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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Mourning
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Noisy, violent, and demonstrative in the East as it is among the Irish, Highlanders, and Welsh; beating the breast or the thigh (), cutting the flesh (), weeping with a loud cry, wearing dark colored garments, hiring women as professional mourners (; ; ),"skillful in lamentation" (), singing elegies, having funeral feasts and the cup of consolation (-8). It was an occasion of studied publicity and ceremonial; so Abraham for Sarah (), Jacob for Joseph (-35), Joseph and the Egyptians for Jacob 70 days and a further period of seven (-10), Israel for Aaron 80 days (), and for Moses (). Jabesh Gileadites for Saul fasted seven days (); David for Abner with fasting, rent clothes, and sackcloth, and with an elegy (-89).
Job for his calamities, with rent mantle, shaven head, sitting in ashes; so the three friends with dust upon their heads, etc., seven days and nights (-21; ). In the open streets and upon the housetops (-3); stripping off ornaments (); stripping the foot and some other part of the body (). Penitent mourning was often expressed by fasting, so that the words are interchanged as synonymous (), and the day of atonement, when they "afflicted their souls," is called "the fast" (; ; Israel, ; Nineveh, ; the Jews when hereafter turning to Messiah, -11). Exclusion from share in the sacrificial peace offerings (), Covering the upper lip and the head, in token of silence: , the leper; , David. The high priest and Nazarites were not to go into mourning for even father or mother or children (-11; ).
So Aaron in the case of Nadab and Abihu (-6); Ezekiel for his wife (-18); "the bread of men" is that usually brought to mourners by friends in sympathy. The lower priests only for nearest relatives (-4). Antitypically, the gospel work is to take precedence of all ties (-60): "let me first go and bury my father" means, let me wait at home until he die and, I bury him. The food eaten in mourning was considered impure (; ). The Jews still wail weekly, each Friday, at Jerusalem, in a spot below the temple wall, where its two courses of masonry (with blocks 30 ft. long) meet. (See JERUSALEM.) On the open flagged place, which they sweep with care as holy ground, taking off their shoes, they bewail the desolation of their holy places (; -6; -19). Mourning shall cease forever to God's people when Christ shall return (; ; ; ).