Good death and bad death in ancient Israel according to biblical lore

Social Science & Medicine 58 (2004) 987–995

Good death and bad death in ancient Israel according

to biblical lore

Klaas Spronk*

Theologische Universiteit, P O Box 5021, Kampen 8260 GA, Netherlands

Abstract

In the view of the ancient Israelites, as expressed in the Hebrew Bible, death is good or at least acceptable (1) after a

long life, (2) when a person dies in peace, (3) when there is continuity in the relation with the ancestors and the heirs,

and (4) when one will be buried in one’s own land. Death is experienced as bad when (1) it is premature, (2) violent,

especially when it is shameful (e.g., when a man is killed by a woman), (3) when a person does not have an heir, and (4)

when one does not receive a proper burial. It is remarkable that in the literature of ancient Israel common elements like

the cult of the dead and the belief in retribution after death, are not explicitly mentioned and therefore do not function

as a comfort for death. Also, from a theological point of view emphasis is placed on this life. A positive attitude towards

martyrdom is missing. This results in a way of coping with death which has many ‘modern’ elements or which may help

modern people to face death.

Keywords: Death; Cult of the dead; Gender; Martyrdom; Israelites; Old Testament

Introduction

This paper presents a survey of the way the people of

ancient Israel reacted to death as something to fear but

in some respects also as something to be welcomed. One

may be surprised to ﬁnd this historical study in a

collection of articles on concepts of death in different

cultures of our time: are the ancient views not super-

seded by modern insights based on the progress of

medical science? It should not be forgotten, however,

that the problem of coping with death unites people of

all times and also that many ideas in western society

have their roots via Christianity in the world of ancient

Israel. An important aspect of the view on death

concerns the conceptions of afterlife and the relation

of the living with the dead. In the way people are looking

for comfort in the idea of an afterlife or, instead, in

concentrating on this life, there appear to be some

interesting parallels between ancient and modern

thought.

Distinctive ideas of ancient Israel concerning death and

the dead

Within the ancient Near East the culture of Israel, as

it is preserved in the writings of the Hebrew Bible or—as

it usually called: Old Testament, takes a special place

when it comes to the views concerning death and

afterlife (see the surveys of W

achter, 1967; Bailey, 1979;

Bremer, Van den Hout, & Peters, 1994; Wenning,

Healey, Van den Toorn, & Podella, 1997; Tollet, 2000;

Hasenfratz, Dietrich, Vollenweider, & Stemberger,

2001). Compared to, for instance, ancient Egypt the

texts of Israelite religion are remarkably silent about

conceptions—be it positive or negative—of life after

death. And unlike, for instance, the Hittites and the

peoples of Mesopotamia, the Israelites did not seem to

be familiar with a cult of dead, in which the deceased

ancestors are venerated and believed to have divine

power to help or harm the living. The idea of a

resurrection of the dead and of retribution of one’s

deeds after death, as is well known in the New

Testament, makes its ﬁrst clear appearance in Judaism

at the end of the second century BC. Before that time the

ancient Israelites had other ways of coping with death.

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*Beethovenlaan 17, Culemborg 4102 BM, Netherlands.

E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Spronk).

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2003.10.035

There is reason to assume, however, that this picture

derived from the Hebrew Bible does not completely

cover the historical reality. It probably expresses the

ideas of a particular segment of the ancient Israel society

in a particular period, namely the years shortly after the

Babylonian exile (587 BC), when an important part of

the Hebrew Bible was preserved or written down in the

form we know it. When it comes to the evidence of the

material remains the burial customs of the Israelites do

not seem to have been clearly different from those of

their neighbours (Bloch-Smith, 1992; Wenning, 2000).

Within the Hebrew bible one comes across a number

of—usually indirect—indications of a folk religion that

has much in common with the condemned heathen

practises found among the Canaanites. This includes the

widespread cult of the dead, which is clearly rejected in a

number of legal texts but more or less taken for granted

in many stories as a kind of ‘hidden heritage’ (Van der

Toorn, 1996). Many of the ancient Israelites must have

shared the ancient Near East common ideas about some

sort of a divine state of the dead. Because of their threat

to pure monotheism they were suppressed in the literary

sources, but we have to take into account the possibility

that they inﬂuenced the feelings about a good or a bad

death (Spronk, 1986; Xella, 1995; Day, 1996, 2000).

