Burial and Sepulchers
Burial and Sepulchers
Sepulchers
Throughout the whole of their national history the Israelites observed the practice of burial. Among them, it was deemed not only an act of humanity, but a sacred duty of religion to pay the last honors to the departed; while, to be deprived of these, as was frequently the fate of enemies at the hands of ruthless conquerors (2Sa 21:9-14; 2Ki 9:28; 2Ki 9:34; Psa 79:2; Ecc 6:3), was considered the greatest calamity and disgrace which a person could suffer.
On the death of any member of a family, preparations were forthwith made for the burial, which among the Jews, were in many respects similar to those which are common in the East at the present day, and were more or less expensive according to circumstances. After the solemn ceremony of the last kiss and closing the eyes, the corpse, which was perfumed by the nearest relative, having been laid out and the head covered with a napkin, was subjected to entire ablution in warm water (Act 9:37), a precaution probably adopted to guard against premature interment. But, besides this first and indispensable attention, other cares of a more elaborate and costly description were amongst certain classes bestowed on the remains of deceased friends, and all of which may be included under the general head of embalming. Nowhere was this operation performed with such religious care and in so scientific a manner as in ancient Egypt, which could boast of a class of professional men trained to the business; and such adepts had these ‘physicians’ become in the art of preserving dead bodies, that there are mummies still found, which must have existed for many thousand years. The bodies of Jacob and Joseph underwent this eminently Egyptian preparation for burial, which on both occasions was doubtless executed in a style of the greatest magnificence (Gen 50:2; Gen 50:26). Whether this expensive method of embalming was imitated by the earlier Hebrews, we have no distinct accounts; but we learn from their practice in later ages that they had some observance of the kind, only they substituted a simpler and more expeditious though it must have been a less efficient process, which consisted in merely swathing the corpse round with numerous folds of linen, and sometimes a variety of stuffs, and anointing it with a mixture of aromatic substances, of which aloes and myrrh were the chief ingredients (Joh 19:39-40).
Fig. 102Ancient Jewish Funeral: Costume, Modern Syrian
The corpse, after receiving the preliminary attentions, was enveloped in the grave-clothes, which were sometimes nothing more than the ordinary dress, or folds of linen cloth wrapped round the body, and a napkin about the head; though in other cases a shroud was used. The body thus dressed was deposited in an upper chamber in solemn state, open to the view of all visitors (Act 9:37). From the moment the viral spark was extinguished, the members of the family, especially the females, in the violent style of Oriental grief, burst out into shrill, loud, and doleful lamentations, and were soon joined by their friends and neighbors, who, on hearing of the event, crowded to the house in great numbers (Mar 5:38). By the better classes, this duty of sympathizing with the bereaved family was, and still is, performed by a class of females who engaged themselves as professional mourners, and who, seated amid the mourning circle, studied, by vehement sobs and gesticulations, and by singing dirges in which they eulogized the personal qualities or virtuous and benevolent actions of the deceased (Act 9:39), to stir the source of tears, and give fresh impulse to the grief of the afflicted relatives. Numbers of these singing men and women lamented the death of Josiah (2Ch 35:25). The period between the death and the burial was much shorter than custom sanctions in our country; for a long delay in the removal of a corpse would have been attended with much inconvenience, from the heat of the climate generally, and, among the Jews in particular, from the circumstance that every one that came near the chamber was unclean for a week. Interment, therefore, where there was no embalming, was never postponed beyond twenty-four hours after death, and generally it took place much earlier. There are two instances in sacred history where consignment to the grave followed immediately after decease (Act 5:6; Act 5:10).
Fig. 103Grave-clothes
Persons of distinction were deposited in coffins.
But the most common mode of carrying a corpse to the grave was on a bier or bed (2Sa 3:31), which in some cases must have been furnished in a costly and elegant style. The bier, however, in use among the common and meaner sort of people was nothing but a plain wooden board, on which, supported by two poles, the body lay concealed only by a slight coverlet from the view of the attendants. On such a humble vehicle was the widow’s son of Nain carried (Luk 7:14), and ‘this mode of performing funeral obsequies,’ says an intelligent traveler, ‘obtains equally in the present day among the Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians of the East.’ The nearest relatives kept close by the bier, and performed the office of bearers, in which, however, they were assisted by the company in succession. In cases where the expense could be afforded, hired mourners accompanied the procession, and, by every now and then lifting the covering and exposing the corpse, gave the signal to the company to renew their shouts of lamentation.
Fig. 104Ancient Sarcophagi in Palestine
Sepulchers were, as they still are in the Eastby a prudential arrangement sadly neglected in our countrysituated without the precincts of cities. Among the Jews, in the case of Levitical cities, the distance required to be 2000 cubits, and in all it was considerable. Nobody was allowed to be buried within the walls, Jerusalem forming the only exception, and even there the privilege was reserved for the royal family of David and a few persons of exalted character (1Ki 2:10; 2Ki 14:20). In the vicinity of this capital were public cemeteries for the general accommodation of the inhabitants, besides a field appropriated to the burial of strangers.
