Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: May 17
Today is: Friday, April 19th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)
Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of May: (Show All Months)
Jer_16:4-7
The horror of the dead remaining unburied, is here and elsewhere strongly produced by Jeremiah. This must have been the more abhorrent to the Jews, as the law of Moses trained them into the habit of seeing that all who died should in due time be buried, by attaching a social and religious disqualification of ceremonial “uncleanness” to the merest contact with a corpse; so that the greatest malefactors were not refused the rights of sepulture; and we learn from Eze_39:15, that great pains were taken by this people to inter all the bodies of the slain, on both sides, after any battle. It was held, indeed, that the sacred land was defiled by the bodies of the slain remaining exposed upon its surface. This horror and ignominy of remaining unburied was not confined to the Jews; we meet with it continually in classical antiquity, and it seems to be founded on the notion that the ghosts of those whose bodies had not obtained the honors of sepulture, were doomed to wander for a hundred years upon the dark river of death (Styx), before being allowed to pass to the regions beyond. Note: Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est:
Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc litora circum:
Tum demum admissi stagna exoptata revisunt—Æneid, vi. 325.
Of cutting the flesh as an act of grief, and also as an act of frantic excitement, we have already spoken. Note: Morning Series: Seventeenth Week—Saturday; and Forty-Sixth Week—Friday. It only remains to remark, that traces of this custom may be found in all parts of the world, so that it would seem to be founded on a natural rather than a conventional sentiment; although it is difficult to define its exact nature, and our present duty does not require us to attempt its analysis. To inflict injury upon oneself would seem rather an act of compunction than of mere grief; and there may be something of this in it even as an act of mourning; for almost always with the natural grief for the loss of one, known and loved enough to be lamented with deep emotion, some feelings of contrition must ever mangle, as avenging memory brings back the ungenerous thought, the churlish word, the misinterpreted or unrequited kindness, which must cast their cloud over the brightest recollections of the loved and lost.
The “making themselves bald,” by cutting or shaving the hair of the head is often mentioned in Scripture; and we have made some slight allusion to it in noticing Job’s expressions of grief. Note: Evening Series: Third Week—Monday. This, as an act of grief, has disappeared in a great measure from Western Asia. That it was forbidden to his followers by Mohammed is one reason; but a better is, that the men have no hair upon their heads that they can demolish, it being the universal custom to shave the hair of the head. The women, however, who continue to wear their hair long, do not, indeed, shave their heads, but often tear out their hair by handfuls on such occasions. Among the Greeks, who anciently, as now, wore their hair, the custom of tearing, cutting off, or shaving the hair, was at least as common as among the Jews. With them, the hair thus separated from the head was sometimes laid upon the corpse as a tribute of affection and regret; sometimes it was cast upon the funeral pile to be consumed with the remains of the deceased; and on other occasions it was laid upon the grave. In times of great public mourning this ceremony was extended even to the beasts; and on the deaths of men of high note, it was not unusual for whole cities to be shaven. These and other ideas and sentiments connected with the hair, owe their significance not only to the fact, that this is a graceful ornament to the body, the neglect or demolition of which, therefore, implies that disregard of ornament which properly belongs to grief, but that the hair is a living part of the body—part of a man’s self, which yet may be separated without pain—and which has this peculiar quality, that it is not, like other parts of the body, subjected in the lapse of time to change or decay. It is this latter circumstance which causes the hair to be so much employed as a memorial of affection.
All is plain enough so far; but what shall we understand by the circumstance that “the cup of consolation” shall not be given even to one who has lost his father or his mother? clearly showing that it was given to mourners under ordinary circumstances. It appears from Joh_11:19, that when tidings of a death went abroad, the friends of the family hastened to comfort and condole with the mourning relatives of the deceased. It is understood that on such occasions they offered them meat, and pressed them to drink, presuming that they were too much absorbed in grief to care of themselves for these things; and as usage indeed exacted, that during the three first days after the death, which were called the “days of weeping,” the mourners should have no food prepared in their own house, nor eat anything of their own. It is alleged that during this period the friends presented the mourners with the choicest dainties and the finest wines, on the ground that they needed better than usual sustenance in their trouble, Note: Buxtorf, Synag. Jud. ch. 35. and this has been supposed to be alluded to and sanctioned by Pro_31:6; but this clearly does not refer to anything of the sort. The practice was, however, indicated in the apocryphal book of Tobit, Note: Tob_4:17. where the somewhat self-righteous personage of that name is represented as enjoining his son Tobias, “Pour out thy bread in the burial of the just, but give nothing to the wicked.” At the present day, among the Jews, friends do not act thus until after the funeral, which usually takes place much sooner than with us. It is then that the mourners first break the fast they are understood to have observed since the death took place. The relations all sit down upon the floor on their return from the funeral, and a chair is placed before them with a simple refection of eggs boiled hard, a little salt, and a small loaf, of which they all take a small portion. It is quite as probable that the text refers to some custom like this as to the other. But it is more usually supposed, that the succeeding clause rather relates to the entertainment following the funeral, whatever may have been its precise nature in ancient times. Indeed, the connection with what precedes seems to require some such interpretation: “Thou shalt not go to the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and drink.” The term, “house of feasting,” seems incongruous, but it simply means the house in which any kind of feast is held: and, in this case it is difficult to understand who the persons designated are, as those with whom he is not to eat and drink, unless the mourners and friends of the deceased to whom the antecedent passages bear reference. The fact of such a funeral feast seems to be well established on the authority of the old Rabbinical writers; but it is not agreed at what time it took place. It could not be till the close of the three days of weeping, and probably immediately followed, as an introduction on the part of the mourners to their customary habits of life. The entertainment was given by the chief mourner at his own house, if different from that in which the deceased dwelt; and to it were invited the friends of the deceased, and those kind neighbors who had supplied the family with food during the three days. These funeral feasts were conducted with all proper decorum, and care was taken to preclude indecent excess, as a decree of the Sanhedrim limited the quantity of wine to be drunk on such occasions.
