It Avas in one of those chamber-tombs that our Lord Avas laid (Mt 27''^ Mk 15-»8, Lk 23^3) ; and dis- used tombs of this kind Avere used as places of abode by the outcast and the homeless (Mk 5-). To prevent desecration by Avild beasts, the tombs
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were often cut in almost inaccessible places ; and ancient tombs in the Kidron Valley and in the face of Mount Quarantania are used even now as cells by anchorites, Avho may be seen climbing by ladders to and froni their abodes. This form of sepulture in chambers was used also by the tribes of the desert. Doughty found such tombs at Medain Salih.
' The mural locuU in the low hewn walls of these rudely four- square rooms are made as shallow shelves, in length as they might have been measured to the human body, from the child to the grown person. ... In the rock floors are seen grave- pits, sunken side by side, full of men's bones, and bones are strewed upon the sanded floors. ... In another of these monu- ments I saw the sand floor full of rotten clouts, shivering in every wind, and taking them up, I found them to be those dry bones' grave-clothes' (.4 ra&ia Deserta, i. 108).
In the time of Christ the protection of the tombs was comparatively easily secured. The door of the sepulchre was made intentionally small, and was closed by a great stone, sometimes circular, that ran in grooves in the rock. Ceremonial de- filement was guarded against by whitewashing the stone at the door of the sepulchre every spring (Mt 2.3^^). In Lebanon the present writer saw a tomb which had been excavated in the rock-face from a point below the normal level of the soil. After a body had been interred, the stone was replaced in the entrance, the earth was tossed back against the door, and all trace of the tomb was obliterated. This special precaution may have been peculiar to a district where wild animals were common. A tomb was never opened save for a fresh interment. It is this that gives point to St. Paul's saying (Ro 3", cf. Ps 5») : ' Their throat is an open sepulchre ' (rd^os), i.e. at every opening of their mouth they bury, by slander and detrac- tion, some one's fair fame. On the Holy Sepulchre see Golgotha.
Literature. — Artt. ' Burial ' and ' Sepulchre ' in Hastings' DB, ' Tombs ' in Encyc. Bibl., ' Begriibnis bei den Hebraern ' in PRE 3, ' Beerdigung ' in Hamburger's HE ; Nowack, Ileb. Arch. i. 8f., 187 ff. ; Benzinger, Heb. Arch. 163 ff., 224 ff. ; Bliss, Excavations at Jerusalem ; PEFSt, passim. ; ZDP V, passim ; Tobler, Topogr. ii. 227 ff. ; Sepp, Jerus. und das heilige Land, ii. 273 ff. ; Revue Biblique, passim.
R. Bruce Taylor. TONGUE (y\w<T(ra).—i. The organ of speech (Mk -jss. 35)_ j^;g po-\ver for good or evil is indicated in Scripture by the figures of a sword (Ps 57* 64^), a serpent (140=*), an arrow (Jer 98), fire (Is 30^, Ja 3«), a beast of prey (Ja 3^). It is referred to as a per- sonality with independent will and the power of devising and executing plans (Ps 50^** 52^, Pr 18^'). It walks (Ps 73"), it rises in rebellion (Is 54"), it has ethical and emotional qualities (Ps 120^- * 126^), it performs acts of worship (Is 45^^ Ro 14", Ph 2").
2. Language (Mk 16", Ac 2*). — In this sense it forms a counterpart to deed and actuality (Mt 7^\ 1 Jn y«). In RV of Ac 1'9 2^ 21* 22^ 26" 'lan- guage' is substituted for AV 'tongue' as tr. of oid\€KTos, local and provincial speech. Language formed one of the first antipathies that the preach- ing of the Kingdom encountered, and one of its earliest triumphs was in the discovery and de- claration that in the new citizenship there was neither Greek nor barbari.an (Ro 1", Col 3").
3. Index of vationalifi/, Rev 5^ 14", being thus equivalent to ' race,' ' people,' ' humanity.'
In keeping with the important influence attached to language, Christ charged His disciples to avoid unloving, untruthful, and irreverent speech (Mt 522. 33-37) jjg trusted the defence of Himself and His teaching to the power of right words (Lk 12''- '-), and the future extension of His Kingdom to the proclamation of a definite message (Mt 1027 2819). G. M. Mackie.
TOOTH ((55o.'.s).— 1. Li legal compensation.— T\\q tooth was the least important of the particulars
enumerated as exemplifying the exaction of like for like (Ex 2\-\ Lv 24^0, Dt I921). Under primitive conditions of social life, this law acted mercifully in repressing wanton disregard of life and limb in the relationship of master and slave, and of the strong towards the weak generaUy. It also in- culcated respect for the body by the compensation awarded when any mutilation had been inflicted or disability incurred. Although the item of loss was in itself insignificant, the claim connected with it lay within the area and application of a great principle, which by its recognized standard of liability protected both parties, and prevented private abuse. It thus in due time formed jaart of the boundary line of an outgrown ideal, the tran- scending of which led at once and definitely into the Kingdom of the Beatitudes (Mt o^^- ^'^).