Grief

Scripture treats grief as a recognizable human condition with a vocabulary of its own: weeping, mourning, lamentation, sorrow of heart, soul cast down. The Bible neither suppresses it nor glamorizes it. It records who grieved and why, prescribes the gestures that accompany it, names the sources of comfort, warns against the despair to which prolonged grief can slide, and points to a horizon at which grief ends.

Examples of Grief

The patriarchs grieve for their dead. Abraham comes "to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her" (Gen 23:2). Jacob, told that Joseph is dead, refuses the comfort of all his sons and daughters and says, "For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning" (Gen 37:35); later, fearing the loss of Benjamin too, he warns, "you⁺ will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol" (Gen 42:38). Joseph's own household keeps "the days of embalming" forty days for Israel (Gen 50:3) and at the threshing-floor of Atad "lamented with a very great and intense lamentation" (Gen 50:10). Israel weeps "for Aaron thirty days" (Num 20:29) and "for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days" (Deut 34:8).

David's grief over Saul and Jonathan is double-marked: those with him "mourned, and wept, and fasted until evening, for Saul, and for Jonathan his son" (2 Sam 1:12), and David himself "lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son" (2 Sam 1:17). Over Abner he commands, "Rend your⁺ clothes, and gird you⁺ with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner" (2 Sam 3:31). The sharpest cry comes after Absalom: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! O that I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam 18:33). Naomi names herself by her grief: "Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me" (Ruth 1:20). Job's first response to catastrophe is bodily: "Then Job arose, and rent his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped" (Job 1:20). Rachel becomes the prophetic image of inconsolable grief — "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her sons; she refuses to be comforted for her sons, because they are not" (Jer 31:15). At Lazarus' tomb the same kind of grief draws Jesus into it: "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews [also] weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled" (John 11:33), and the narrator records simply, "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).

Mourning Customs

Grief in scripture has a public shape. Mourners rend their clothes — Ahab "rent his clothes, and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth" (1 Kings 21:27); Elisha cries "My father, my father" and rends his own garments (2 Kings 2:12); the king of Israel rends his clothes when he hears Rabshakeh's words (2 Kings 18:37); Hezekiah does the same (2 Kings 19:1); Tamar puts ashes on her head and rends her garment of diverse colors (2 Sam 13:19); Mordecai "rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry" (Esth 4:1).

Sackcloth and ashes mark the body of the mourner. Over Saul's house David calls for both (2 Sam 3:31). Ahab's garments and his fast (1 Kings 21:27) follow the same pattern; so do Mordecai's (Esth 4:1) and Daniel's, who sets his face "to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes" (Dan 9:3). The prophets enjoin the same gestures on the people: "gird yourselves with sackcloth, lament and wail" (Jer 4:8), "O daughter of my people, gird with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes: make mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation" (Jer 6:26), "Cut off your hair, [O Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights" (Jer 7:29), "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth" (Joel 1:8).

Lamentation has named practitioners. Jeremiah "lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day" (2 Chr 35:25), and the formal "hired" mourners appear in Ecclesiastes' picture of the funeral procession (Eccl 12:5) and in Amos' indictment: "Wailing will be in all the broad ways" (Amos 5:16). Ezekiel is told to "take yourself up a lamentation for the princes of Israel" (Ezek 19:1); Micah pictures the people taking up "a doleful lamentation" (Mic 2:4). Sirach codifies the practice: "Make bitter your weeping and passionate your wailing, And make mourning such as befits him, For a day or two to avoid scandal, And be comforted for your sorrow" (Sir 38:17), with the further direction, "My son, let tears fall for the dead; Show yourself sorrowful, and mourn with a lamentation" (Sir 38:16). "The mourning for the dead is for seven days" (Sir 22:12).

Tears and Weeping

The scriptures preserve two strands of weeping. One is private grief — Hagar lifting up her voice and weeping when she expects her child to die (Gen 21:16), Esau crying with "a very great and bitter cry" for a blessing (Gen 27:34, 38), Hannah weeping at the house of Yahweh (1 Sam 1:7), Hezekiah weeping intensely on his sickbed (2 Kings 20:3), David weeping as he climbs the Mount of Olives (2 Sam 15:30), the exiles weeping by the rivers of Babylon (Ps 137:1), Peter weeping after the cock crows (Mark 14:72), the older priests and Levites weeping at the foundation of the second house even while others shouted for joy (Ezra 3:12).

