Elzabad (II)

II. ELZABAD, one of the thirty gallant man in David’s army. 1 Chr. xii. 13. This and the preceding person are perhaps the same.

To EMBALM. The ancient Egyptians¹, and the Hebrews in imitation of them, embalmed the bodies of the dead. Joseph gave orders for Embalming the body of his father Jacob, and his physicians, who were employed in this work, were forty days about it: for it is the custom to spend so much time in embalming a dead body; and all Egypt lamented Jacob seventy days. The invention of the art of Physick was by the Egyptians ascribed to Isis, and in particular the remedy of immortality, which in my opinion Manetho apud Euseb. præpar. l. 2.was no other than that of embalming bodies, and by this means making them incorruptible. Some affirm, that Embalming became necessary in Egypt from the inundations of the Nile, the waters whereof drowning all the flat country for near two months, there was no burying the dead, and people were obliged all this while to keep them in their houses, unless they would remove them to rocks and eminences, which were often very distant from the dead person’s dwelling. To which we may add, that altho’ bodies were buried before the inundation, yet when that came, it would throw them up again; a sandy moist soil not being strong enough to retain ‘em against the action of the water, which would raise them up, and force them out of the ground, as being See Cassian Collat. 15. c. 3. & Cicer. Tuscul. quæst. l. 1. Herodot. l. 2. c. 86. Diodor. l. 2. c. 5.lighter than the sand.

The way of Embalming dead bodies among the Egyptians was as follows. When a man died, his body was carried to the artificers, whose trade it was to make coffins; they took the measure of the body, and made a coffin for it proportioned to the stature of it, the dead person’s quality, and the price that people were willing to give for it: for there was a great diversity in the prices, by reason of the great difference in the make of it; the upper part of the coffin represented the person who was to be shut up in it, whether man or woman. If it was a man of condition, this was distinguished by the figure which was represented on the cover of the coffin; there were generally added paintings and embellishments suitable to the quality of the person.

When the body was brought home again, they agreed with the Embalmers at what rate particularly they would have it embalmed: for the prices were different; the highest was a talent, twenty minæ was a moderate one, and the lowest price was a very small matter. The Egyptian talent is supposed to be worth about three hundred pounds sterling. They immediately sent for a designer, who marked the body as it lay extended, at the place where it should be opened, on the left side, and the length of the incision. A Dissector with a very sharp Ethiopian stone, made the incision, and hurried away as fast as he could, because the relations of the person deceased who were present, took up stones, and pursued him as a wicked wretch, with an inclination to stone him.

This operation being finished, the Embalmers, who were looked upon as sacred persons, entered to perform their office. They drew all the brains of the dead person through his nostrils, with a hooked piece of iron, provided particularly for this purpose, and filled the skull with astringent drugs; they likewise drew all the bowels, except the heart and kidneys, through the hole which they had opened in the side; the intestines were washed in wine from the palm -tree, and in other strong and binding drugs. The whole body was anointed with oil of cedar, with myrrh, cinnamon, and other drugs, for about thirty days, so that it was preserved intire without putrefaction, without losing its hair; and was not only free from putrefaction, but had a good scent with it.

After this the body was put into² salt for about forty days: wherefore when Moses says, that forty days were employed in embalming Jacob, we are to understand him as meaning the forty days of his continuing in the salt of niter, without including the thirty days past in performing the other ceremonies above mentioned; so that in the whole, they mourned seventy days in Egypt, as Moses likewise observes.

Afterwards the body was taken out of the salt, washed, wrapt up with linnen swaddling-bands dipt in myrrh, and rubbed with a certain gum, which the Egyptians used instead of glew. Then the body was restored to the relations, who put it in a coffin, and kept it in their houses, or in tombs made particularly for this purpose. There are some found at this day in Egypt in chambers, or subterraneous vaults, which fully justify the truth of what I have said.

They who had not wherewithal to answer the expence which we have mentioned, contented themselves with infusing, by way of syringe, through the fundament, a certain liquor extracted from the cedar, and leaving it there, wrapt up the body in salt of niter. This oil preyed upon the intestines, so that when they took it out, the intestines came along with it dried, and not inthe least putrefied. The body being enclosed in niter, grew dry, and nothing remained besides the skin glew’d upon the bones. They who were too poor to be at any considerable expence, did no more than cleanse the inside, by syringing a liquor into it, which wash’d it; this done, they put the body, without further ceremony, into niter for seventy days, in order to dry it.

The Scripture mentions likewise the Embalming Joseph, King Asa, and Jesus Christ. Joseph, doubtless, was embalmed Matth. xxvii. 59.after the manner of the Egyptians, since he died in this country. Asa was embalmed, or rather burnt, in a particular manner. The text imports, that they laid him in a bed which they had filled with sweet odours, John xix. 40.and divers kinds of spices, all which they burnt for him with much pomp and preparation. The Hebrew literally runs thus: They laid him in the bed which they had filled with sweet odours, and divers kinds of spices; and they burnt odours for him with an exceeding great fire: as if these spices had been burnt near his body; but the generality of Interpreters believe, that he was burnt with these spices, in a bed of state, in a manner almost like that wherewith the Roman Emperors were burnt.

It seems certain that dead bodies, those of Kings particularly, were sometimes burnt; and I know not whether the custom were not derived from Asa, of whom we have been speaking. The Scripture takes notice, that Jehoram had not the honour of being burnt, which his predecessors had received from their people. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. Jeremiah promises King Zedekiah, that this last duty should be paid him, as it had been before paid to the Kings his predecessors. According to the burning of thy fathers, the former Kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee. The body of King Saul was burnt after it was taken down from the walls of Bethsan, where it had been hung by the Philistins.

As to the Embalming Jesus Christ, the Evangelists inform us, that Joseph of Arimathea having begged his body, bought a white sheet to wrap it up in, and that Nicodemus purchased an hundred pound of myrrh and aloes, with which they embalmed him, and put him into Joseph of Arimathea’s sepulchre, that was dug in a rock. They could not then use more ceremony, because the night came on, and they were just upon beginning that rest which was observed upon the Sabbath. Nevertheless the women who had followed him from Galilee, designed to embalm him in a more perfect manner, as soon as they had opportunity and leisure: for this reason they remarked well the place where the Sepulchre was, and bought spices for this purpose. They rested during all the Sabbath-day, and upon Sunday early in the morning they took their spices, with an intent of going to the Sepulchre, and Embalming him; but they could not execute their design, for Jesus about midnight had risen from the dead. He had been only rubbed with myrrh and aloes, wrapped up with swaddling-bands, and buried in a great sheet, with his face covered with a napkin. This is what we observe, upon comparing the several passages of St. John, where his burial is mentioned. We see See John xix. 40. xx. 5.the same in the story of Lazarus’s resurrection, with this difference, that there is no mention made of spices.

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