Death and the relation to God

In the Hebrew Bible most things are seen and

described in their relation to (the belief in) the God of

Israel. The story of the ﬁrst sin introduces death as

something which marks the difference between God and

man. By achieving knowledge Adam and Eve have

become close to God, but He does not let them conquer

death:

Then the LORD God said, ‘See, the man has become

like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he

might reach out his hand and take also from the tree

of life, and eat, and live forever. (Genesis 3:22;

quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard

Version, 1989)

In this way the divinely installed order is preserved.

Death helps man to remember that God created man

from the soil.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until

you return to the ground, for out of it you were

taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return’.

(Genesis 3:19)

Man cannot escape death. In the Hebrew Bible we

only ﬁnd two exceptions to this rule. In Genesis 5:25

we hear of Enoch living very close to God: he ‘walked

with God’. Unlike the other men of old mentioned in

this chapter it is not reported of Enoch that he died at a

certain age. Instead ‘God took him’. This suggests that

the close relation with God continued even though

Enoch was no longer among the living. Nothing is

told about the way this should be pictured. The Hebrew

Bible keeps to the strict separation between the human

and the divine sphere. More details about the way a

human being can be ‘taken’ by God are given in

the story of the ascension of the prophet Elijah (2 Kings

2). Before the eyes of his servant Elishah he is taken

away to heaven by a ‘chariot of ﬁre’ drawn by ‘horses of

ﬁre’. We are not informed, again, about what precisely

happened with Elijah hereafter. The emphasis in the

story of his remarkable ‘passing away’ is on the apparent

special relation with God. It is the ultimate conﬁrmation

of his pious life: on this special occasion death as the

symbol of the broken bond between God and man

disappears.

The fate of Enoch and Elijah was believed to be

extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is characteristic of the

biblical view on life and death that in certain ways a

close relation between mortal man and God lets the

strict separation between life and death fade away. This

is beautifully illustrated in Psalm 73. The poet ﬁnds

comfort with regard to the many unresolved questions

about justice and injustice in human life by looking at

the relation with God. From a close relation to God one

gets a new perspective on life and death:

Nevertheless I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will receive me with honor.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than

you.

My ﬂesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion

forever.

Indeed, those who are far from you will perish;

you put an end to those who are false to you. (Psalm

73:23–27)

It is interesting to note that the poet uses an

expression (here translated with ‘you will receive me’)

which also returns in both the story of Enoch and of

Elijah indicating the action of God taking them to

heaven. Whereas Enoch and Elijah seem to escape

death, Psalm 73 points to the belief that the pious is

rescued by God from a miserable state after death. The

poet remains reluctant in describing the situation. He

only speaks of ‘afterward’. It is more important for him

to ﬁnd an answer to the problems of life. He ﬁnds his

inspiration to hold on in this life because of this belief

that the beneﬁts of the close relation to God will prove

to be stronger than the present distress.

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The negative counterpart of this view is that life in

which one does not experience the presence God can be

regarded as being already in the power of death. A good

example of this is Psalm 88. In utter despair the poet

describes himself as residing in the realm of death. Being

dead is a simile for life that apparently does not deserve

to be called life.

O LORD, God of my salvation, when, at night,

I cry out in your presence,

let my prayer come before you;

incline your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol [= the world of the

dead, KS].

I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;

I am like those who have no help,

like those forsaken among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the Pit,

in the regions dark and deep. (Psalm 88:1–6)

Such texts indicate that one has to be careful with

using our modern western ideas about life and death

when describing these ancient views. The old answers

will not simply ﬁt to the new questions. Modern man is

accustomed to a sharp distinction between life and

death, based on medical grounds. As a matter of speech

one can say: ‘he has one foot in the grave’, indicating

that this person is near death or very old, but not

actually dead yet. In ancient Israelite thought death can

be regarded as a reality even though one may still be

alive. Our exclamation ‘that is no life!’, indicating a

miserable state of being, is taken literally in the Hebrew

Bible. Because the ‘escape’ of retribution in some sort of

afterlife is missing or at least not used, this puts extra

emphasis on the question of quality in this life.

As a rule death is regarded as an enemy and as such

not given much thought. It is simply taking for granted

as an inescapable part of life and part of the order

established by God:

Good things and bad, life and death, poverty and

wealth, come from the Lord. (Sirach 11:14)

God brings death, but He is certainly not a god of

death like, for instance, the Canaanite god Mot residing

in the netherworld. Once dead, man is no longer is his

presence.

