WHICH IS BETTER: BURIAL OR CREMATION?
Let me hasten to say there are a few small countries where burial is forbidden. They simply are too small to have enough land space to bury their dead. No amount of personal property or money to pay for land can overcome that law; therefore, the population as a whole must accept and abide by this law. This study strictly has to do with what was acceptable in Old Testament times when land was plentiful.
“If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he” (Eccl. 6:3).
The word BURIED is used 105 times in scripture—each time denoting how someone’s remains were cared for after death. The reason for burying the dead seems to be given in Deuteronomy 21.
- “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: 23 His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God😉 that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance” (Deut. 21:22-23).
UNCLEAN
- “And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days” (Num. 19:16).
ACHAN
- “And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones” (Josh 7:24-25).
MOAB
- “Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:” (Amos 2:1).
MICHAL AND RIZPA’S SONS
- “And Saul had a concubine, whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah: and Ish-bosheth said to Abner, Wherefore hast thou gone in unto my father’s concubine? 8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: (2 Samuel 3:7-8).
- “And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. 10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night 11 And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done” (2 Sam. 21:9-11).
Note here: The barley harvest (about the middle or toward the end of April) was earlier than the wheat harvest (Exo. 9:31; Ruth 1:22).
[Dropped] Rather, “poured,” the normal word for heavy rain (Exo. 9:33). The “early rain,” or heavy rain of autumn, usually began in October, so that we understand Rizpah’s devoted watch continued about six months. How rare rain was in harvest we learn from 1 Samuel 12:17-18 and Proverbs 26:1. The reason for the bodies being left unburied, contrary to Deuteronomy 21:23, probably was that the death of these men being an expiation of the guilt of a violated oath, they were to remain until the fall of rain should give the assurance that God’s anger was appeased, and the national sin forgiven.
[Birds of the air … beasts of the field] It is well known how in the Orient, on the death e.g. of a camel in a caravan, the vultures instantly flock to the carcass. (Compare Matt. 24:28.)
(from Barnes’ Notes, Electronic Database Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
SAUL AND JONATHAN
- “And David sent messengers unto the men of Jabesh-gilead, and said unto them, Blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have shewed this kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him. 6 And now the Lord shew kindness and truth unto you: and I also will requite you this kindness, because ye have done this thing” (2 Sam 2:5-6).
- “And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa: 13 And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. 14 And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was intreated for the land” (2 Sam 21:12-14).
ABSALOM
- “And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him: and all Israel fled every one to his tent. 18 Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king’s dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is called unto this day, Absalom’s place” (2 Sam. 18:17-18).
JEHORAM
- “And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, 13 But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself: 14 Behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: 15 And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day. 16 Moreover the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians: 17 And they came up into Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. 18 And after all this the Lord smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease” (2 Chr. 21:12-18). See also: 2 Chronicles 21:20.
[Not in the sepulchres of the kings] Compare the similar treatment of Joash (2 Chr. 24:25) and Ahaz (2 Chr. 28:27).
-Beth Johnson
Chennai Teacher Training School
Articles and Books by Beth Johnson