Reference: Ancestor-worship
Hastings
Every people whose religious beliefs have been investigated appears to have passed through the stage of Animism, the stage in which it was believed that the spirits of those recently dead were potent to hurt those they had left behind on earth. The rites observed to-day at an Irish wake have their origin in this fear that the spirit of the dead may injure the living. There are several traces of a similar belief in the OT. When a death took place in a tent or house, every vessel which happened to be open at the time was counted unclean (Nu 19:15). It remained clean only if it had a covering tied over it. The idea was that the spirit of the dead person, escaping from the body, might take up its abode in some open vessel instead of entering the gloomy realms of Sheol. Many mourning customs find their explanation in this same dread of the spirit but lately set free from its human home. The shaving of the head and beard, the cutting of the face and breast, the tearing of the garments
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And all the vessels that be open which have no lid nor covering upon them, are unclean.
When brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not be given out unto a stranger: but her brother-in-law shall go in unto her and take her to wife and marry her. And the eldest son which she beareth, shall stand up in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out in Israel.
I have not eaten thereof in my mourning nor taken away thereof unto any uncleanness, nor spent thereof about any dead corpse: but have hearkened unto the voice of the LORD my God, and have done after all that he commanded me.
And then she took an image and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow stuffed with goat's hair under the head of it, and covered it with a cloth.
And then she took an image and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow stuffed with goat's hair under the head of it, and covered it with a cloth.
And when the messengers were come in, "Behold there lay an image in the bed, with a pillow of goat's hair under the head of it.
And when the messengers were come in, "Behold there lay an image in the bed, with a pillow of goat's hair under the head of it.
And the king said unto her, "Be not afraid. But what seest thou?" And the woman said unto Saul, "I see a god ascending up out of the earth."
and took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
Then David took his clothes and rent them, and so did all the men that were with him.
And David said to Joab and to all the people that were with him, "Rent your clothes and put on sackcloth and mourn before Abner." And king David himself followed the bier.
And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it under her upon the rock, even from the beginning of harvest until rain dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to fall on them by day nor beasts of the field by night.
In their streets were they girded about with sackcloth. In all the tops of their houses and streets was there nothing, but mourning and weeping.
The lords shall send their servants to fetch water, and when they come to the wells, they shall find no water, but shall carry their vessels home empty. They shall be ashamed and confounded, and shall cover their heads.
And in this land shall they die, old and young, and shall not be buried: no man shall beweep them, no man shall clip or shave himself for them. There shall not one visit another, to mourn with them for their dead, or to comfort them. One shall not offer another the cup of consolation, to forget their heaviness for father and mother.
there came certain men from Shechem, from Shiloh and Samaria, to the number of eighty, which had shaven their beards, rent their clothes, and were all heavy, bringing meat offerings, and incense in their hands, to offer it in the house of the LORD.
For the king of Babylon shall stand in the turning of the way, at the head of the two trees: to ask counsel at the soothsayers, casting the lots with his arrows; to ask counsel at the Idols, and to look in the liver.
Thou mayest mourn by thyself alone, but use no deadly lamentation. Hold on thy bonnet, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, cover not thy face, and eat no mourner's bread."
They pour out no wine for a drink offering unto the LORD, neither give they him their slain offerings: but they be unto them as mourner's meats, wherein all they that eat them are defiled. For the bread that they have such lust unto, shall not come into the house of the LORD.