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in

Sheol who can give you praise? (Psalm 6:5)

In life the God of Israel does not want to be

associated with death. A dead body is considered as

central cause of impurity. According to Numbers 19:11

anyone who has touched a corpse is impure for seven

days. For priests standing closer to God the rules are

even stronger. In Leviticus 21 we read that a normal

priest is not allowed to touch a dead person other than

close relatives. A high priest should not come close to

any dead person. The prophetic interdiction of mourn-

ing practices (see the discussion below) can be seen

within the same framework: too much attention for

death and the dead detracts from the correct veneration

of the God of Israel.

A more positive attitude towards death as such is only

found with those who experience life as problematic, like

Job. Death would be a deliverance, giving peace and

making all persons equal:

There the wicked cease from troubling,

and there the weary are at rest.

There the prisoners are at ease together;

they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.

The small and the great are there,

and the slaves are free from their masters.

Why is light given to one in misery,

and life to the bitter in soul,

who long for death, but it does not come,

and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;

who rejoice exceedingly,

and are glad when they ﬁnd the grave? (Job 3:17–22)

When death ﬁnally arrives, the tone has changed. Job

is cured now from his diseases and has enjoyed a long

and happy life together with his family. His death is not

a problem:

After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and

saw his children, and his children’s children, four

generations. And Job died, old and full of days. (Job

42:16–17)

Is this death good or bad? The text does not explicitly

tell us. It only reports the reader that eventually Job’s

life turned out to be good. By stating this together with

the reference to his death, it suggests that a fulﬁlled life

makes death acceptable. This positive ending of Job’s

life was already predicted by his friend Elifaz:

You shall know that your tent is safe,

you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing.

You shall know that your descendants will be many,

and your offspring like the grass of the earth.

You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,

as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing ﬂoor in

its season. (Job 5:24–26)

As the comparison with the harvest shows, death can

be regarded and accepted as natural. This is conﬁrmed

by other biblical stories about some people’s death. Next

to the criteria of a long life and of seeing one’s offspring

we will also ﬁnd there some elements referring to death

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itself, namely whether it was peaceful or not and on

what place it occurred.

The story of the good death of Abraham

From the Bible we know Abraham as the man who

was summoned by God to leave his homeland and

family and to whom was given the promise of land and

of many descendants (Genesis 12:1–2). After a long

struggle to get his own place in the land to which

God directed him and after many trails and tribula-

tions concerning his sons Ishmael and Isaac it is told

that at the end of his life he gets six more sons. Then

Abraham dies:

This is the length of Abraham’s life, one hundred

seventy-ﬁve years. Abraham breathed his last and

died in a good old age, an old man and full of years,

and was gathered to his people. His sons Isaac and

Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the

ﬁeld of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, east of

Mamre, the ﬁeld that Abraham purchased from the

Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with his wife

Sarah. After the death of Abraham God blessed his

son Isaac. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi.

(Genesis 25:7–11)

We have here the best example in the Hebrew Bible of

what one could call a good death. This was already

announced and interpreted as a gift of God, because He

had given him this promise:

You shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be

buried in a good old age. (Genesis 15:15)

The ﬁrst element of the good death is the ‘good old

age’. It is regarded as a blessing of God (cf. Psalm 91:16;

Isaiah 53:10; 65:20; Zechariah 8:4). The old age can be

called good because the promises given to Abraham

were fulﬁlled during his own lifetime.

In later Jewish and Jewish–Christian writings we read

of Abraham being in heaven. According to a parable

told by Jesus Abraham receives a man who is poor in

life, but fortunate in his death ‘in his bosom’:

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in

purple and ﬁne linen, and fared sumptuously every

day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus,

which was laid at his gate, full of sores. And desiring

to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich

man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his

sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and

was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the

rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell he lift

up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham

afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. (Luke 16:19–23)

According to this belief the injustice of undeserved

suffering is compensated in life after death. It also solves

the problem of just people passing away relatively

young. In the book of Wisdom (ﬁrst century BC) this

problem is solved by pointing to the blessings the

righteous await after death. Fulﬁlment of life is not to be

sought in the number of years, as with Abraham.