The other is the prophet's weeping over a people. Jeremiah cries, "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" (Jer 9:1); his soul will "weep in secret for [your⁺] pride" (Jer 13:17); his eyes will "run down with tears night and day" for the broken virgin daughter (Jer 14:17). Isaiah pleads, "Look away from me, I will weep bitterly; don't labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people" (Isa 22:4). The same posture appears in the gospel: Jesus "saw the city and wept over it" (Luke 19:41). The psalmist generalizes the figure: "He who goes forth and weeps, bearing seed for sowing, Will doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves [with him]" (Ps 126:6).

Tears recur as a measure of suffering. "I am weary with my groaning; Every night I make my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears" (Ps 6:6). "My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, Where is your God?" (Ps 42:3). "You have fed them with the bread of tears, And given them tears to drink in large measure" (Ps 80:5). "I have eaten ashes like bread, And mingled my drink with weeping" (Ps 102:9). Job writes, "My face is red with weeping, And on my eyelids is the shadow of death" (Job 16:16); "Therefore my harp is [turned] to mourning, And my pipe into the voice of those who weep" (Job 30:31). Sirach gives a quieter image: "A wound in the eye makes tears flow, And a wound in the heart severs friendship" (Sir 22:19).

Sorrow of Heart and Soul Distress

The grief literature names an inner condition deeper than its outward gestures. "A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance; But by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken" (Prov 15:13). "Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; And the end of mirth is heaviness" (Prov 14:13). "Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made glad" (Eccl 7:3). The first sorrow in scripture is given to the woman: "I will greatly multiply your pain and your conception; in pain you will bring forth sons" (Gen 3:16). The Servant himself is "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa 53:3). On the night before his arrest Jesus says to his disciples, "because I have spoken these things to you⁺, sorrow has filled your⁺ heart" (John 16:6). Sirach connects the inner state to the body: "For out of sorrow comes forth harm, So sadness of heart brings down strength" (Sir 38:18).

Trouble is the older Hebrew word for the same condition. "Man, who is born of a woman, Is of few days, and full of trouble" (Job 14:1); "But his flesh on him has pain, And his soul inside him mourns" (Job 14:22); "man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7). The psalmist owns it: "I found trouble and sorrow" (Ps 116:3); "You, who have shown us many and intense troubles, Will quicken us again, And will bring us up again from the depths of the earth" (Ps 71:20). Ecclesiastes sums up: "For all his days are [but] sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity" (Eccl 2:23).

The shortest TCR atom on grief is the blunt phrase "soul distress." "For day and night your hand was heavy on me: My moisture was changed in the drought of summer" (Ps 32:4). "My soul is cast down inside me" (Ps 42:6). "My soul melts for heaviness: Strengthen me according to your word" (Ps 119:28). Sirach reaches the lower edge: "My soul drew near to death, And my life to the nethermost Sheol" (Sir 51:6).

Despair

Grief that loses its horizon turns into despair. The TCR atom on hopelessness collects the voices that have stopped expecting rescue. Zion says, "Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me" (Isa 49:14). Jeremiah hears the people answer, "It is in vain; no, for I have loved strangers, and I will go after them" (Jer 2:25). The dry bones say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off" (Ezek 37:11). Job asks, "Where then is my hope? And as for my hope, who will see it?" (Job 17:15) and answers his own days, "they are spent without hope" (Job 7:6). Lamentations puts it: "My strength has perished, and my expectation from Yahweh" (Lam 3:18); "All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad" (Lam 1:21).

Despair drives some to want death. Elijah, under the juniper tree, "requested for his soul to die, and said, It is enough; now, O Yahweh, take away my soul" (1 Kings 19:4). Job says, "My soul chooses strangling, And death rather than my bones" (Job 7:15) and asks why life is "given to him who is in misery" (Job 3:20). Jonah twice asks to die — "take, I urge you, my soul from me; for it is better for me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:3, 8). Moses, crushed by the people, asks Yahweh to "kill me, I pray you, out of hand" (Num 11:15). Jeremiah pictures a generation in which "death will be chosen rather than life" (Jer 8:3). And Sirach addresses Death itself: "how welcome is your decree To a man of sorrows, and who lacks strength, Who stumbles and trips in everything, Who is broken, and has lost hope" (Sir 41:2).

