Matthew 9:24

He said unto them, Give place Mark, whose narrative is more particular, says, When he was come in, namely, into the house, he said unto them, Why make ye this ado and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. As the company at the ruler's house, when Jesus entered it, were employed in making such lamentation for the damsel as they used to make for the dead, it is evident that they all believed she was actually and finally departed: and when Jesus told them she was not dead, he did not mean that her soul was not separated from her body, but that it was not to continue in a state of separation from it; which was the idea the mourners affixed to the word death. His words, it must be observed, were spoken to those who were preparing for her interment, and performing the funeral rites belonging to it, and therefore only intimate that she was not so dead that they needed to make these preparations. He therefore expresses her state by saying that she slept, using the word in a sense somewhat analogous to that which the Jews put upon it when, in speaking of a person's death, they call it sleep, to intimate their belief in his existence and happiness in the other world, together with their hope of his future resurrection to a new life. On this occasion, the phrase was made use of with singular propriety to insinuate that, notwithstanding the maid was really dead, she should not long continue so. Jesus was going to raise her from the dead, and would do it with as much ease as they awaked one that was asleep. And they laughed him to scorn Luke adds, knowing that she was dead; for they had seen all the marks and proofs of death about her. And yet, if they had given themselves time to consider, they might have understood that he spake in this manner to intimate that he was going to raise her from the dead; and the rather, as he had been sent for by her parents to heal her miraculously. But his words were ambiguous, and the mourners naturally took them in the wrong sense. Thus, while Jesus predicted the miracle, to show that it did not happen by accident, he, at the same time, delivered himself in such terms as modestly to avoid the reputation that might have accrued to him from so stupendous a work.