Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GRAVE

Burial sites, including both rock tombs and common excavated shafts or trenches (Ezek. 32:22; Jer. 26:23; Matt. 27:7). Graves were the sites of mourning and remembrance that could be preserved for centuries (1 Sam. 10:2; 2 Sam. 3:32; 2 Kgs. 23:17; Neh. 3:16). Emotional appeals concerning ancestral graves moved even monarchs (2 Sam. 19:37; Neh. 2:3, 5).

Proper or improper burial could bestow favor or disfavor from God or humans. Moses received an honorable burial by God himself (Deut. 34:6). David gave Ishbaal’s decapitated head and the remains of Saul and Jonathan proper burial, while he contemptuously mutilated the bodies of Ishbaal’s murderers (2 Sam. 4:12; 21:14). Jehoiakim showed his disdain for the prophet Uriah by dumping his corpse in the common people’s grave (Jer. 26:23), while God in turn condemned Jehoiakim to a grave on the dung heap (22:19). The king of Babylon would be cast out of his grave because of bloodshed (Isa. 14:20; cf. 2 Chr. 16:14; 21:19-20). Failure to be buried properly or having one’s bones removed from one’s grave after burial was a terrible fate and judgment from God (2 Kgs. 23:16; Eccl. 6:3; Isa. 14:19; Jer. 8:1-2; cf. Deut. 21:22-23). This abhorrence may have been reinforced by the folk-religious belief that the felicity of the dead or blessings conferred on the living by the dead depended upon the descendants’ practicing memorial rites honoring the deceased.

The grave, being ceremonially unclean, made tomb dwellers repugnant to God, and graves were seemingly abandoned by God (Num. 19:16, 18; Ps. 88:5, 11[MT 6, 12]; cf. Isa. 65:4). Graves were thus appropriate dumping grounds for pulverized, detestable idols (2 Kgs. 23:6; 2 Chr. 34:4).

The grave often has a figurative meaning in the Bible. English versions often translate Heb. šĕʾôl, “Sheol,” as “grave”; e.g., “going down into Sheol” refers to being buried alive with tents and possessions (Num. 16:30). The grave is used figuratively for death itself (e.g., Job 17:1). Ideally, one would “come to the grave” at a ripe old age (Job 5:26). Death before birth makes the mother’s womb the grave (Jer. 20:17). Elsewhere, passion is “fierce as the grave” (Cant. 8:6).

See Burial.

Bibliography. H. C. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife,” HUCA 44 (1973): 1-54; R. L. Harris, “Why Hebrew Shý}Zl Was Translated ‘Grave,’ ” in The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation, ed. K. L. Barker (Grand Rapids, 1986), 58-71; T. J. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit. HSM 39 (Atlanta, 1989); A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000–586 b.c.e. (New York, 1990).

Joe M. Sprinkle

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GRAVE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)