Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
(erring), king of Hamath on the Orontes, who, after the defeat of his powerful enemy the Syrian
king Hadadezer by the army of David, sent his son Joram or Hadoram to congratulate the victory
and do him homage with presents of gold and silver and brass. (2 Samuel 8:9,10) (B.C. 1036.)
Tola
•The
first-born of Issachar and ancestor of the Tolaiters. (Genesis 46:13; Numbers 26:23; 1
Chronicles 7:1,2) (B.C. about 1700.)
•Judge of Israel after Abimelech. (Judges 10:1,2) He is described as “the son of Puah the son of
Dodo, a man of Issachar.” Tola judged Israel for twenty-three years at Shamir in Mount Ephraim,
where he died and was buried. (B.C. 1206-1183.)
Tolad
one of the towns of Simeon, (1 Chronicles 4:29) elsewhere called El-tolad.
Tolaites, The
the descendants of Tola the son of Issachar. (Numbers 26:23)
Tomb
From the burial of Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, (Genesis 23:19) to the funeral rites prepared
for Dorcas, (Acts 9:37) there is no mention of any sarcophagus, or even coffin, in any Jewish burial.
Still less were the rites of the Jews like those of the Pelasgi or Etruscans. They were marked with
the same simplicity that characterized all their religious observances. This simplicity of rite led to
what may be called the distinguishing characteristic of Jewish sepulchres—the deep loculus—which,
so far as is now known, is universal in all purely Jewish rock-cut tombs, but hardly known elsewhere.
Its form will be understood by referring to the following diagram, representing the forms of Jewish
sepulture. In the apartment marked A there are twelve such loculi about two feet in width by three
feet high. On the ground floor these generally open on the level of the door; when in the upper
story, as at C, on a ledge or platform, on which the body might be laid to be anointed, and on which
the stones might rest which closed the outer end of each loculus. The shallow loculus is shown in
chamber B, but was apparently only used when sarcophagi were employed, and therefore, so far
as we know, only during the Graeco-Roman period, when foreign customs came to be adopted.
The shallow loculus would have been singularly inappropriate and inconvenient where an
unembalmed body was laid out to decay, as there would evidently be no means of shutting it off
from the rest of the catacomb. The deep loculus, on the other hand, was strictly conformable with
Jewish customs, and could easily be closed by a stone fitted to the end and luted into the groove
which usually exists there. This fact is especially interesting as it affords a key to much that is
otherwise hard to be understood in certain passages in the New Testament; Thus in (John 11:59)
Jesus says, “Take away the stone,” and (ver. 40) “they took away the stone” without difficulty,
apparently. And in ch. (John 20:1) the same expression is used “the stone is taken away.” There is
one catacomb— that known as the “tomb of the kings”—which is closed by a stone rolled across
its entrance; but it is the only one, and the immense amount of contrivance and fitting which it has
required is sufficient proof that such an arrangement was not applied to any other of the numerous
rock tombs around Jerusalem nor could the traces of it have been obliterated had if anywhere
existed. Although, therefore, the Jews were singularly free from the pomps and vanities of funereal
magnificence, they were at all stages of their independent existence an eminently burying people.
Tombs of the patriarchs .—One of the most striking events in the life of Abraham is the purchase
of the field of Ephron the Hittite at Hebron, in which was the cave of Machpelah, in order that he
might therein bury Sarah his wife, and that it might be a sepulchre for himself and his children.
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William Smith