Abraham Aben-Ezra in his commentary upon those words, "I will go down into sheol unto my son mourning;" writeth thus: "Hered the translator of the erring persons (he meaneth the vulgar Latin translation used by the Christians) erreth, in translating Sheol hell or gehenna : for behold, the signification of the word is ap, or the grave;" for proof whereof he alledgeth divers places of Scripture. Where by the way you may note, that in the last edition of the Masoritical and Rabbinical Bible, printed by Bombergius, both this and divers other passages elsewhere have been cut out by the Romish correctors, which I wish our Buxtorfius had understood, when he followed that mangled and corrupted copy in his late renewed edition of that great work. R. Salomo Jarchi, writing upon the same words saith, that " according to the literal sense, the interpretation thereof is the grave: (in my mourning I will be buried, and I will not be comforted all my days), but after the Midrash or allegorical interpretation, it is gehenna." In like manner, R. David Kimchi expounding that place", "The wicked shall turn into hell, and all the nations that forget God;" acknowledgeth, that by the Derash, or allegorical exposition, into hell is as much to say, as into gehenna; but according to the literal meaning he expoundeth it, p, into the grave; intimating withal, that the prophet useth here the term of turning or returning, with reference to that sentence," Dust' thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Out of which observation of Kimchi we may further note, that the Hebrews, when they expound Sheol to be the grave, do not mean so much thereby an artificial grave (to wit, a pit digged in the earth, or a tomb raised

e Gen. chap. 37. ver. 35.

d

Any ibi positum pro, id est, Latinorum?

.37 .Aben Ezra, in Gen. cap ופה תעה מתרגם לטיעים שתרגם שאול גיהנם.

.Salom כפשוטו לשון קבר הוא באבלי אקבר ולא אתנחם כל ימי ובמדרשו גיהנם. 6

f Gen. chap. 37. ver. 35.

Jarchi, in Gen. chap. 37.

Psalm 9. ver. 17.

i Elias in Tischbi, verb. 7. Kimchi in Psal. 9.

above ground) as a natural sepulchre: such as Mæcenas speaketh of in that verse:

Necm tumulum curo, sepelit natura relictos.

And Seneca in his controversies: "Nature" hath given a burial unto all men: such as suffer shipwreck the same wave doth bury that cast them away; the bodies of such as are crucified, drop away from the crosses unto their burial; to such as are burned alive their punishment is a funeral." For this is the difference that is made by authors, betwixt burying and interring; that "he" is understood to be buried who is put away in any manner, but he to be interred who is covered with the earth." Hence different kinds of burials" are mentioned by them, according to the different usages of several nations; the name of a sepulture being given by them, as well to the burning of the bodies of the dead, used of old among the more civil nations, as to the devouring of them by dogs, which was the barbarous custom of the Hyrcanians'. Therefore Diogeness was wont to say, that if the dogs did tear him, he should have an Hyrcanian burial: and those beasts which were kept for this use, the Bactrians did term in

m Senec. epist. 92.

n Omnibus natura sepulturam dedit; naufragos idem fluctus qui expulit, sepelit; suffixorum corpora crucibus in sepulturam suam defluunt eos qui vivi uruntur, pœna funerat. Annæus Senec. lib. 8. controvers. 4.

Sepultus intelligitur quoquo modo conditus: humatus vero humo contectus. Plin. lib. 7. nat. hist. cap. 54.

• Διελόμενοι κατὰ ἔθνη τὰς ταφὰς, ὁ μὲν Ελλην ἔκαυσεν, ὁ δὲ Πέρσης ἔθαψεν, ὁ δὲ Ινδὸς ὑάλῳ περιχρίει, ὁ δὲ Σκύθης κατεσθίει, ταριχεύει δὲ ὁ Aiyúrios. Lucianus, de luctu.

4 Nec dispersis bustis humili sepultura crematos. Cicer. Philippic. 14. 'Eμὲ μὲν καὶ τοὺς ἐμοὺς παῖδας τόδε τὸ πῦρ θάψει· inquit uxor Asdrubalis, apud Appianum in Punicis: Vide et Ctesiam (in Photii bibliotheca, col. 129. edit. Græco-Lat.) περὶ τοῦ θάψαντος τὸν πατέρα διὰ τοῦ πυρὸς.

Eamque optimam illi censent esse sepulturam. Cicero. lib. 1. Tuscul.

quæst.

Ελεγεν ὁ Διογένης, ὅτι ἂν μὲν κύνες αὐτὸν σπαράξωσιν, Υρκανία ἔσται ἡ τάφη. Stobæus.

· Τοὺς γὰρ ἀπειρηκότας διὰ νόσον, ἢ γῆρας ζῶντας παραβάλλεσθαι τρεφομένοις κυσὶν, ἐπίτηδες πρὸς τοῦτο, οὓς ἐνταφιστὰς καλοῦσι τῇ παTрúg yλwrry. Strabo Geograph. lib. 11.

VOL. III.

Y

their language sepulchral dogs, as Strabo relateth out of Onesicritus. So in the Scripture, the prophet Jonas calleth the belly of the whale, wherein he was devoured, "the" belly of Sheol," that is, of hell or the grave. For Jonas, saith Basil of Seleucia, "was carried in a living grave, and dwelt in a swimming prison; dwelling in the region of death, the common lodge of the dead and not of the living, while he dwelt in that belly which was the mother of death;" and in the prophecy of Jeremiah, king Jehoiakim is said to be "buried, (although with the burial of an ass), when his carcass was drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem."

capit omnia tellus

Quæ genuit: cœlo tegitur, qui non habet urnam.

