524 2 Chronicles xvi. 14, xxi. 19; Jeremiah xxxiv. 5. There is no ground for assuming, as the Authorized version does in Jeremiah xxxiv. 5, that only spices were burned on these occasions; indeed the burning of spices is not mentioned at all in any of the three passages. The “sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries’ art,” which were laid in the dead king’s bed (2 Chronicles xvi. 14), were probably used to embalm him, not to be burned at his funeral. For though “great burnings” were regularly made for the dead kings of Judah, there is no evidence (apart from the doubtful case of Saul) that their bodies were cremated. They are regularly said to have been buried, not burnt. The passage of Isaiah seems to show that what was burned at a royal funeral was a great, but empty, pyre. That the burnings for the kings formed part of a heathen custom was rightly perceived by Renan (_Histoire du peuple d’Israel_, iii. 121, note). 525 Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ v. 4. 1. See _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.v._ “Jerusalem,” vol. ii. 2423 _sq._ 526 As to the Moloch worship, see Note I. at the end of the volume. I have to thank the Rev. Professor R. H. Kennett for indicating to me the inference which may be drawn from the identification of the Valley of Hinnom with the Tyropoeon. M133 The great burnings for Jewish Rabbis at Meiron in Galilee. 527 W. M. Thomson, _The Land and the Book, Central Palestine and Phoenicia_ (London, 1883), pp. 575-579; Ed. Robinson, _Biblical Researches in Palestine_3 (London, 1867), ii. 430. _sq._; K. Baedeker, _Palestine and Syria_4 (Leipsic, 1906), p. 255. 528 Herodotus, v. 92. 7. 529 C. Bock, _Temples and Elephants_ (London, 1884), pp. 73-76. M134 Death by fire regarded by the ancients as a kind of apotheosis. Fire was supposed to purge away the mortal parts of men, leaving the immortal.