mourning Summary and Overview

One marked feature of Oriental mourning is what may be called its studies publicity and the careful observance of the prescribed ceremonies. #Ge 23:2; Job 1:20; 2:12| 1. Among the particular forms observed the following may be mentioned: (a) Rending the clothes. #Ge 37:29,34; 44:13| etc. (b) Dressing in sackcloth. #Ge 37:34; 2Sa 3:31; 21:10| etc. (c) Ashes, dust or earth sprinkled on the person. #2Sa 13:19; 15:32| etc. (d) Black or sad-colored garments. #2Sa 14:2; Jer 8:21| etc. (e) Removal of ornaments or neglect of person. #De 21:12,13| etc. (f) Shaving the head, plucking out the hair of the head or beard. #Le 10:6; 2Sa 19:24| etc. (g) Laying bare some part of the body. #Isa 20:2; 47:2| etc. (h) Fasting or abstinence in meat and drink. #2Sa 1:12; 3:35; 12:16,22| etc. (i) In the same direction may be mentioned diminution in offerings to God, and prohibition to partake of sacrificial food. #Le 7:20; De 26:14| (k) Covering the "upper lip," i.e. the lower part of the face, and sometimes the head, in token of silence. #Le 13:45; 2Sa 15:30; 19:4| (l) Cutting the flesh, #Jer 16:6,7; 41:5| beating the body. #Eze 21:12; Jer 31:19| (m) Employment of persons hired for the purpose of mourning. #Ec 12:5 Jer 9:17; Am 5:16; Mt 9:23| (n) Akin to the foregoing usage the custom for friends or passers-by to join in the lamentations of bereaved or afflicted persons. #Ge 50:3; Jud 11:40; Job 2:11; 30:25| etc. (o) The sitting or lying posture in silence indicative of grief. #Ge 23:3; Jud 20:26| etc. (p) Mourning feast and cup of consolation. #Jer 16:7,8| 2. The period of mourning varied. In the case of Jacob it was seventy days, #Ge 50:3| of Aaron, #Nu 20:29| and Moses, Deut 34:8 thirty. A further period of seven days in Jacob's case. #Ge 50:10| Seven days for Saul, which may have been an abridged period in the time of national danger. #1Sa 31:13| With the practices above mentioned, Oriental and other customs, ancient and modern, in great measure agree. Arab men are silent in grief, but the women scream, tear their hair, hands and face, and throw earth or sand on their heads. Both Mohammedans and Christians in Egypt hire wailing-women, and wail at stated times. Burckhardt says the women of Atbara in Nubia shave their heads on the death of their nearest relatives --a custom prevalent also among several of the peasant tribes of upper Egypt. He also mentions wailing-women, and a man in distress besmearing his face with dirt and dust in token of grief. In the "Arabian Nights" are frequent allusions to similar practices. It also mentions ten days and forty days as periods of mourning. Lane, speaking of the modern Egyptians, says, "After death the women of the family raise cries of lamentation called welweleh or wilwal, uttering the most piercing shrieks, and calling upon the name of the deceased, 'Oh, my master! Oh, my resource! Oh, my misfortune! Oh, my glory!" See #Jer 22:18| The females of the neighborhood come to join with them in this conclamation: generally, also, the family send for two or more neddabehs or public wailing-women. Each brings a tambourine, and beating them they exclaim, 'Alas for him!' The female relatives, domestics and friends, with their hair dishevelled and sometimes with rent clothes, beating their faces, cry in like manner, 'Alas for him!' These make no alteration in dress, but women, in some cases, dye their shirts, head-veils and handkerchiefs of a dark-blue color. They visit the tombs at stated periods." --Mod. Eg. iii. 152,171,195.

Noisy, violent, and demonstrative in the East as it is among the Irish, Highlanders, and Welsh; beating the breast or the thigh (Ezekiel 21:12), cutting the flesh (Jeremiah 16:6), weeping with a loud cry, wearing dark colored garments, hiring women as professional mourners (Ecclesiastes 12:5; Matthew 9:23; Amos 5:16),"skillful in lamentation" (Jeremiah 9:17), singing elegies, having funeral feasts and the cup of consolation (Jeremiah 16:7-8). It was an occasion of studied publicity and ceremonial; so Abraham for Sarah (Genesis 23:2), Jacob for Joseph (Genesis 37:34-35), Joseph and the Egyptians for Jacob 70 days and a further period of seven (Genesis 50:3-10), Israel for Aaron 80 days (Numbers 20:29), and for Moses (Deuteronomy 34:8). Jabesh Gileadites for Saul fasted seven days (1 Samuel 31:13); David for Abner with fasting, rent clothes, and sackcloth, and with an elegy (2 Samuel 3:81-89). Job for his calamities, with rent mantle, shaven head, sitting in ashes; so the three friends with dust upon their heads, etc., seven days and nights (Job 1:20-21; Job 2:8). In the open streets and upon the housetops (Isaiah 15:2-3); stripping off ornaments (Exodus 33:4); stripping the foot and some other part of the body (Isaiah 20:2). Penitent mourning was often expressed by fasting, so that the words are interchanged as synonymous (Matthew 9:15), and the day of atonement, when they "afflicted their souls," is called "the fast" (Acts 27:9; Leviticus 23:27; Israel, 1 Samuel 7:6; Nineveh, Jonah 3:5; the Jews when hereafter turning to Messiah, Zechariah 12:10-11). Exclusion from share in the sacrificial peace offerings (Leviticus 7:20), Covering the upper lip and the head, in token of silence: Leviticus 13:45, the leper; 2 Samuel 15:30, David. The high priest and Nazarites were not to go into mourning for even father or mother or children (Leviticus 21:10-11; Numbers 6:7). So Aaron in the case of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:2-6); Ezekiel for his wife (Ezekiel 24:16-18); "the bread of men" is that usually brought to mourners by friends in sympathy. The lower priests only for nearest relatives (Leviticus 21:1-4). Antitypically, the gospel work is to take precedence of all ties (Luke 9:59-60): "let me first go and bury my father" means, let me wait at home until he die and, I bury him. The food eaten in mourning was considered impure (Deuteronomy 26:14; Hosea 9:4). The Jews still wail weekly, each Friday, at Jerusalem, in a spot below the temple wall, where its two courses of masonry (with blocks 30 ft. long) meet. (See JERUSALEM.) On the open flagged place, which they sweep with care as holy ground, taking off their shoes, they bewail the desolation of their holy places (Psalm 102:14; Psalm 137:5-6; Isaiah 63:15-19). Mourning shall cease forever to God's people when Christ shall return (Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 25:8; Isaiah 35:10).