A touching illustration of the father looking forward to a meetin" in another world with a departed child is David's ' I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me ' (2 S 1'2^). But while Sheol is thus ' the house of assemblage for all living,' it was in the sepulchre of his fathers, in the ancestral bur3'ing-place and with his departed kindred, that the ancient Israelite desired to be buried. And there can be no doubt that the wish to be reunited with parents and children in Sheol had to do with the desire to be buried in the famUy sepulchre. The object of buiial, not merelj' in a grave but in the family grave, was to iulroduce the departed into the society of his kinsfolk and ancestors. In the earliest times this society was supposed to exist either in the family grave or in its immediate neighbourhood. t ' Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt,' said the dying Jacob to Joseph, ' but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying-pl.ace ' (Gn 49-"- ^0, cf. Joseph's burial, Jos 24^-). And nothing could be more pathetic in this reference than the request of Barzillai, who declined king David's invitation to live with him at court, and said, 'Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, by the
frave of my father and my mother ' (2 S 19" RV). t was a duty of piety to see the bones of the dead placed in the family sepulchre, as David did for the bones of Saul and his sons (2 S 21'^'") ; and it was the proper punishment of disobedience to the command of Jehovah that a man's carcass should not come into the sepulchre of bis fathers (1 K IS'''). To be deprived of burial was the last indic;nity and the greatest of calamities ; the spirits of tlie unburied dead were believed to wander restlessly abroad, or to lie in recesses of the pit, ii they were admitted into Sheol at all (Ezk 32^"-, Is 14'°). For this reason the possibility of death at sea was regarded with horror. So, too, no vengeance upon enemies could be more cruel than to throw their bodies to the dogs, or to allow them to rot upon the battlelield, or to be left as a prey to the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the held (Ezk 39*, 2 K 9^«). Of Jason, who ' slaughtered hia own citizens without mercy,' it is said (2 Mac 5'°), ' he that had cast out a multitude unburied had none to mourn for him, nor had he any funeral at all, or place in the sepulchre of his fathers.' But the humane prescription of the law of Moses was that the criminal hant;ed upon the gaUows should be buried, and buried at all hazards, on tlie day of execution (Dt 21'-^) ; and in the case of the enemies of Israel captured and hung we find the law precisely carried out (Jos 8^ 10°"). The treat-
• Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 199 [1901 cd. p. 161). t R. ll.Ch^T\ea,Eschatology : Hebrew, Jeunsh, and Christian p. 31 ff.
SEPULCHRE
SEPULCHRE
455
nent of the body of Jesus (Jn 19"), and the burial of John the Baptist (Mt 14'-), and of Stejilien (Ac 8*), by their friends are later illiistr.itions. Even Bnicides received tlie ordinary rites of burial, as is seen in the case of Ahithopliel (2 S IT'^). It was the dtity of anj' one who found a corpse in tlie open field to "ive it burial (To 1"* 2», cf. 1 S •21"') ; and it is creditable to Jewisli feeling that tlie bodies of the (ientile dead were allowed to rest in the Jewish burying-place side by side with Je%vish remains.*
Into the family grave only members of the family were admitted. In the Naliat;v:in sepul- chral inscriptions t a curse is pronounced upon the man who defiles or sells a grave, or who buries in it any who are not members of the family. And the tamous inscri|)tion on the tomb of Eshmun- azar, king of Sidon, pronounces doom upon any who may disturb his repose, or open or carry oil' his coHin for the .sake of treasure, — niav they have no rest among the departed, maj' they be buried in no grave, and may they liave no prosperity in their city ! t The family grave was holy ground and a permanent possession. The family might lose their estate, out never the ancestral tomb ; for in .selling land no Jew could dispose of the buryingjilace, to the use of which his descendants were entitled to all tirae.§
WTien the Jewi.sh people came to be dispersed amon^ the natiuns it was an object of solicitiido and anibilion to be l)uried in the sacre<l soil of Canaan. ' Wlioever,' says the Talmud, 'ia buried in Palestine is as if he were buried under the altar.' And a'.;ain : ' Whoever is interred in Babylonia is as well off as if he lay in Palestine, and whoever is buried in Palestine lies the same as under the altar.' H About the :jrd cetit. it became ' a pious custom to be buried in Jud;na's holy earth, to which was attribute an exjiiatory power. The resurrection was con- lidcntly expected to take place in that country, which it was also believed would be the scene of the coming of the Messiah. Those who had dic<l in unhallowed countries would roll about in the light loose earth until they reached the Holy I.and, where they could be revivified. Id place of living inhabit^ints who were continually decreasing, Judaea was becoming every day more thickly jiopulated with cori>ses. The Holy Ijand, which had formerly been an immense temple, inspiring great deeds and noble thoughts, was now a holy grave which could render noUiing holy but death.' ^