Bier

See BURIAL.

Bier [BURIAL]

Bier. See Burial; Sepulchres, 1.

(מַטָּה, mittah’, a bed, as elsewhere, 2Sa 3:31; σορός, a funereal urn, hence an open coffin or burial-couch, Luk 7:14). SEE BURIAL.

Bier. Luk 7:14 See Burial.

A light frame or couch on which the dead could be carried. 2Sa 3:31; Luk 7:14. The Hebrew word mittah is often translated ’bed.’

BIER.—The Gr. word σορός (Heb. סִמָה, 2Sa 3:31), ‘bier,’ more strictly means ‘a coffin.’ Luk 7:14 is the only place where the word appears in the NT. The bier was an open coffin, or simply a flat wooden frame on which the body of the dead was carried to the grave. Closed coffins were not used in the time of our Lord. According to the Levitical Law, contact with a dead body was forbidden as a source of defilement (Num 19:11-14). In raising to life the widow’s son at Nain, Jesus, by touching the bier only, avoided any infringement of the letter of the Law. But the miracle, prompted by that same intense sympathy with human sorrow which He so strikingly manifested on another occasion (Joh 11:35), pointed to a higher and more authoritative law—that Divine eternal law of compassion which received its freest and fullest expression for the first time in His own life, and which forms one of the most distinctive features of His Gospel.

Dugald Clark.

BIER.—See Mourning Customs, Tomb.

(Anglo-Saxon: beran, carry)

The framework on which the corpse or containing coffin is laid before burial or is carried to the grave.

bēr:

(1) Found in the Old Testament only in 2Sa 3:31, “and king David followed the bier”; and in the New Testament in Luk 7:14, “and he (Jesus) came nigh and touched the bier.” The Hebrew word rendered “bier” (miṭṭāh) and its Greek equivalent (sorós) mean strictly “coffin.” The so-called “bier” among the ancient Hebrews was simply an open coffin or a flat wooden frame, on which the body of the dead was carried from the house to the grave.

(2) Closed coffins, so universal now in the West, were unknown to common usage among the Hebrews of olden times, though not unknown to Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

At the burial of Abner the people were commanded to “rend their clothes” and “gird themselves with sackcloth,” and the king himself in token of his grief and royal regard, “followed the bier” in the procession to the grave (2Sa 3:31).

(3) Of Jesus, when He met the procession that went out of the gate of the city of Nain, bearing to the grave the only son of the widowed mother, Luke says, “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her ... and he came nigh and touched the bier,” and commanded the young man to arise, etc. We should recall that contact with a dead body was forbidden by the law as a source of defilement (Num 19:11 f); so Jesus here “came nigh” and “touched the bier” only in raising the young man, Thus avoiding any criticism for infraction of the law. In Joh 11:35, as here, we have a miracle of Jesus which clearly pointed to a higher law - the eternal law of compassion which received its first full expression in the life of Jesus and forms one of the distinctive features of the gospel.