Quality (‘understanding’ and ‘a blameless life’) comes

before quantity:

But the righteous, though they die early, will be at

rest. For old age is not honored for length of time, or

measured by number of years; but understanding is

gray hair for anyone, and a blameless life is ripe old

age. There were some who pleased God and were

loved by him, and while living among sinners were

taken up. They were caught up so that evil might not

change their understanding or guile deceive their

souls. (Wisdom 4:7–11)

In a number of writings that can be dated in the

second century BC we ﬁnd attested a belief in a life after

death, in which God brings to justice all human beings.

Even death by torture can be placed in a positive light,

as is demonstrated in 2 Maccabees 7, the story of a

mother and her seven sons losing their life but keeping

their faith in the confrontation with a very cruel heathen

king. In the last words of one of the sons against the

executioner we ﬁnd it clearly formulated:

One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals

and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised

again by him. But for you there will be no

resurrection to life! (2 Maccabees 7:14)

With exception of the late text (second century BC)

Daniel 12 there is no explicit reference in the Hebrew

Bible of this kind of comfort of a belief in retribution in

the hereafter. Fulﬁlment must be found in this life.

One does not speak euphemistically of death as

resting in peace, but one does hope to die in peace, as

was promised to Abraham. The last king of Judah

awaits a similar end, which was not at all self-evident in

a period of threat by the Babylonian empire. The

prophet Jeremiah lets him know:

Yet hear the word of the LORD, O King Zedekiah of

Judah! Thus says the LORD concerning you: You

shall not die by the sword; you shall die in peace. And

as spices were burned for your ancestors, the earlier

kings who preceded you, so they shall burn spices for

you and lament for you, saying, ‘Alas, lord!’ For I

have spoken the word, says the LORD. (Jeremiah

34:4–5)

In order to ﬁnd rest after death it is important that the

deceased receives a proper funeral, just like his

predecessors. This includes the traditional mourning

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rites. In general, mourning lasted seven days. The

deceased was lamented with cries. Prominent persons

were honored with special mourning songs. Grief was

also expressed through one’s clothing. The clothes were

torn, sandals and the headdress were taken off, and one

put on a sackcloth. Someone mourning stopped washing

and anointing oneself. Instead, he or she rolled in ashes

and dust. It was also put on the head. One let the hair

hang down, tore it out or cut part of the hair and beard.

The mourner beat himself or even cut himself with a

knife. During the period of mourning one fasted,

although there sometimes were also funeral meals. The

precise meaning and background of these rites is

disputed. They can be interpreted as attempts to bring

about a ritual communion between the living and the

dead. The mourner tries to give something of his bodily

strength, represented by the hair and the ﬂesh or food to

support it, to transfer a part of the vitality of the living

to the deceased (Van der Toorn, 1996, p. 210). One can

also see these mourning customs as a means of

sympathetic identiﬁcation of the living with the dead:

the living express their communion with the dead by

acting as if they were dead themselves as having

descended into the netherworld as the land of the dust

and as if their bodies are also decaying (Spronk, 1986,

pp. 244–247). Be this as it may, it is clear that the fate of

the dead is regarded as pitiful.

Some of these mourning customs are probably

originally related to the cult of the dead, which was

based on the belief that the dead and the living could

mutually support each other. These ideas may have

persisted in folk religion, as can be derived from attested

practices of necromancy. In the Hebrew Bible, however,

the world of the dead and the world of the living are

strictly separated. Comfort for the mourning has to be

found in this life. This can be clearly demonstrated with

the story of David, Bathseba and their grief concerning

their ﬁrst born son. Because of their adulterous relation-

ship this boy is doomed to die. God strikes him with a

deadly disease. David mourns as if the child was already

dead, but not as an act of despair. Apparently he hopes

for a turning of the fate. When it not arrives, he stops

mourning. Together with Bathseba he ﬁnds comfort in

the conception and birth of a new son.

And the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife

(Bathseba, KS) bare unto David, and it was very

sick. David therefore besought God for the child; and

David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the

earth. And the elders of his house arose, and went to

him, to raise him up from the earth; but he would

not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it came

to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And

the servants of David feared to tell him that the child

was dead; for they said, Behold, while the child was

yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not

hearken unto our voice; how will he then vex himself,

if we tell him that the child is dead? But when David

saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that

the child was dead; therefore David said unto his

servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.

Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and

anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came

into the house of the LORD, and worshiped; then he

came to his own house; and when he required, they

set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his

servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast

done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it

was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst

rise and eat bread. And he said, While the child was

yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell

whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child

may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I

fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him,

but he shall not return to me. And David comforted

Bathseba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with

her; and she bare a son, and he called his name

Solomon: and the LORD loved him. (2 Samuel

12:15–24)

Burial is often described as ‘going to the ancestors’ or

being ‘gathered to his people’. The connection with the

generations, both the preceding and the following, is an

important element of the good death. The common way

to be related to one’s ancestors is by being buried in the

family tomb and by being named together in the

genealogy. Also the relation to future generations and

the certainty that the family line is not broken is an

important comfort for the dying. This is illustrated by

the remark of Jacob (here named Israel) after he is

reunited with Joseph, be it that Joseph was not his only

son but his favourite:

I can die now, having seen for myself that you are

still alive. (Genesis 46:30)

Another important element, which can be found with

all three patriarchs, is the combination of dying in peace

and having offspring. The history of the patriarchs

repeats itself when it comes to the difﬁculties between

their sons: Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph

and his brothers. As we read in Genesis 25:9, Isaac and

Ishmael came together again to bury their father. The

same is said of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 35:29 and of

Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 50:13. Comparing

these reports of the death and burial of the patriarchs

one can also note a ﬁnal criterion for a good death: one

must be buried in one’s own land. With regard to

Abraham it was emphasised that the tomb for him and

his wife was properly acquired. Isaac and Jacob are

buried there as well. To do so, the sons of Jacob have to

make a long journey from Egypt. One can refer in this

connection also to the last wish of the 80 years old

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Barzillai in response to David’s offer to stay at the royal

court:

Please let your servant return, so that I may die in my

own town, near the graves of my father and my

mother. (2 Samuel 19:37)

To sum up, what makes death good or at least

acceptable is: (1) having lived a long life; (2) dying in

peace; (3) continuity in the relation with ancestors and

heirs; (4) being properly buried in one’s own land.

The story of the bad death of Absalom

After we have listed the elements which make death

more or less acceptable we can now simply turn them

around to describe the ancient Israelite idea of a bad

death. Over against the story of the good death of

Abraham we can put the sad story of how Absalom, one

of the sons of David, came to his end. He had violently

taken the throne of his father, but was not able to keep it

due to bad advisors. The army of Absalom is defeated

by the forces that had stayed loyal to David. At his ﬂight

Absalom is killed by the general of his father’s army.

This is a clear example of a premature death, which is

underlined by the fact that when a messenger reports of

the outcome of the battle both he and the king speak of

Absalom as a young man:

The king said to the Cushite, ‘Is it well with the

young man Absalom?’ The Cushite answered, ‘May

the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up

to do you harm, be like that young man’. The king

was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over

the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, ‘O my

son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had

died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’ (2

Samuel 18:32–33)

In the wisdom literature and in the Psalms dying

young is regarded as a punishment of God:

The godless in heart cherish anger;

they do not cry for help when he binds them.

They die in their youth,

and their life ends in shame. (Job 36:13–14)

But you, O God, will cast them down into the lowest

pit;

the bloodthirsty and treacherous shall not live out

half their days.

But I will trust in you. (Psalm 55:23)

The fear of the LORD prolongs life,

but the years of the wicked will be short. (Proverbs

10:27)

When the pious king Hezekiah is assailed by a deathly

disease he cries out to God that death comes too early.

He describes himself as being part already of the world

of the dead, sounding like the spirits of the dead in

necromancy (cf. Isaiah 8:19):

In the noontide of my days I must depart; I am

consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my

years.

Like a swallow or a crane I clamor, I moan like a dove.

