DEATH. Of the Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death, may be noticed the following :— (a). One of the most common in the O. T. is, to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase, the dust of death. It is founded on the description Gen. ii. 7, and iii. and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Eccles. xii. 7,—' The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God, who gave it.' (b). A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Ps. civ. 29). Hence the com mon terms degree, srapllwee ro Treiima, reddidit animam, Wirveucre, exspiravit, etc.
(c). A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body with a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job iv. 21 ; Is. xxxviii. 12; Ps. xxxix. 13). Whence Paul says (2 Cor. v. 1) `our earthly house of this tabernacle' will be destroyed ; and Peter calls death ' a putting off of this tabernacle' (2 Peter i. 13, 14). Classical writers speak of the soul in the same manner, as KairacriopoOv 3 admarc. They call the body rrxiivosi. So Hippocrates and /Es chines. Compare 2 COT. V. 8, 9—eanyfica, ex rol (d). Paul likewise uses the term ilcatiecOat, in reference to death (2 Cor. v. 3, 4) ; because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed ; and as soon as it is disembodied is naked.
(e). The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Ps. lxxvi. 5 ; Jer. li. 39 ; John xi. 13, sq.) Nor is this language used exclusively for the death of the pious, as some pretend, though this is its prevailing use. Homer calls sleep and death twin
brothers (Iliad, xvi. 672). The terms also which signify to lie down, to rest (e. g., oecumbere), also denote death.
(f). Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away. Hence the verbs eundi, abeundi, diseea'endi, signify to die (Job X. 21; Ps. xxxix. 4). The case is the same with brci-yro and iropei,oyaL in the N. T. (Matt. xxvi. 24), and even among the classics. In this connection we may mention the terms avaXbelp and ciwiNvols. (Phil. i. 23 ; 2 Tim. iv. 6), which do not mean dissolution, Ina diseessur (cf. Luke xii. 36). Vid. Wetstein on Phil. i.
Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great king dom, over which he reigns. But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc. ; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Ps. xviii. 5, 6 ; xci. 3). After the exile, they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison which he reaches to men. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase which occurs in the N. T., to taste death (Matt. xvi. 28 ; Heb. ii. 9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Ps. lxxxix. 48 ; Luke ii. 26). See Knapp's Christian Theology, by Dr. Leonard Wood.—J. K.