Besides these c(uispiciious ohjec^ts, there are others less visible, but quite as remarkable. At Hebron there is the Jewish burying-ground covered with large slabs, and curious tombs cut in the rock, with loculi on all sides, whicii are probably patriarchal, or at least Jewish.
Around Jerusalein there are numerous tombs, many of ibem remarkable for their beauty, their size, their pe- culiar structure. See JiiiasAi^iiii. Almost all nl tliese are Jewish, and give us a good idea of ■• how the man- ner of the Jews was to bury." Whoever could uffurd it chose the i-ovk, not the earth, for the covering of his body, and preferred to have his body deposited on a clean rocky shelf, not let down into and covered over with the soil. Hence our ideas of burial are not the same as those of the Jews. Accortling to us. there is always the letting down into the earth; according to them, there is the taking possession of some stony cham- ber for tlie last sleep. Hence the expression '■^buried with him by baptism into death" would not to a He- brew suggest immersion, as it seems to do to ns, and to the early Christian the symbol of baptismal burial would be associated with the Lord's own tomb.
The first mention of a keber, or burying-place, in Scri|)ture is in (ien. xxiii, 4, where Abraham asks the sons of Heth for the "possession of a keber," receiving for answer. " In the choice of our kebers bury thy dead." After this there is frecpient mention of these sepulchres, and some of them are specially singled out for notice. Yet Machpelah was the most memorable; and we know not if ever a tomb was more touchingly and poetically described than by Jacob on his death-bed in Egypt, when, looking back on the land from which he was an exile, the latid of his fathers' sepulchres, he points as with his finger to the well-known patriarchal burying-place — "There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah" (tien. xlix, 31). We have also Kibroth-hataavah, the graves of lust, in the wilderness (Numb, xi, 34); the tomb of Joash in Ophrah, where Gideon was buried (Judg. viii, 32) ; the tomb of Manoah between Zorah and Eshtaol, where Samson was buried (xvi, 31) ; the tomb of Zeruiah (or her husband) in Bethlehem, where Asaliel was buried (2 Sam. ii, 32) ; the tomb of Abner in Hel)ron (iii, 32; iv, 12); the tomb in Gil')h of Ahithophel's father, wliere his suicide son was buried; the paternal and maternal tomb in Gilead, in which Barzillai sought burial (xix, 37) ; the tomb of Kish in Zelah, where the bones of Saul and Jonathan were deposited (xxi, 14); the tomb of the old prophet in Bethel (1 Kings xiii, 30); the tomb of Elisha, probably near Jericho (2 Kings xiii, 21); the tombs of " the children of the people," in the valley of the Kedron (xxiii, 6); the tombs in "the Mount," near Bethel (ver. 16); the tomb or tombs of David (Neh. iii, 16); the tombs of the kings (2 Chron. xxi, 20). The New-Test, references to "tombs" are chiefly in connection with the Lord's burial. His tomb is called sometimes ra(poQ (JIatt. xxvii, 61), sometimes fiviina (Luke xxiii, 53), and sometimes j.it'ijptioi' (John xix, 41).
At this day the tombs of Syria are either like our own, underground, as at Hebron, Tiberias, and the val- ley of .Jehoshaphat ; or in artificial excavations in the rock, as in the ridge south of Jertisalem (Acel- dama), the tombs of the prophets on Olivet, the tombs of the kings and judges north and north-west of the city; or entirely above ground, as the tomb of Rachel, of Absalom, of Samuel, and of Josejih,
All (in Jewish ages) who coukl bear the cost seem to have chosen the rocky excavation for se|>ulture, as in the case of Joseph of Arimatlnea. This is evident from such a passage as Isa. xxii, l(i, addressed to Shebna the treasurer, "What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, that graveth an habitation for himself in a rockV" It is supposed by Lowth, Scott, Alexander, etc., that Sheb- na was a foreigner, and that the questions vhat and whom refer to this, implying that he had no right to such an honor. It was, perhaps, peculiarly a national privilege, so that, as no Gentile could inherit the land, none could obtain such a place for a tomb as he could
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call his own. The question then would be, " Wliat con- nection hast thdu with Israel that tliou assumest, one of Israel's special ]>rivilej;esV" I'us.siljly, however, lie was only a person of low origin from a distant part oi' the country, and of ungodly principles, who vainly thought to establish for himself a name and a place in Jeru- salem.
The large tombs, such as those of the kings and judges, have no inscriptions; but the Hat stones in the valley of Jehoshaphat have their epitaphs, some of con- siderable lengtii in Hebrevv', with the title "(TiU at the top, that word meaning originally a cippus or pillar (2 Kings xxiii, 17; Ezek. xxxix, lo), and in Talmudical Hebrew denoting a sign or mark (Levi, Lhnjua Huvra, vol. V, s. V. ; Carpzov, Notes on Goodwin, p. 645). 'I'his last writer tells us that the use of such a mark was spe- cially to warn off passers-by lest they should contract uncleamiess by touching the grave. For this end, also, the tombs were whitewashed every year on the 15th of Adar {Lamy, A ppai'utus Biblicus, I, xiv). — Fairbairn. See Ski'ulchhic.