My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am

oppressed; be my security! (Isaiah 38:10, 14)

Absalom died by the sword; a violent death. From the

story of the end of King Saul in the battle against the

Philistines we learn that it is felt to be even worse when

death comes from the hand of a despised person, in this

case the heathen (‘uncircumcised’) enemy. Saul prefers

to be killed by his servant. Eventually he escapes from a

shameful death in suicide, which is a rare phenomenon

in the Hebrew Bible and more associated with despair

than with honor:

The battle pressed hard upon Saul; the archers found

him, and he was badly wounded by them. Then Saul

said to his armor-bearer, ‘Draw your sword and

thrust me through with it, so that these uncircum-

cised may not come and thrust me through, and

make sport of me’. But his armor-bearer was

unwilling; for he was terriﬁed. So Saul took his

own sword and fell upon it. (1 Samuel 31:3–4; see on

suicide also the story of Abimelech referred to below

and the article of Kottek in Tollet, 2000)

We are also informed that Absalom died with no

surviving heir. According to 2 Samuel 18:18 he had

erected a monument for himself, because he had ‘no son

to keep my name in remembrance’. For the reader who

is acquainted with the book of Genesis this is an

ominous piece of information. It recalls the intentions of

the builders of the tower of Babel ‘to make themselves a

name’ (Genesis 11:4). God had prevented this by

confusing their language. Instead, He made a new

beginning with Abram, promising to make his name

great (Genesis 12:2). The provisions by Absalom to

preserve his name can be interpreted as an act of pride

and as one of the reasons for his coming downfall.

This brings us to the fourth criterion for death being

either good or bad: the proper burial in one’s own grave,

which is the normal place where someone’s name is kept

in remembrance. We hear nothing of a burial of

Absalom or of David taking away the shame of being

left unburied, like he did with Saul and Jonathan as he

brought up their bones from the town where the

Philistines had hung their corpses and buried them in

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the tomb of his father Kish (2 Samuel 21:13–14). Only

your worst enemy deserves to be deprived of this care

after death:

I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam. I will

cut off from Jeroboam every male, both bond and

free in Israel, and will consume the house of

Jeroboam, just as one burns up dung until it is all

gone. Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the

city, the dogs shall eat; and anyone who dies in the

open country, the birds of the air shall eat; for the

LORD has spoken. (1 Kings 14:10–11; cf. also

Deuteronomy 16:4)

Judges, kings and the question of a heroic death

Modern people are accustomed to the idea of heroic

death as a good death. It is part of the Greek tradition

(Socrates). One could also see the death of Jesus Christ,

as it is described in the New Testament, within this

framework. Within Christianity and the Islam the

martyrs who died for their faith are greatly honored

and believed to be rewarded in the afterlife. The ancient

Israelites were not familiar with this idea. This can be

illustrated by a survey of the stories in which one would

have expected to ﬁnd it: about the ancient Israelite

heroes called judges, followed by the history of the

kings.

As could be expected from one of the most violent

parts of the Hebrew Bible the book of Judges contains

many reports of people being killed in different ways.

The stories told here form a bridge between the history

of the conquest and taking of the Promised Land under

Joshua and the beginning of kingship with the anoint-

ment of Saul. One notices a gradual decline from the

successful undertakings under the unquestioned leader-

ship of Joshua towards the bloody ﬁghts between the

different tribes as described at the end of the book. The

repeated remark in the ﬁnal chapters that ‘there was no

king in Israel’ prepares the reader for the new

phenomenon in Israelite history of a king as a bringer

and guarantee of order and peace. This story line is

illustrated by the different references to the way the

leading characters come to their end. All elements which

make death either good or bad, as they were described

above, return within this context.

The book begins with a reference to the death of

Joshua. This was described at the end of the previous

book, in Joshua 24:29. He died at the ripe age of 110

years. He was buried in his own newly inherited

property after God had given peace to Israel with

nothing to fear from its enemies (Joshua 23:1). We know

nothing of Joshua’s descendants, but he himself spoke in

his ﬁnal address to this people of ‘me and my house’

(Joshua 24:15), indicating that his own family line would

continue. So Joshua died in all respects a good death.

The enemies of Israel, on the contrary, still awaited—

just as in the book of Joshua—death by the hand of the

Israelites. In the book of Judges we receive more details

about the way they loose their life indicating how they

passed away in shame and dishonour.

The ﬁrst bad death of which the book of Judges

reports concerns Adonibezek, king of Jerusalem (Judges

1:6–7). After he is defeated in battle by the tribe of

Judah he ﬂees but is caught. Then they cut off his

thumbs and big toes and bring him to Jerusalem. There

he dies. It is not clear whether he was executed or died

from his injuries or lived for some time in prison. So

much is certain that he was humiliated and did not die in

peace in his own land; a bad death.

The second story about the—again, shameful—death

of an enemy is found in Judges 3. The Israelites are

groaning under the yoke of king Eglon of Moab. He is

described as ‘a very fat man’. The Israelite judge Ehud

succeeds in passing the arms control of his court by

taking a short sword and carrying it under his cloths at

his right side. The Moabite soldiers only checked the

usual left side, because that is the place for a right-

hander to keep his weapon. After being allowed a

private audience Ehud

reached with his left hand, took the sword from his

right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon’s belly; the hilt

also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over

the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his

belly; and the dirt came out. Then Ehud went out

into the vestibule, and closed the doors of the roof

chamber on him, and locked them. After he had

gone, the servants came. When they saw that the

doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought,

‘He must be relieving himself in the cool chamber’.

So they waited until they were embarrassed. When he

still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they

took the key and opened them. There was their lord

lying dead on the ﬂoor. (Judges 3:21–25)

The third in this horrible row is Sisera, the general of a

Canaanite army. After defeat by the Israelites he ﬂees

and is offered shelter in the tent by a woman named Jael.

Like a mother she covers him with a blanket and gives

him milk to drink. But when he is lying fast asleep from

weariness Jael takes a tent peg and a hammer in her

hand, goes softly to him and drives the peg into his

temple, ‘until it went down into the ground’ (Judges

4:21). A shameful death, by the hand of woman who

treated him as a child but murdered him as if he was an

animal. The following song of victory describes his

mother waiting in vain (Judges 5:28). Her son died on

foreign ground.

The next enemies to die a violent death are the

Midianite captains Oreb and Zeeb. According to Judges

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7:25 they are captured on their ﬂight and beheaded.

Their heads are brought to the leader of the Israelites,

judge Gideon. When he takes prisoner two other

Midianite opponents he orders his son to kill them.

Apparently he wants to avenge in this way the murder

on his brothers. The murderers escape this humiliating

death by the hand of a youngster because Gideon’s son

does not have the nerve to do so.

Gideon himself dies a good death:

So Midian was subdued before the Israelites, and

they lifted up their heads no more. So the land had

rest forty years in the days of Gideon. Jerubbaal son

of Joash went to live in his own house. Now Gideon

had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many

wives. His concubine who was in Shechem also bore

him a son, and he named him Abimelech. Then

Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age, and was

buried in the tomb of his father Joash at Ophrah of

the Abiezrites. (Judges 8:28–32)

This report contains all elements which make death

acceptable: peace, offspring, a good old age, a decent

burial in his own land. The prospects were promising.

His successor was named Abimelech, which means

‘father is king’, indicating that Gideon hoped to be

remembered as the founder of a dynasty. The story,

however, takes a different turn. The good death of

Gideon marks the end of an era. From now on a bad

death will no longer be restricted to the enemy. The ﬁrst

to experience this is Gideon’s son Abimelech. He was no

worthy successor of his father. To secure his status he

had butchered nearly all his brothers—a violent,

premature, bad death for these prominent Israelites

(Judges 9:5). He himself suffers the humiliation of being

nearly killed by a woman, during the attack of an

Israelite town which refused to acknowledge his

authority:

a certain woman threw an upper millstone on

Abimelech’s head, and crushed his skull. Immedi-

ately he called to the young man who carried his

armor and said to him, ‘Draw your sword and kill

me, so people will not say about me, ‘A woman killed

him’’. So the young man thrust him through, and he

died. (Judges 9:53–54)

The ﬁnal blow may have been given by a man, the

woman is responsible for this shameful death. Abime-

lech suffers the fate that was reserved earlier for enemies

like Sisera: to be killed by a woman using her own

‘weapon’.

The next story of a bad death is the history of the

judge Jephtah and his daughter. Now, for the ﬁrst time,

we come across something which seems to come close to

what could be called a heroic death. The heroine gives

her life for the good cause. However, in the way it is

described here, her death can hardly be interpreted as

positive. The story tells how Jephtah is responsible for

the death of his beloved daughter, his only child. He has

to offer her due to a rash vow made to God:

If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then

whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet

me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites,

shall be the LORD’s, to be offered up by me as a

burnt offering. (Judges 11:30–31)

When after his safe return his daughter appears to be

the ﬁrst to greet him he feels obliged to ‘do with her

according to the vow he had made’ (Judges 11:39). The

reader is saved the details, but is reminded of the fact

that the girl died without leaving offspring. So with her

Jephtah also lost one of the means to cope with death.

The emphasis in this story is clearly not on the death of

the obedient daughter, but on her father who is punished

for his pride: he thought that he could negotiate with

God—as he did earlier with the Israelites and Ammo-

nites—to secure his own well-being.

In the period of Jephtah as a judge also a civil war

took place in which a number of Israelite tribes fought

against the tribe of Ephraim. They killed 42,000 of their

fellow countrymen (Judges 12:6). The death of Jephtah

is reported in Judges 12:7. Like the next three judges we

only hear of the number of years in which he worked as

a judge in Israel and of a burial in the own land. Of two

of these following judges it is told that they have

numerous offspring. This underlines the sadness of

Jephtah’s fate and also functions as an introduction to

the now following story of Samson, the son of two

people who had given up hope to have children.

The story of the death of Samson is well known.

Within the context of the book of Judges it can be

compared to what happened to Sisera and Abimelech: it

was caused by a woman. Like Jael Delilah nursed

Samson as a mother as she lets him ‘fall asleep on her

lap’ before she lets someone shave off the seven locks of

his head (Judges 16:19). As with Abimelech the ﬁnal

blow is not given by the woman. Samson kills himself

and with him many of his enemies. This end and also the

following burial can be regarded as ‘extenuating

circumstances’ of this violent death:

Then Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines.’

He strained with all his might; and the house fell on

the lords and all the people who were in it. So those

he killed at his death were more than those he had

killed during his life. Then his brothers and all his

family came down and took him and brought him up

and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the

tomb of his father Manoah. (Judges 16:30–31)

One could call this a heroic death, but within the

context of the book of Judges this is not to the point.

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Samson dies in the way he has lived. He never planned

his actions and only reacted to the circumstances. He

never acted on behalf of his people, but only to defend

or in the end to avenge himself. In the end we hear of a

proper burial, but nothing of some kind of veneration.

Two examples of a bad death in the ﬁnal chapters of the

book of Judges serve to illustrate the dire straits in which

the Israelites had come without good leadership.

Chapter 19 reports of the brutal rape and murder of a

young woman and the next chapter of the merciless

killing of thousands of Benjaminite men as a reaction to

this crime.

It may have become clear that in the book of Judges

the stories about the way people die tell it all about the

deteriorating situation of Israel. A new beginning was

made with king Saul, but as his death described above

shows, this was hardly an improvement. He died on the

battleﬁeld, together with his son Jonathan. In a song

mourning over their death David honors them as great

warriors (2 Samuel 1), but here nor in any other text

about kings and heroes of ancient Israel death is in one

way or another positively interpreted within the sphere

of martyrdom. There is no lack of candidates. For

instance, the pious and much praised king Josiah died

young in a brave battle against the powerful army of the

Egyptians. But in 2 Kings 23:29–30 this is reported

without further comment. In the parallel story in 2

Chronicles 35:22 his untimely death is explained as a

misunderstanding between him and God. The exception

to the rule is found in the book of the prophet Isaiah, in

which we hear of a mysterious ‘Servant of the Lord’

whose suffering and death was for the beneﬁt of his

people (Isaiah 53). In the New Testament this text is

used for the interpretation of the death of Jesus Christ.

Typical for the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Israelite

ideas in this matter is the report of the death of the

greatest king of Israel. David dies in an old age, after

having ruled for 40 years, leaving an heir on the throne

and he is buried in his own city (1 Kings 2:10–11; cf. 1

Chronicles 29:28). Death is not a menace to David. He

can accept it as normal:

‘I am about to go the way of all the earth’. (1 Kings

2:2)

The Hebrew bible testiﬁes that it is a precious gift of

God when man can look at his own death in this way.

Modern therapists will be happy achieving the same

result with terminal patients having to accept their

situation.

Conclusion

Is this survey of ancient Israelite ideas according to

the Hebrew Bible about death relevant to our under-

standing of modern approaches to this subject? One may

note many correspondences. The ancient Israelites seem

to react to death in a ‘modern’ way, especially in their

sober accepting death as a reality. Depending on the

situation of the person involved, death can be regarded

as a menace but also as an acceptable natural fact.

Characteristic of the ancient Israelite view on death is

that it not sees death in the ﬁrst place as the door to a life

after death, but primarily as the conclusion of this life. It

is the quality of life before death and not the menace or

comfort of some sort of afterlife which is deciding for

seeing death as good or bad.

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