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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - John 11:31 - 11:31
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She goeth unto the grave to weep there - It appears that it was the custom for the nearest relatives of the deceased to go at times, during the three days of weeping, accompanied by their friends and neighbors, to mourn near the graves of the deceased. They supposed that the spirit hovered about the place where the body was laid for three days, to see whether it might be again permitted to enter, but, when it saw the face change, it knew that all hope was now past. It was on this ground that the seven days of lamentation succeeded the three days of weeping, because all hope was now taken away. They had traditions that, in the course of three days, persons who had died were raised again to life. See Lightfoot.
Mr. Ward says: “I once saw some Mussulman women, near Calcutta, lying on the new-made grave of a relation, weeping bitterly. In this manner the Mussulman females weep and strew flowers over the graves of relations, at the expiration of four days, and forty days, after the interment.”