Death of a Hebrew: Ancient Israelite Burial Customs

 Death of A Hebrew:

Ancient Israelite Burial Customs

by Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                Ancient Israelite practices surrounding death were different from the Canaanites or Egyptians, who believed the dead lived on in another world, and different from modern Western funerals and wakes, which are quiet, somber affairs. They were probably most similar to the mourning rituals of the modern people of North Africa and the rural parts of the Middle East.

                When a person died (usually surrounded by family), everyone gathered began to wail—making a sound that Micah compared to the howling of jackals and the hooting of owls (Micah 1:8). This wailing would quickly spread outside the home and into the neighborhood. Incense was lit (sometimes in huge quantities that could be smelled outside the city walls), and the people would remove their shoes, tear their clothes, dress in coarse goat’s-hair garments, beat their breasts, and throw dust or ashes on their heads. Some would even cut themselves in grief, or shave off a portion of their beard or the tops of their heads (Jeremiah 48:37 and Micah 1:16), even though these practices were forbidden by the Torah (Leviticus 19:28 and Deuteronomy 14:1).

                Wealthy families would hire professional mourners—usually women—who would orchestrate the wailing and marching and help to raise the overall volume of the occasion. The “cup of consolation” might be passed among the family: a large cup of wine symbolizing the shared experience of grief. For about a week afterward the mourning would continue, and family and friends would fast (probably just during daylight hours) and neither wash nor anoint themselves with perfume or oil. This period of fasting was followed by a large funeral meal.

                Within a day or so of death, though (but not on a Sabbath or a holiday), the body was buried. To be left unburied was considered one of the worst possible fates, suitable only for the most notorious of criminals. (In the hot Palestinian climate, it would also have created a terrible stench and attracted all manner of vermin). The family would wash the body and wrap it in linen. (Egyptians, of course, embalmed their dead by removing the internal organs and storing them in canopic jars, filling the body with spices and paste, and wrapping it with bandages treated with preservatives). Sometimes they would place a cap on the deceased and wrap the jaw closed with a bandage around the head.

                A parade of mourners would follow the family members who bore the body on a stretcher from their home to the burial site. Very poor people were simply laid in a trench and then covered with dirt and stones—remains of many of these bodies have been found in the Kidron Valley east of Jerusalem.

                A group of burial caves or sepulchers has been found at Ketef Hinnom, west of Jerusalem. They apparently belonged to aristocrats of the seventh century B.C.E. The caves were cut from the limestone hills. Each had a low, round entrance that led into a larger room. Within this room were benches carved from the rock, each of which had been slightly hollowed out to accommodate the shape of a body.

                Along with the remains at Ketef Hinnom were found items that had been buried with their previous owners, the most significant of which were probably two plaques of silver beaten into a thin sheet and then rolled up. On the plaques had been carved the Priestly Benediction:

May Jehovah bless you and keep you;

May Jehovah make his face shine down upon you, and may he favor you;

May Jehovah lift up his face toward you, and assign peace to you.

                One of the remarkable things about these plaques is the evidence they provide that the divine name (written as the Hebrew letters YHWH) was in common use at the time.

                The mouth of the tomb was sealed with a large disc-shaped stone or a round boulder to keep out animals, and then the entrance was painted white so that travelers would not accidentally come too near it, thereby rendering themselves ceremonially unclean.

                After the bodies had been given time to decompose, the family entered the tomb and collected the bones and any personal items from the benches and placed them in jars called ossuaries. These were placed in hollows under the benches to make room for more bodies to come. Such tombs were used over and over for many years—the Ketef Hinnom sepulcher had remains from at least 95 different individuals. This may account for the common Hebrew expression for death: that a person had been “gathered to his forefathers.”

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

               

The Torah as Legislation

by Timothy S. Wilkinson
www.timothywilkinson.net

The Torah was essentially a legislative document outlining the governmental systems that Israelites were to live by; in fact, unlike most nations, the citizens subjected themselves to the laws voluntarily. Its precepts were not only very advanced for their time, but they formed the basis for all of western law since—including the Constitution of the United States.

The Ten Commandments (the “Ten Words” in the original Hebrew) were fairly standard laws shared by most cultures—with one key exception. The tenth commandment forbade covetousness. Not only was this difficult to enforce, but its violation could be known only by God and the violator.

Jehovah was the Supreme Sovereign, and human kings (who first appeared hundreds of years after the Law was instituted) were said to ‘sit on Jehovah’s throne,’ representing him. Below the king, the nation was organized into tribal elders, princes or chieftains and, under them, chiefs of thousands, hundreds and fifties. These were selected by the elders on the basis of their fear of God, their trustworthiness, and their incorruptibility. Respect for all of these government officials was mandatory, and disrespect was punishable, in extreme cases, by death.

