The Alijah was probably the upper chamber in which the body of Tabitha (Acts ix. 37.) was laid. Of the hasty interment of the Jews in later times, the history of Ananias and Sapphira is a sufficient proof. Such is the present practice of the east. Russell, i. 306. It is plain, from the New Testament, that the custom of employing hired mourners prevailed among the Jews in our Saviour’s time; (Matt. ix. 23. Mark v. 38.) and probably the “mourning women” (Jer. ix. 17.) are to be understood of hired mourners, such as the Romans called _præficæ_. It is mentioned (Amos viii. 3.) as a characteristic of a great mortality, that the dead should be _cast forth in silence_. Males seem also to have been employed as mourners. Amos v. 16. Page 262.—_The body was wrapped in a sheet._] That the arms and feet were swathed separately, and not fastened to the body or together, is rendered probable by John xi. 44. where Lazarus, when raised to life, is represented as _coming forth_ from the sepulchre, before the grave clothes are taken off. The sheet is the σίνδων, in which, according to Matt, xxvii. 59. Joseph of Arimathea wrapt the body of our Saviour, on the evening of the crucifixion, when there was no time for the minute bandaging with the κειρίαι, mentioned in the history of Lazarus. But whether both were combined, as mentioned in the text, may be doubted. The wringing of the hands above the head was a mark of extreme grief. Jer. ii. 37. Geier, 290. Page 264.—_Burning was reckoned dishonourable._] “Corpora condere, quam cremare, e more Egyptio.” Tac. Hist. v. 5. They differed, however, in this from the Egyptians, that they only _wrapt_ the body in spices, and did not fill the cavities with them. The burnings mentioned in Scripture, in connection with royal funerals, appear to have been burnings of spices, (2 Chron. xvi. 14.) in other cases a mark of a great mortality, as (Amos vi. 10.) requiring a more expeditious kind of sepulture. Josephus (cont. Apion. ii. 26.) is referred to as mentioning the custom of all who met a funeral joining in the lamentation; Πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς παριοῦσι θαπτομένου τινὸς καὶ συνελθεῖν καὶ συναποδύρασθαι ἐπόησε νόμιμον. The common reading, however, is περιοῦσι, “survivors of the family,” which suits the connection better. Of the Hebrew sepulchres a large account is given in Nicolaus de Sepulchris Hebræorum, Lugd. Bat. 1606. The custom of throwing a sod is introduced from the practice of the modern Jews. Buxtorf Synagoga, c. 35. p. 502. The annual whitening of the sepulchres was, according to the Rabbins, a charge of the magistracy, and performed in the month Adar, (Nicolaus, p. 237) i. e. a short time before the Passover; a circumstance of which Harmer (iii. 449.) does not appear to have been aware. It is remarkable that the Mahometans whiten their sepulchres before their great solemnity of Ramadan.