In Egypt we read of different customs, yet cus toms mainly necessitated by peculiar circumstances. When Jacob's death drew near he charged his sons to entomb him in the burying-place of his fathers. We read that he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me ; bury me not, 1 pray thee, in Egypt : but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him' (Gen. xlvii. 29-35). After wards, if the order of the narrative be chronologi cal, he made the same charge to his sons generally, commanding them to bury him with his fathers, mentioning, in a passage already quoted, who were buried there, and specifying the purchase (Gen. xlix. 29-32). It was therefore necessary that the patriarch's body should be preserved. Accord ingly we read, after the account of his death, And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father ; and the physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him ; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned [or wept'] for him threescore and ten days' (I. 2, 3). It is here stated that Egyptian usages were adopted, but there is nothing to indicate that those usages were accompanied by any idolatrous rites. The narrative shews only that due honour was paid to Jacob. Herodotus speaks of seventy days as the period of embalming (ii. 86), and this may cor respond to the period of mourning specified in the case of Jacob. Thirty days are mentioned as the period of mourning in the cases of Aaron and Moses, and this may explain the division of the seventy days, but a month may be intended. The duration of the times of embalming and mourning, may, however, have varied at different periods. After the days of mourning, Joseph went up with a very great company,' to bury his father. In this there is nothing save high respect for the dead. But it is remarkable that they stopped at the threshingfloor of Atad, beyond Jordan, where `he made a mourning for his father seven days.' Here we may almost certainly see a Hebrew custom, for not only was the week of seven days probably of great antiquity with the Hebrews, but it is almost certain that it was not used by the Egyptians (Lep sius, Chronologie der "Egypter, i. p. I31-133), who divided their months of thirty days into three de cades. The sons of Jacob then took his body and buried it in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 1. 2, 14). Joseph, like his father, would not be buried in Egypt. We read that, when his death drew nigh, Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died [being] an hundred and ten years old : and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt' (1. 25, 26). In this case there was the same motive for embalm ing. Moses kept this oath, and, at the Exodus, ' took the bones of Joseph with him' (Ex. xiii. 19); but they were not buried in the cave of Machpelah, but in the parcel of ground at Shechem, that Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor (Josh. xxiv. 32), and which became Joseph's inheritance (Gen. xlviii. 22: Josh. xxiv. 32; 1 Chron. v. r; John iv. 5). It seems that the burying-place was the rallying-point of the patriarchal family. Long after the patriar chal age, Hebron was the chief town of Judah. There David was anointed king. So, too, at She chem Joshua ruled, and when the house of Joseph set up a king in the time of the Judges, Shechem was the chosen capital.
Three burials -are recorded or referred a in the narrative of the sojourn in the wilderness. Of Miriam it is related that she died at Kadesh, and was buried there (Nuns. xx. r). Aaron died on Mount Hor, and was mourned for by all Israel thirty days (Num. xx. 28, 29) : nothing is said of his actual burial, but his traditional tomb, out wardly, at least, modern, is shewn on the summit of the mountain supposed to be Mount Hor. Of
the death of Moses, we read : So Moses, the ser vant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried bins in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor ; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.' The same mourning was made for him as for Aaron. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days (Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6, 8). It is possible, from a com parison of these passages with the account of the embalming of Jacob, as already indicated, that the thirty days' mourning was adopted front Egypt. In these cases we do not, however, see any other trace of Egyptian usage. The narrative of the burial of Moses seems to skew that had the people known of his tomb they would have paid it undue reverence. After the entrance into Canaan we read how Joshua was buried in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-serah, which [is] in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash,' and Eleazar, in a hill [that pertained to] Phinehas his son, which was given him in Mount Ephraim' (Josh. xxiv. 30, 33). In these two cases probably natural caves were used as sepulchres.
The absence in the Law of ordinances enjoining the mode of burial is very remarkable. We may infer that the Israelites had retained simple patri archal customs which the Law did not annul, and in consequence, burial being connected with reli gion, that some earlier religious rites and points of belief may also have been preserved and not super seded. This second inference is of importance in reference to the absence of mention of the future state in the Law. It must be noticed that there are allusions to the customs of mourning. At the death of Nadab and Abihu, it is related that Moses gave this command to Aaron, Elcazar, and Itha mar : Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes' (Lev. x. 6). The priests were not allowed to defile themselves for any dead person, but parents, children, brothers, and unmarried sisters (xxi. 1, 4). They were also forbidden certain mourning practices, which appear to have been partial shaving of the head, clipping the beard in some similar manner, and cutting the flesh (xxi. 5), customs likewise forbidden to the people, as well as tatooing, apparently as a usage of the same kind (Lev. xix. 27, 28 ; Dent. xiv. 1, where the shaving of the head is shewn to have been between the eyes'). The high-priest was commanded not to uncover his head,' nor 'rend his clothes,' nor to defile himself by any dead body, even a parent's (Lev. xxi. 10, Nazarites were to approach no dead body (Num, vi. 6, 7). Contact with the dead caused seven days' uncleanness (vi. 9-1 s ; xix. 1 22). The only direct command as to burial is that enjoining that a person hanged should be buried the same day (Dent. xxi. 23).
The book of Job, whatever its age, represents the life of the patriarchs, partly pointing to Egypt, partly to the desert, so that, in this respect, the idea that Moses wrote it is not contradicted by its contents. It contains a very noteworthy allusion to magnificent burying-places. Job, wishing he had never been born, or had died at his very birth, adds, for now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept : then had I been at rest, with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver' (iii. 13, 15). There may he here a reference to the pyra mids, which are situate on a desert tract, of which the utter desolateness is a striking contrast to the bright verdure of the Nile valley, above which it rises. The latter portion of the passage may relate to the custom of burying treasure with the dead, which, according to tradition, obtained with the oldest kings of El-Yemen, as we know it to have been usual among the Scythians and other nations ; or it may refer to the pyramid-builders, who had abundant wealth, and could only in that primitive state of society have hoarded a great part of their gold and silver.