Eulogizing in Tanach
לעילוי נשמת אברהם בן ישראל יצחק
Post in memory of Avraham ben Yisrael Yitzchak
Last night, my grandmother's brother died. This comes in the wake of the passing of my grandfather less than two years ago and the passing of one of my aunts less than a year ago. All very sudden and health-related, but nothing due to corona. This post is dedicated in his memory.
Some time ago, I noticed that there was a typical sort of eulogy or lament in Tanach. It is referred as "הוי אחי" - "Oh, my brother". It's only mentioned twice in Tanach - in Kings and Yirmiyahu, but there's also a sort of - offshoot, I guess? that appears later in Yirmiyahu as well, which is a eulogy that seems to have been reserved for royalty, and that's the "הוי אדון" - "Oh, [my] lord" eulogy. Here are the verses (this translation uses the variants "alas" and "ah" instead of "oh"):
"He laid the corpse in his own burial place; and they lamented over it, “Alas, my brother!”" (Kings 1:13:30)
"Assuredly, thus said the LORD concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: They shall not mourn for him, “Ah, brother! Ah, sister!” They shall not mourn for him, “Ah, lord! Ah, his majesty!”" (Yirmiyahu 22:18)
"You will die a peaceful death; and as incense was burned for your ancestors, the earlier kings who preceded you, so they will burn incense for you, and they will lament for you ‘Ah, lord!’ For I Myself have made the promise—declares the LORD.”" (ibid. 34:5)
One day, I forgot that there were only three mentions and that they don't provide much info on this traditional lament. I got it in my head that it would be possible to maybe reproduce the text of the lament - I truly thought there was more to it than merely crying out "Oh, my brother!". Then I checked again and saw to my dismay that there were only three relevant verses, as brought above, and none of them say more than two words.
Why did I think there was a whole shpiel to this and not merely people crying out in grief? Because the verses seemed to me to suggest that this was customary and customizable. Take for instance the verse from Kings. The context is the prophet who was tricked/convinced by an old prophet/ex-prophet/false prophet (depending on your interpretation) and was punished by Hashem and killed by a lion. How well did the old prophet know the younger one? Barely, it seems. But as customary, he made sure that he was lamented over. Now, try to picture the scene: People attempting to conjure up tears for someone they didn't know, or hardly knew (the prophet was from the Kingdom of Yehuda, and this was in the Kingdom of Yisrael)? Hard to imagine. It is my view that there were more words than just "Oh, my brother!" I think there was a longer skeleton for a eulogy, which could also be customized depending on how much the people who said it wanted to speak about the dead person, but before customization, there was the base - which was more than two words. I imagine it to be something along the lines of "he was a good person, he tried to walk in the ways of Hashem, may his death be atonement for us all, etc".
May we merit to have some good tidings.
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