A few are pictured ending their own lives — Ahithophel (2 Sam 17:23), Saul (1 Sam 31:4), and Zimri burning the king's house over himself (1 Kings 16:18). Ecclesiastes' great weariness — "So I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind" (Eccl 2:17), "the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter" (Eccl 4:1) — sits beside Job's: "My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul" (Job 10:1). Rebekah says, "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth" (Gen 27:46). Paul names the same Greek-style finality from the other side: those who fall asleep are not to be mourned "as the rest, who have no hope" (1 Thess 4:13).

Comfort

The same scriptures that record grief name its consolation. Comfort comes first from God himself, "the Father of mercies and God of all comfort" (2 Cor 1:3); "I, even I, am he who comforts you⁺" (Isa 51:12); "As one whom his mother comforts, so [my Speech] will comfort you⁺; and you⁺ will be comforted in Jerusalem" (Isa 66:13); "Comfort⁺, comfort⁺ my people, says your⁺ God" (Isa 40:1). The psalmist appeals to the same source: "You will increase my greatness, And turn again and comfort me" (Ps 71:21); "Like a father pities his sons, So Yahweh pities those who fear him" (Ps 103:13); "This is my comfort in my affliction; For your [Speech] has quickened me" (Ps 119:50). Yahweh comforts not only the person but the place: "For Yahweh has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her waste places" (Isa 51:3).

Christ's words become comfort in the gospel. To Jairus: "Don't be afraid, only believe" (Mark 5:36). To the widow at Nain: "Do not weep" (Luke 7:13). To the disciples: "Don't let your⁺ heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1); "I will not leave you⁺ desolate: I come to you⁺" (John 14:18); "in me you⁺ may have peace. In the world you⁺ have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Paul takes up the same verb: "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace" (2 Thess 2:16).

The comforted are then to comfort. "comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess 4:18); "exhort one another, and build each other up … encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be long-suffering toward all" (1 Thess 5:11, 14); "you⁺ should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with too much sorrow" (2 Cor 2:7). Job's three companions "made an appointment together to come to bemoan him and to comfort him" (Job 2:11); Ephraim's brothers came to comfort him after the loss of his sons (1 Chr 7:22); Joseph "comforted them, and spoke kindly to them" (Gen 50:21); the Jews of Bethany came "consoling" Mary (John 11:31). Sirach again sets out the custom: "Make bitter your weeping … And be comforted for your sorrow" (Sir 38:17), and "When the dead is at rest, let his memory rest; And be consoled when his soul departs" (Sir 38:23).

The note Paul strikes — that grief without hope is the pagan posture — runs back through the prophets: "Trust in him and he will strengthen you, Make straight your ways and hope in him" (Sir 2:6); "Be strong, and let your⁺ heart take courage, All you⁺ who hope in [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Ps 31:24); "Why are you cast down, O my soul? … Hope in God; for I will yet praise him" (Ps 42:11; cf. Ps 42:5). Hebrews names the resulting disposition "an anchor of the soul; both sure and steadfast" (Heb 6:18-19).

Sorrow Banished

The Old Testament prophets and the Apocalypse together project a horizon in which grief ends. "He has swallowed up death forever; and the Sovereign Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces" (Isa 25:8). "the ransomed of Yahweh will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads: they will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away" (Isa 35:10; repeated at Isa 51:11). "Your sun will no more go down, neither will your moon withdraw itself … the days of your mourning will be ended" (Isa 60:20). "there will be heard in her no more the voice of weeping and the voice of crying" (Isa 65:19). "they will not sorrow anymore at all" (Jer 31:12). The vision returns at the end: "the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to fountains of waters of life: and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7:17), and again, "he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, anymore: because the first things are passed away" (Rev 21:4).

Grieving the Holy Spirit

Nave's lists one figurative use of grief that lies outside the human field. The Spirit himself can be grieved: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you⁺ were sealed to the day of redemption" (Eph 4:30). Paul's verb is the same as the verb the Septuagint and the gospel writers use of mourners; the warning is that the conduct of the sealed believer is felt by the Sealer.