Fig. 105Sepulchral Cupola
The style of the public cemeteries around the cities of ancient Palestine in all probability resembled that of the present burying-places of the East, of which Dr. Shaw gives the following description’They occupy a large space, a great extent of ground being allotted for the purpose. Each family has a portion of it walled in like a garden, where the bones of its ancestors have remained undisturbed for many generations. For in these enclosures the graves are all distinct and separate; each of them having a stone placed upright, both at the head and feet, inscribed with the name or title of the deceased; while the intermediate space is either planted with flowers, bordered round with stone, or paved with tiles.’
Fig. 106Interior of Tomb of the Kings
There were other sepulchers which were private property, erected at the expense and for the use of several families in a neighborhood, or provided by individuals as a separate burying-place for themselves. These were situated either in some conspicuous place, as Rachel’s on the highway to Bethlehem (Gen 35:19), or in some lonely and sequestered spot, under a wide-spreading tree (Gen 35:8) in a field or a garden. In common cases, sepulchers were formed by digging a small depth into the ground. Over these, which were considered an humble kind of tomb, the wealthy and great often erected small stone buildings, in the form of a house or cupola, to serve as their family sepulcher. ‘This custom,’ says Carne, ‘which is of great antiquity, and particularly prevails in the lonely parts of Lebanon, may serve to explain some passages of Scripture. The prophet Samuel was buried in his own house at Ramah, and Joab was buried in his house in the wilderness. These, it is evident, were not their dwelling-houses, but mansions for the dead, or family vaults which they had built within their own policies.’ Not infrequently, however, the richer classes purchased, like Abraham, some of the natural caverns with which Palestine abounded, and converted them by some suitable alterations into family sepulchers; while others with vast pains and expense made excavations in the solid rock (Mat 27:60). Many sepulchers of this description are still found in Palestine. Along the sides of those vast caverns niches were cut, or sometimes shelves ranged one above another, on which were deposited the bodies of the dead, while in others the ground-floor of the tomb was raised so as to make different compartments, the lowest place in the family vaults being reserved for the servants. These interior arrangements may be the better understood by the help of the annexed engravings. The figure below is the interior of the celebrated Tomb of the Kings (so called), near Jerusalem. In it are some further specimens of the stone sarcophagi already noticed.
Fig. 107Ground-plans of Sepulchers
The next figure (figure 107) contains two ground-plans showing the general character of the interior arrangements of the more extensive crypts. Some of those found near Tyre, and at Alexandria, are of the round form shown in #1, but these seem exceptions; for the tombs at Jerusalem, in Asia Minor, and generally in Egypt and the East, offer the arrangement shown in #2.
The mouth of the sepulcher was secured by a huge stone (Mat 27:60; Joh 11:38). But the entrance-porch, to which the removal of this rude door gave admittance, was so large that several persons could stand in it and view the interior; and hence we read that the women who visited the sepulcher of our Lord, ‘entering in saw a young man sitting, clothed in a long white garment’ (Mar 16:5); and in like manner, in reference to the flight of steps, that Peter ‘stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying’ (Joh 20:5). Some of the more splendid of these tombs, however, instead of the block of stone, have the porches surmounted with tasteful mason-work, and supported by well-finished colonnades; and as they stand open and exposed, do now, as they did formerly, afford retreats to numbers of vagrants and lawless characters. The rocky valleys around Jerusalem exhibit numberless specimens of these sepulchral excavations. Monuments of this elegant description were erected to many of the prophets and other holy men who figured as prominent characters in the early history of Israel, and it seems to have been considered, in the degenerate age of our Lord, an act of great piety to repair and ornament with fresh devices the sepulchers of those ancient worthies (Mat 23:29). All the tombs, however, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem were at certain seasons whitewashed (Mat 23:27). The origin of this prevailing custom is to be traced to a desire of making the sepulchers easily discernible, and so preventing the risk of contracting ceremonial defilement through accident or ignorance. To paint them with white was obviously the best preservative against the apprehended danger; and the season chosen for this garniture of the sepulchers was on the return of spring, a little before the Passover, when, the winter rains being over, a long unbroken tract of dry weather usually ensued. The words of Christ referred to were spoken but a few days before the Passover, when the fresh coating of white paint would be conspicuous on all the adjoining hills and valleys; and when we consider the striking contrast that must have been presented between the graceful architecture and carefully dressed appearance of these tombs without, and the disgusting relics of mortality that were moldering within, we cannot fail to perceive the emphatic energy of the language in which our Lord rebuked the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
Fig. 108Exterior of Sepulcher, Jerusalem
It remains only to notice that, during the first few weeks after a burial, members of a family, especially the females, paid frequent visits to the tomb (Joh 11:31). This affecting custom still continues in the East.