stroyed;-for, forgetting what he had said in the above extract, he tells us, when treating of the life of Herod," that as he (viz. Herod,) had before heard that Hyrcanus, who had been king before him, had opened David's sepulchre, and taken out of it three thousand talents of silver, and that there was still a great number left behind; he opened that sepulchre by night, and went into it secretly with a few friends; but as for money, he found none; only some furniture of gold and precious goods that were laid up there, all these he took away." Thus all he got for his rapacity was some furniture of gold, and some precious goods, similar, perhaps, to those deposited in the sepulchre of Aristobulus by himself; but of money he found none. I need scarcely add that the above conjecture, as to making David's sepulchre a place of security, is corroborated by the present application of sepulchres in the East, which are frequently places of deposit for money and other valuables, that it is accounted sacrilege even by the most despotic princes to violate. Having dwelt so long on private and family sepulchres, we should proceed to notice concerning them, that some were visible to the eye on the slighest inspection, but others so deep or so neglected as to become invisible; and hence the phrase μνημείον αδηλον in Luke xi. 44. It was not unfrequent, therefore, for persons to stumble upon them before they were aware, and thereby contract ceremonial pollution; but as this would have been especially inconvenient for strangers who came to the feasts, and who could not be supposed acquainted with every place where a solitary sepulchre might chance to be, there was a general law, that on the 15th day of the 12th month, which was the month Adar, they should all be painted white, with chalk and water;a and as the rains were then past, and the dry season of six months then commenced, that white-washing made them perfectly visible till the three great festivals were over. Every one, therefore, upon reflecting on this, must see the pointed nature of our Saviour's words, when he compares the Scribes and Pharisees to whited sepulchres, attractive without, but full of rottenness within.-The Jews never considered their sepulchres as mansions of the dead; at least, their words did not convey that meaning, for they called them "the house of the living," " Bith eiim, thereby intimating their abhorrence of the doctrine of the Sadducees, and their firm belief in the resurrection of the body; and it was this, perhaps, which made them take pleasure in strewing the graves of departed relatives with green leaves, flowers, branches of palm and myrtle, and surrounding them with shrubs and flowers. It was emblematical of that eternity after which they aspired. Building, repairing, and garnishing the tombs of the prophets were accounted meritorious among the Jews; and that garnishing may, perhaps, have meant not only white-washing and decking them with flowers, but doing as they do at present in the East, maintaining a lamp or lamps in them, covering the tomb with a carpet more or less valuable, furnishing incense to give an agreeable smell, and surrounding them with a garden elegantly designed and neatly kept. The monumental inscriptions among the Jews were very various: sometimes a rude stone was all that informed the traveller of the presence of a dead body. But commonly, if the sepulchre were in a rock, or the grave had a stone placed over it, a portion was smoothed, Lightf. Heb. and Talm. Exer, on Matt, xxiii. 28. b Matt. xxiii, 29, 30. and the letters either engraved upon it with a chisel, or painted, stained, or encrusted on hard plaster with which the rock was covered, or engraven on tablets of lead. The written mountains in the wilderness of Sinai, mentioned by the preffetto of Egypt, the burying-place also of the Egyptians in the plain of mummies, mentioned by Maillet, and the engraven tables on the natural rock near the river Lycus, mentioned by Maundrell, are examples of these. It is not to be expected that we can be favoured with any epitaphs so early as the time of the Jewish economy; but when a cemetery of the Jews was opened in one of the suburbs of Basle, they discovered a number of Hebrew epitaphs, two of which are given us by Basnage, from Buxtorff, and are as follow: "I have set this stone over the head of the venerable Rabbi Eliakim, deceased. God grant he may repose in the garden of Eden, with the rest of the saints of the earth. Amen. Amen. Selah." The other is, "I have erected this monument at the head of the most holy, most chaste, and most excellent Rebecca, daughter of the holy Rabbi Samuel, the Levite, who lived in good reputation, and died the 8th of December, 135, (that is, as Buxtorff thinks, in the year 1375.) Let her soul be bound in the garden of Eden."-But the oldest is one mentioned by Buxtorff, which is thought to have been inscribed about the year of Christ 300, and consisted of the words 7 now, shepehè, herupè. “The maid servant stripped, or in reproach." C 6. The Jewish idea of a separate stated is evidently taken from their manner of burying. You are to form to yourself an idea of an immense subterraneous vault, around the sides of which were cells to receive the dead bodies. There the deceased monarchs lay in a dis c Clarke's Harmer, ch. vii. ob. 18. b Book v. ch. 23. Synag. Jud. cap. 49. d Isaiah, chap. xiv. 8-20. Ezek. xxxii. 23-30. tinguished kind of state, suitable to their former rank, each on his own couch, with his arms beside him, his sword at his head, and the bodies of his chiefs and companions round about him." 7. To persons residing in Christian countries, where the tone of manners and of morals is raised by means of the gospel, it appears shocking to read of the cruelty committed on criminals, and the indifference with which their bodies were left after death, often without a burial, to become the prey of dogs," foxes, vultures, and other ravenous animals. One who reflects on this will not be surprised that the common place of execution at Jerusalem was called Golgotha, or the place of skulls. In the kingdom of Dahomy, in Africa, heaps of skulls are piled up in the court of the palace; and at the temple of Juggernaut, in India, the dogs are often seen tearing the bodies of the dead pilgrims. I have said nothing hitherto of the testamentary deeds of the Jews: we have, indeed, little on the subject. The only notice in Scripture of the transmission of property, by written evidence, is in Jer. xxxii. 8-15. 44, where it appears that besides the money given in purchase, two deeds were extended by the public scribe or notary, one of which was sealed and the other open; and as this was the case in common purchases, so am I led to conjecture that it was the case in testamentary bequests; for Lucian, in his Dialogues of the Dead, makes Cnemon say, that "he had shown the testaments publiclyθεσθαι διαθήκας εις το φανερον,” which he had made in favour of Hermolaus, and to express his ignorance "whether Hermolaus, in return, had written his testaments in his favour—τας εαυτε διαθήκας.” There is at least a considerable similarity between the expressions of Jeremiah and those of Cnemon. * Lowth, Note. b Ps. lix. 6, 14. Ps. lxiii. 10. PART XII. SECT. I. JUDEA, ITS LIMITS, CAPITAL, CLIMATE, AND AGRICULTURE. Limits of Judea : As mentioned in Gen. x. 19; as promised to Abraham in Gen. xv. 18-21; as described to Moses in Deut. xxxiv. 1, 3, and commented upon by Josephus ; as existing in the days of our Saviour. Josephus's description of Judea; Samaria; Galilee; wherein the speech of the Galileans differed from that of the other Jews: the country beyond Jordan; the present state of the country, by Dr. Clarke-and a particular account of the river Jordan. THE first notice we have of the land of Canaan, afterwards known by the general name of Judea, is in Gen. x. 19, where the borders of Canaan are said to have been "from Sidon as thou goest to Gerar unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboiim, even unto Lasha." Here the western extremity extended along the shore of the Mediterranean from Sidon to Gaza, or about 170 miles. Its southern boundary was from Gaza to the Dead Sea, where Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, once stood, a space of about 70 miles. Its eastern boundary was from the Dead Sea to Lasha or Dan, at the head of the river Jordan, about 100 miles; and its northern boundary from Lasha to Sidon again, a space of about 60 miles. The people who then lived in it, according to Moses, were the Si a Gen. x. 15-18. |