749 ; to put to sleep that is (passively or reflexively) to slumber ; figuratively to decease : - (be a- fall a- fall on) sleep be dead.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 12 distinct written forms G2837 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2837, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word κοιμαω appears 186 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 173 verses in 23 books.
- 186
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 173
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 23 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 23 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 19:4 κοιμάω
- Exodus 22:15 κοιμάω
- Leviticus 14:47 κοιμάω
- Numbers 5:13 κοιμάω
- Deuteronomy 16:4 κοιμάω
- Joshua 2:8 κοιμάω
- Judges 5:27 κοιμάω
- Ruth 3:4 κοιμάω
- 1 Samuel 3:9 κοιμάω
- 2 Samuel 7:12 κοιμάω
- 1 Kings 1:2 κοιμάω
- 2 Kings 4:11 κοιμάω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2837) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 173. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 19:4 κοιμάω But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.
- Genesis 19:32 κοιμάω Come, let's make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."
- Genesis 19:33 κοιμάω They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.
- Genesis 19:34 κοιμάω It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."
- Genesis 19:35 κοιμάω They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger arose, and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.
- Genesis 24:54 κοιμάω They ate and drank, he and the men who were with him, and stayed all night. They rose up in the morning, and he said, "Send me away to my master."
- Genesis 26:10 κοιμάω Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"
- Genesis 28:11 κοιμάω He came to a certain place, and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.
- Genesis 30:15 κοιμάω She said to her, "Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes, also?" Rachel said, "Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes."
- Genesis 30:16 κοιμάω Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, "You must come in to me; for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes." He lay with her that night.
- Genesis 31:54 κοιμάω Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his relatives to eat bread. They ate bread, and stayed all night in the mountain.
- Genesis 32:14 κοιμάω two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
- Genesis 32:22 κοιμάω He rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford of the Jabbok.
- Genesis 34:2 κοιμάω Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and humbled her.
- Genesis 34:7 κοιμάω The sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it. The men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had done folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.
- Genesis 35:22 κοιμάω It happened, while Israel lived in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.
- Genesis 39:7 κοιμάω It happened after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph; and she said, "Lie with me."
- Genesis 39:12 κοιμάω She caught him by his garment, saying, "Lie with me!" He left his garment in her hand, and ran outside.
- Genesis 39:14 κοιμάω that she called to the men of her house, and spoke to them, saying, "Behold, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice.
- Genesis 39:17 κοιμάω She spoke to him according to these words, saying, "The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought to us, came in to me to mock me,
- Genesis 41:21 κοιμάω and when they had eaten them up, it couldn't be known that they had eaten them, but they were still ill-favored, as at the beginning. So I awoke.
- Genesis 47:30 κοιμάω but when I sleep with my fathers, you shall carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place." He said, "I will do as you have said."
- Genesis 49:9 κοιμάω Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, As a lioness. Who will rouse him up?
- Exodus 22:15 κοιμάω If the owner of it is with it, he shall not make it good. If it is a leased thing, it came for its lease.
- Exodus 22:18 κοιμάω "You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
- Exodus 22:26 κοιμάω If you take your neighbor's garment as collateral, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down,
- Exodus 23:18 κοιμάω "You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.
- Exodus 34:25 κοιμάω "You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left to the morning.
- Leviticus 14:47 κοιμάω He who lies down in the house shall wash his clothes; and he who eats in the house shall wash his clothes.
- Leviticus 15:4 κοιμάω "'Every bed whereon he who has the discharge lies shall be unclean; and everything he sits on shall be unclean.
- Leviticus 15:18 κοιμάω If a man lies with a woman and there is an emission of semen, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening.
- Leviticus 15:24 κοιμάω "'If any man lies with her, and her monthly flow is on him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed whereon he lies shall be unclean.
- Leviticus 15:26 κοιμάω Every bed whereon she lies all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her period: and everything whereon she sits shall be unclean, as the uncleanness of her period.
- Leviticus 15:33 κοιμάω and of her who has her period, and of a man or woman who has a discharge, and of him who lies with her who is unclean.
- Leviticus 18:22 κοιμάω "'You shall not lie with a man, as with a woman. That is detestible.
- Leviticus 19:13 κοιμάω "'You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
- Leviticus 19:20 κοιμάω "'If a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave girl, pledged to be married to another man, and not ransomed, or given her freedom; they shall be punished. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free.
- Leviticus 20:11 κοιμάω The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
- Leviticus 20:12 κοιμάω "'If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have committed a perversion; their blood shall be upon them.
- Leviticus 20:13 κοιμάω If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
- Leviticus 20:18 κοιμάω "'If a man lies with a woman having her monthly period, and uncovers her nakedness; he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
- Leviticus 20:20 κοιμάω If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.
- Leviticus 26:6 κοιμάω "'I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid; and I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
- Numbers 5:13 κοιμάω and a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and is kept close, and she is defiled, and there is no witness against her, and she isn't taken in the act;
- Numbers 5:19 κοιμάω The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman, 'If no man has lain with you, and if you haven't gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse.
- Numbers 23:24 κοιμάω Behold, the people rises up as a lioness, As a lion does he lift himself up: He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, Drink the blood of the slain.
- Deuteronomy 16:4 κοιμάω There shall be no yeast seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh, which you sacrifice the first day at even, remain all night until the morning.
- Deuteronomy 22:22 κοιμάω If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman: so shall you put away the evil from Israel.
- Deuteronomy 22:23 κοιμάω If there be a young lady who is a virgin pledged to be married to a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
- Deuteronomy 22:25 κοιμάω But if the man find the lady who is pledged to be married in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her; then the man only who lay with her shall die:
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2837) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.