All members of the nation were required to love Jehovah and worship Him alone, and to do so with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. ‘Taking up God’s name in a worthless way’ was a serious offense. Engaging in the worship rituals of other nations was also a crime: making or worshipping idols, cutting or tattooing the body, spiritism, or sorcery.The tribe of Levi was responsible to take the lead in worship. Since this took precedence over their secular work, they were supported through a tithe paid by the other twelve tribes. The Levites, in turn, gave a tenth of what they received to the Priests, made up of one family or clan in the tribe.

Priests served as teachers, lawyers and judges. Elders made up the lower courts; difficult cases were submitted to under-priests or to the Supreme Court made up of the High Priest and his sons. Two witnesses to a given crime were required in order to file charges. If the accused was found guilty, these witnesses were the first participants in executing punishments (which helped prevent false testimony).

Civil infractions were typically punished by fine. Criminal infractions could result in public beating (no more than 40 strokes), a corresponding retaliatory punishment (an “eye for an eye”), payment of damages, or death by stoning.

While Hebrew people were born into their position as members of the “congregation of Israel,” people of other nations could freely join by being circumcised and abiding by the terms of the Law. Such proselytes were limited, though, in their access to certain holy locations and participation in certain rituals.

The seventh day of the week was a Sabbath, reserved for worship; no “work” (the word carries the idea of “secular activities” in Hebrew) was to be done on that day. Any individual with so little appreciation for spiritual things that he rejected the opportunity to relax and worship with family and friends and (alone, while the rest of his people were engaged in worship), sacrificed an opportunity to serve God for the sake of making money was considered an idolater: he had placed profit ahead of his obligations to God. As an idolater, he was executed. If this punishment seems harsh, it is good to keep in mind that any Israelite who ignored the Sabbath did so deliberately against tremendous family, social, cultural, and religious pressure; he was, in effect, rejecting the basic moral, political, legal, and religious precepts of the nation to which he belonged.

All males were required to gather three times a year at the Tabernacle or Temple for religious holidays. It appears from ancient records that most men brought their families with them. The celebrations were the Passover (commemorating the nation’s freedom from Egypt), the Festival of Weeks (a harvest celebration), and the Festival of Booths (commemorating God’s protection and aid during the nation’s forty year sojourn in the wilderness). In time, other holidays were added.

Worshippers presented animal, drink, grain, and other offerings at the Tabernacle or Temple on a variety of occasions. Some of these were consumed in the fires of the altar, some cooked and then eaten by the officiate and the supplicant, and some waved in the air in symbol of their dedication to God.

Marriage was a sacred institution. Husbands had legal ownership of their wives. Polygamy was tolerated but regulated. If a man died without having children, his brother was expected to marry the widow and ‘raise up children for’ the dead man. Israelites could not marry foreign women, unless the women were captured during military activities. Husbands could divorce their wives for any sexual sin, unless he had seduced her before they were married. Adulterers were executed by stoning. Indecent assault was punished by amputation of the limb involved.

Israelites could loan money to their countrymen, but could not charge interest or take the borrower’s outer garment or their millstone overnight as collateral. The loaner could not enter the borrower’s home to collect the debt (or collateral); he had to wait for the borrower to bring it out to him. Every seven years all debts were forgiven and any land that had been sold was returned to its original owner.

Dietary laws listed “clean” and “unclean” foods. Eating blood or fat was strictly forbidden.

Ceremonial uncleanness required an individual to quarantine his or herself for a period of time, wash and/or sterilize him or herself and any items that might have been affected, and be inspected by a priest before being pronounced clean. In addition to symptoms of various diseases (like plague or leprosy), an individual could be pronounced “unclean” after childbirth, menstruation, sexual intercourse, seminal emissions, touching a corpse or grave, or going into battle.

Unlike any other Bronze Age cultures of the Middle East, Israelite Law established an effective welfare system to address the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. Landowners left some crops in their fields during harvest, which the poor (including widows and orphans) could collect—requiring them to work for their sustenance and granting them the dignity of doing so. Alien residents were granted the same legal protections as all other citizens.

Slavery was a major part of the culture, but in practice it had more in common with modern employment than the slavery of the 19th century. It was almost always a way for an individual to work off an otherwise unpayable debt. Masters could flog their slaves, but if the slave was maimed, he was freed; if he was killed, the master could be executed. All slaves were freed on the Jubilee, which came every seven years. When they were granted their freedom (whether by Jubilee, fulfillment of their contract, or any other reason), the Law required the master to present them with severance—the amount to be determined by the master’s financial standing.