We need not wonder at the existence of such funeral banquets among the Jews, for they were celebrated among all ancient nations, and have been preserved in some quarters to the present time. We shall not refer to the often cited examples of this kind among the Greeks and Romans, but will rather note a few particulars which show that this custom of funeral banquets existed in this country, and is not yet wholly extinct. The instances are derived from Brand’s Popular Antiquities, in which a large collection of like facts may be found under the head of “Funeral Entertainments.”
Moresin tells us, that in his time these funeral feasts were so profuse in England, that it cost less to portion off a daughter than to bury a dead wife. These funeral entertainments are still kept up in the north of England, where they are called arvals or arvils, whence the bread distributed on these occasions is called “arvil-bread.” Tracing this custom to the ancients, and remarking that such entertainments seem to have been designed to appease the ghosts of the dead, Brand adds, “The modern arvals, however, are intended to appease the appetites of the living, who have, upon these occasions, superseded the names of the dead.” An allusion to these feasts occurs in Hamlet—
&mdash—“The funeral baked meats,
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”
Among the extracts from the Berkeley MSS., read before the Society of Antiquaries, was this: “From the time of the death of Maurice, the fourth Lord Berkeley, which happened June 8, 1368, untill his interment, the reeve of his mannor of Hinton, spent three quarters and seaven bushells of beanes in fatting one hundred geese towards his funerall, and divers other reeves of other manors the like, in geese, duckes, and other pultry.”
In Dudley Lord North’s Forest of Varieties, published in 1645, is the following: “Nor are all banquets (no more than music) ordained for merry humors, some being used even at funerals.” It would seem, however, by comparing the dates of Brand’s citations, that the custom must have declined during the Commonwealth, for Richard Flecknoe, writing in 1665, speaks of funeral feasts as “quite left off,” a phrase which, in itself, seems to express the recency of their discontinuance. In parts of Scotland, however, in Ireland, and in the Isle of Man, such feasts have been kept up to a much later date.
In the minute-book of the Society of Antiquaries, July 21, 1725, the following entry occurs: “Mr. Anderson gave the society an account of a Highland chief’s funeral. The body is first put into a litter between two horses, and, attended by the whole clan, is brought to the place of burial in the churchyard. The nearest relations dig the grave, the neighbors having set out the ground so that it may not encroach upon the graves of others. While this is performing, some hired women, for that purpose, lament the dead, setting forth his genealogy and noble exploits. After the body is interred, a hundred black cattle and two hundred sheep are killed for the entertainment of the company.”
Through the Statistical Account of Scotland, there are dispersed various notices of the retention of funeral feasting in different localities of that country, especially among the poor, who, in all countries, are the most tenacious retainers of old customs. We have room for only two. Under the parish of Lochbroom, county of Ross, we read: “At their burials and marriages the inhabitants too much adhere to the folly of their ancestors. On these occasions they have a custom of feasting a great number of their friends and neighbors, and this often at an expense which proves greatly to the prejudice of orphans and young people; although these feasts are seldom productive of any quarrels or irregularities among them.” This is more than can be said for the Irish “Wakes.” Under the parish of Carmunnock, county of Lanark, the minister states: “We must mention a custom which still prevails, and which certainly ought to be abolished. It is usual in this parish, as in many other parts of Scotland, when a death has taken place, to invite on such occasions the greater part of the country round; and though called to attend at an early hour in the forenoon, yet it is generally towards evening before they think of carrying forth the corpse for interment. While, on these occasions, the good folks are assembled, though they never run into excess, yet no small expense is incurred by the family, who often vie with those around them in giving, as they call it, an honorable burial to their deceased friend. Such a custom is attended with many evils, and frequently involves in debt, or reduces to poverty, many families otherwise frugal and industrious, by this piece of useless parade and ill-judged expense.”