BURIAL, BURY

BURIAL, BURY . Gen 23:4; Matt 26:12. It was customary among the Jews, and ancients generally, for the children or near kindred to close the eyes of the dying. Gen 46:4. A loud and general wailing followed the decease, John 11:19, 1 Chr 24:31, 1 Sam 15:33, and continued many days after burial. The body of the deceased was washed and laid out. Acts 9:37. It was wrapped in folds of linen cloth, and the head bound around with a napkin. It is said that Lazarus was bound "hand and foot with grave clothes," John 11:44, and it is supposed by many that each limb had its separate wrapper, as it was customary in Egypt to wrap even each finger in a separate cloth or band, so that hundreds of yards of cloth are often unwound from one of their mummies. When thus bound around, it was placed on a bier, in readiness to be borne to the grave. See Bier, Embalm. The climate, and the uncleanness which was contracted, under the law, from contact with a dead body, or even by coming into the same apartment with it, would naturally lead to the custom of early interments. In Persia, we are told, it is not customary to keep the dead over two or three hours, and the European Jews universally bury their dead early. There were many exceptions in this respect, however. The practice of embalming was not general among the Jews, though spices, etc., were used in their burials. 2 Chr 16:14; John 19:40. Jacob and Joseph, whose bodies were embalmed, both died in Egypt, where the art of embalming was very skilfully practised. In Jacob's case we are told that Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm