2 Chronicles 16:14 - Exposition

In his own sepulchres ; Hebrew, קִבְרֹתָין ; fem. plur. of קֶבֶר . The plural designates, of course, the range of burial compartments that formed the tomb of one person or family. So Job 17:1 , where the masc. plur. is used, קְבָרִים לִי . In the city of David (see note on 2 Chronicles 12:16 ). In the bed ; Hebrew, מִשְׁכָּב . The use or associations of this word (found about fifty times) are almost entirely, if not entirely, those of the bed of nightly rest, even when not at the time speaking of nightly rest; and this is the first and only occasion that it is employed to link the grave in kindly analogy with the couch of bodily repose during lifetime. The fact might have suggested Bishop Ken's lines in the evening hymn—

" Teach me to live, that I may dread

The grave as little as my bed. "

In the present instance, however, the writer, whoever he was (query, was he the compiler of our Chronicles, or his original?), is doubt-leas led to the analogy by considerations mere earthly than those enshrined in Ken's hymn, viz. by the somewhat "vain show" of attractiveness and fragrance (probably designed partly for preservative purposes) with which the place was filled, and which were among even patriarchal indications of faith in a future state. Sweet odours ; Hebrew, כְּשָׂמִים . Of the twenty-nine times that this word occurs in Exodus, Kings, and Chronicles, Esther, Canticles, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, it is rendered in the Authorized Vermon "spices" twenty-four times, "sweet cinnamon" once, "sweet calamus" once, and "sweet odours" or "sweet smell" three times. The chief and determining references are those in Exodus 25:6 ; Exodus 30:23 ; Exodus 35:8 , Exodus 35:28 . And divers kinds ; Hebrew, וּזְנִים ; plur. of זַן ; from the root, זָנַן ; unused, but probably one with an Amble root, meaning "to shape;" hence our noun, meaning a kind or species, used here and Psalms 144:13 , and in the Chaldee of Daniel 3:5 , Daniel 3:7 , Daniel 3:10 , Daniel 3:15 . Prepared ; Hebrew, מְרֻקָּחִיס ; solitary occurrence of pual conjugation of the root רָקַח , "to spice," i.e; to spice, season, or prepare oil for ointment purposes. This root occurs in kal future once ( Exodus 30:33 ); in kal part. poel five times ( Exodus 30:25 , 85; Exodus 37:29 ; 1 Chronicles 9:1-44 :80; Ecclesiastes 10:1 ); and in hiph. infin. once ( Ezekiel 24:10 ). By the apothecaries' art ; Hebrew, בְמִרְקַחַת מַעֲשֲׂה . Translate the clause, and divers kinds compounded by the compounding of art, which means to say spices skilfully treated and wrought into ointments by professional hands. A very great burning ; literally, and they burned for him a burning great even to an exceeding extent . The burn ing is not the burning of 1 Samuel 31:12 , 1 Samuel 31:13 , but the burning of spices, indicated by the language of our 2 Chronicles 21:19 and Jeremiah 34:5 .