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Manners & Customs

Funerary Customs

EASTERN FUNERALS Burial follows death quickly. The burial of the dead in the East takes place soon after death, usually the same day. The people of these regions have a primitive idea that the spirit of the one who dies, hovers near the body for three days after death. Mourners think of this spirit as being able to hear the wailing calls of grief....

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Faith and Healing

EXPECTATlON OF SUPERNATURAL POWER TO HEAL BY A REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD Dr. Trumbull has called attention to a very interesting situation which he discovered in the Orient. He says: "Another fact that sheds light upon the work of JESUS and His disciples in their ministry of healing, is the universal expectation, in the East, of the cure of disease ...

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Mourning

BIBLICAL EXPRESSIONS OF ORIENTAL MOURNING The Psalmists, Prophets, and Apostles often make use of expressions referring to Oriental mourning. Some of these cannot be appreciated by the Occidental, unless the highly emotional character of the Easterner is understood, and also his fondness for figurative language. The Psalmist says: "Rivers of wate...

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Death in Bible Times

Death in Oriental Lands THE ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE of the East toward death, and their behavior at such times, is so strikingly different from the attitude and behavior in the West that the Bible student will do well to study such customs. [Manners And Customs of Bible Lands]...

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Wailing

THE DEATH WAIL As soon as a death has taken place in the Orient, a wail is raised that announces to all the neighborhood what has happened. This is a sign for the relatives to begin demonstrating their sorrow. This death wail is referred to in connection with the first-born of Egypt, "And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and...

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Lamentation

LAMENTATION From the time the death wail is heard, until the burial takes place, relatives and friends continue their lamentation. The prophet Micah compares it to the cry of wild beasts or birds: "Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls" (Micah 1:8). Such lamen...

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Men's Ornamentation

ORNAMENTATION As a rule, Jewish men did not indulge in extravagances of dress, and there was little ornamentation among them. They often carried a cane or staff, which would be ornamented at the top, but it served the useful purpose of protecting them from half-wild dogs that abounded in the country, and was not much of an ornament. Certain men wo...

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Children's Reverence for Their Father

Reverence of the children for the father. Reverence of children for their parents, and especially the father, is well-nigh universal in the East down to modern times. Among the Arabs, it is very seldom that a son is heard of as being undutiful. It is quite customary for the child to greet the father in the morning by the kissing of his hand, and fo...

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Prefering a Baby Boy

PREFERENCE FOR BOY BABIES Among the Israel Arabs there is always a desire on the part of the mothers and fathers that the baby shall be a boy rather than a girl. A parting blessing often used by the Arabs is: May the blessings of Allah be upon thee, May your shadow never grow less, May all your children be boys and no girls.2 Boys are wanted bec...

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Education in Ancient Egypt

SCHOOLS IN EGYPT WHEN MOSES WAS A YOUNG MAN Stephen has given us the statement that Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22). A wealth of information has come to us from the land of the Nile to let us know how valuable was the law-giver's education at the expense of Egypt. Tradition has it that Moses went to school at th...

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