Bible Dictionary
DEAD
The dead are those whose physical life has ended, whether an individual corpse or the departed collectively. Scripture also uses “dead” figuratively for people spiritually separated from God, while believers may be described as dead to sin or the law.
Definition
The dead are those whose physical life has ended, whether an individual corpse or the departed collectively. “Dead” may also describe liability to death, profound sleep, loss of vigor, or spiritual separation from God.
Biblical Usage
Scripture speaks of burying the dead, rising from the dead, and the dead in contrast with the living. Figuratively, people can be dead in trespasses, dead to the law, or possess a dead faith that lacks practical works.
Historical Background
A dead body caused ceremonial defilement, so burial took place quickly. The word could also describe senile weakness or a deep sleep resembling death.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>ded (muth; nekros): Used in several senses:</p><p>(1) as a substantive, denoting the body deprived of life, as when Abraham speaks of burying his dead (Ge 23);</p><p>(2) as a collective noun including all those that have passed away from life (as Re 20:12). In several passages dead in this sense is used in contrast to the quick or living (as Nu 16:48). This collective mode of expression is used when resurrection is described as "rising from the dead";</p><p>(3) as an adjective, coupled with body, carcass or man, as De 14:8 the King James Version;</p><p>(4) most frequently it is used as a complement of the verb "to be," referring to the condition of being deceased or the period of death, e. g. 2Sa 12:19; Mr 5:35;</p><p>(5) in the sense of being liable to death it occurs in Ge 20:3; Ex 12:33; 2Sa 16:9;</p><p>(6) as an intensive adjective it is used in the phrase "dead sleep," to mean profound sleep simulating death (Ps 76:6);</p><p>(7) figuratively "dead" is used to express the spiritual condition of those who are unable to attain to the life of faith. They are dead in trespasses, as in Eph 2:1, or conversely, those who by the New Birth are delivered from sin, are said to be dead to the Law (as Col 2:20, etc.). A faith which does not show its life in the practical virtues of Christianity is called dead (Jas 2:17);</p><p>(8) in Ro 4:19; Heb 11:12, "dead" signifies the senile condition of loss of vigor and virility.</p><p>The passage in Job 26:5, wherein in the King James Version "dead things" seem to mean things that never had life, is more accurately translated in the Revised Version (British and American) as "they that are deceased," i.e. the shades of the dead.</p><p>There are few references to the physical accompaniments of the act of dying. Deborah has a poetical account of the death of Sisera (Jud 5:24 ff), and in Ec 12, where the failure of the bodily faculties in old age culminates in death, it is pictorially compared to the breaking of a lamp extinguishing the flame ("golden" being probably used of "oil," as it is in Zec 4:12), and the loosing of the silver chebhel or chain by which the lamp is suspended in the tent of the Arabic.</p><p>The dead body defiled those who touched it (Le 11:31) and therefore sepulture took place speedily, as in the case of Lazarus (Joh 11:17-39) and Ananias and Sapphira (Ac 5:6-10). This practice is still followed by the fellahin.</p><p>The uselessness of the dead is the subject of proverb (Ec 9:4) and the phrase "dead dog" is used as a contemptuous epithet as of a person utterly worthless (1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 9:8; 16:9).</p><p>Alex. Macalister</p>