There were no other cultures that provided protection for animals in the way the Torah did. When bulls were turning a mill wheel, they could not be muzzled, but were allowed to eat of the fallen grains. Failing to help an animal in distress—no matter whom the animal belonged to—was a criminal act, as was overworking or mistreating beasts of burden. A person was not allowed to wipe out a family of birds by collecting both the mother and her eggs. Apparently to foster a sense of the value of life, an animal and its young could not be slaughtered on the same day, and a kid could not be cooked using its mother’s milk.

While there are many more statutes in the Law (a little more than 600 of them), it was miniscule in comparison with modern legal systems—in the early 1990’s, there were roughly 125,000 pages of laws in the federal law books of the United States. But for almost 1600 years the Torah served the needs of the people of Israel.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Childbirth In Ancient Israel

The first command God gave to humans in the Scriptures was "Be fruitful and multiply." Families in Bible times took this command very seriously. One rabbi of the first century B.C.E. wrote, "If anyone does not [have children], it is as though he were to shed blood or to diminish God's image."

There was no such thing as deliberate childlessness among Jewish families. Children were the purpose of marriage; children assured that the family name would continue and that hereditary property would remain in the family. Modern Palestinian Arabs believe that a couple without children is unnatural. When a couple's first son is born, the father's name is changed to include that of the firstborn: if the child's name is Dathan, the father's name would be changed to Abudathan (Father of Dathan). A man without children is chidingly called "Father of Nothing," and one without sons is called "Abu el Banat" (Father of Daughters), which is both an insult and an expression of sympathy.

Childlessness or barrenness was a serious problem. A barren woman was considered a reproach by her neighbors (Luke 1:25); Rachel's inability to conceive made her suicidal (Gen 30:1). Partly this was because Israelites believed the barrenness was a sign of divine disapproval--a curse resulting from some sin on the part of the woman or her family. In Moses' benediction to the people before his death, he had promised the faithful and obedient: "Blessed shall you be above all people, and there will not be found among you a male or female who is barren."

Out of this belief came the common procedures for encouraging conception. The couple examined their entire lives for any unconfessed sins and repented of them, even offering sacrifices in atonement for sins they did not know they had committed (Leviticus 4:2). Their prayers centered on this theme (note the examples of Isaaac in Genesis 25 and Hannah in 1 Samuel 1).

If sin was ruled out as the cause of the malady, friends and relatives would suggest remedies. Rachel asked Leah for mandrakes, plants believed to produce fertility. Apples and fish were also used for this purpose.

Despite the divine edict against idolatry, modern excavations in Israel have uncovered countless clay fertility figurines in the rough shape of pregnant women. Women believed that by keeping the image close and handling them they could invoke "sympathetic magic" and become pregnant themselves. Jeremiah records women kneading cakes and offerings libations and incense to Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Canaanite goddess of sex, maternity, and fertility.

A women who was persistently barren might find herself replaced in her husband's affections by a second wife or a concubine. This was not always considered bad by the wife--Sarah asked Abraham to impregnate her servant, Hagar (Genesis 16), and Rachel asked Joseph to do the same to Bilhah (Genesis 30).

When the wife did become pregnant, it was a time for great rejoicing and celebration. Miscarriages were no doubt common, though, as were complications (Genesis 35, 38; 1 Samuel 4:20). The child came into the world on a dirt floor, was washed with unpurified water and swaddled in cloths that could not be freed of fleas and insects. Researchers believe that infant mortality in ancient Egypt was as high as 90 percent, and archaeology supports the idea that the numbers were not much better in Palestine. The Torah specified that the infant was to be redeemed after he or she had lived for 30 days; if the child survived that long, it was considered likely that he or she would live longer.

Mothers were assisted by midwives, and the birth took place with the mother in a seated or kneeling position on a birthing stool (Exodus 1:16). When the baby came out the umbilical cord was cut and the child was rubbed with salt, water, and oil. Swaddling clothes were used to wrap the child and were changed every week or so until the child reached the age of 40 days. Either on the day of its birth or on the eighth day afterward (when the male children were circumcised) the child was named.

Male children were preferred. In the cultures of some of Israel's neighbor nations parents might actually leave a newborn girl in the wild to die, or sell her into slavery. Israelite couples welcomed both male and female babies, but only the male could carry on the family name and keep the family's hereditary properties in the genealogical line. (Exceptions were made to this--see the case of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers Chapter 27). Thus the famous and no-doubt oft-repeated proclamation: "There has been a child born to us; There has been a son given to us."(Isaiah 9:6)