The earth which begetteth all, receiveth all: and he that wanteth a coffin, hath the welkin for his winding sheet. The earth is our great mother;

Omniparens eadem rerum commune sepulcrum.

The common mother, out of whose womb as naked we came, so "naked shall we return thither:" according to that: "His spirit goeth forth, he returneth to HIS earth:" and: "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and turn to THEIR dust." And this is the Sheol which Job waited for when he said, "Sheol' or the grave, (for that is the hell which is meant here, as is confessed not by Lyranus only, but by the Jesuit Pineda also) is mine house; I

u Jon. chap. 2. ver. 2.

* Ην Ιωνᾶς ἐν ζῶντι τάφῳ φερόμενος νηχόμενον οἰκῶν δεσμωτήριον, ἐγκινούμενον φάραγξι θανάτου χωρίον οἰκῶν, νεκρῶν πανδοχεῖον οὐ ζώνTwv, cikuv yaσrépa Oavárov μnrépa. Basil. Seleuc, orat. 12. quæ in Jonam est prima.

y Jer. chap. 22. ver. 19.

a Magna parens terra est.

z Lucan. lib. 7. ver. 818.

Ovid. 1. metamorph.

b Lucret. de rer. natur. lib. 5. ver. 260.

d Psalm 146. ver. 4.

Job, chap. 1. ver. 21.
Ibid. 104. ver. 29.

f Job, chap. 17. ver. 13, 14.

have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister."

This is that common sepulchre, non factum sed natum, not made by the hand of man, but provided by nature itself: betwixt which natural and artificial grave these differences may be observed. The artificial may be appropriated to this man or that man. "The patriarch David is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day," saith St. Peter, and: "Yeh build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous" saith our Saviour. But in the natural there is no such distinction. It cannot be said, that this is such or such a man's Sheol: it is considered as the common receptacle of all the dead, as we read in Job: "I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living." Fork, "to every man," "to every man," as Olympiodorus writeth upon that place, "the earth itself is appointed as a house for his grave." There'" the prisoners rest together," saith Job, " they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there: and the servant free from his master." Again, into a made grave a man may enter in alive and come out alive again, as Peter and John did into the sepulchre of Christ: but Sheol either findeth men dead when they come into it, which is the ordinary course, or if they come into it alive, which is a new and unwonted thing, it bringeth death upon them, as we see it fell out in Korah and his accomplices, who are said to have gone down "alive into Sheol, when the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up." Lastly, as many living men do go into the grave made with hands, and yet in so doing they cannot be said

Acts, chap. 2. ver. 29.

Job, chap. 30. ver. 23.

h Matth. chap. 23. ver. 29.

k Cuilibet enim homini domus pro sepulchro, ipsa terra est constituta. Olym piodor. Caten. Græc. in illud Job, cap. 30. ver. 23. secundum LXX. oikia yàp

παντὶ θνητῷ γῆ.

Job, chap. 3. ver. 18, 19. "Num. chap. 16. ver. 30.

m John, chap. 20. ver. 6. 8.

• Ibid. ver. 30. 33.

to go into Sheol, because they come from thence alive again: so some dead men also want the honour of such a grave, as it was the case of God's servants, whose bodies were kept from burial, and yet thereby are not kept from Sheol, which is the way that all flesh must go: for, "all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." We conclude therefore, that when Sheol is said to signify the grave; the term of grave must be taken in as large a sense, as it is in that speech of our Saviour, "All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation ;" and in Isaiah, chapter twenty-six, verse nineteen, according to the Greek reading: "The dead shall rise, and they that are in the graves shall be raised up." Upon which place Origen writeth thus: "In this place, and in many others likewise, the graves of the dead are to be understood according to the more certain meaning of the Scripture, not such only as we see are builded for the receiving of men's bodies, either cut out in stones, or digged down in the earth; but every place wherein a man's body lieth, either entire or in any part, albeit it fell out that one body should be dispersed through many places; it being no absurdity at all, that all those places in which any part of the body

P Psalm 79. ver. 2, 3. Rev. chap. 11. ver. 8, 9.

4 Eccles. chap. 3. ver. 20. and chap. 6. ver. 6.

John, chap. 5. ver. 28.

* Sepulchra autem mortuorum in hoc loco, similiter et in multis aliis, secundum certiorem scripturæ sensum accipienda sunt, non solum ea quæ ad depositionem humanorum corporum videntur esse constructa, vel in saxis excisa, aut in terra defossa; sed omnis locus in quocunque vel integrum humanum corpus, vel ex parte aliqua jacet: etiam si accidat ut unum corpus per loca multa dispersum sit, absurdum non erit omnia ea loca in quibus pars aliqua corporis jacet, sepulchra corporis ejus dici. Si enim non ita accipiamus resurgere de sepulchris suis mortuos divina virtute: qui nequaquam sunt sepulturæ mandati, neque in sepulchris depositi, sed sive naufragiis, sive in desertis aliquibus defuncti sunt locis, ita ut sepulturæ mandari non potuerint; non videbuntur annumerari inter eos, qui de sepulchris resuscitandi dicuntur. Quod utique valde absurdum est. Origen. in Esai. lib. 28. citatus a Pamphilo, vel Eusebio potius, in apologia pro Origene.