Made me sweare] That he may not seeme to disdaine the buriall of the dead among the Egyptians, he pleads the obligation of an oath from his dying father, that so if any exception should arise, it might die with him; for men are not so apt to cavill at the dead, as at their survivers, nor at what is pleaded by necessity, as what is in our liberty to do, or to leave undone; least of all is it offensive which is done out of conscience to God, and fidelity to the dead, whereof the light and instinct of nature makes men piously and affectionately apprehensive, though they want the institution of the true religion. which I digged] Or, bought. For a word which is a descendent of the same root is put for buying, Deuteronomy 2:6. Hosea 3:2. So they that thinke it hard to say, that Jacob digged the buriall place which was prepared by his grand-father Abraham, suppose it to be more like that Jacob might buy it, not in regard he was in the loynes of his grand-father when he bought it, (for so he might as well be said to dig it as to buy it) but because his title might be questioned, and his possession disturbed, and so he might be compelled to pay for that againe, which his grandfather had purchased before. But it is most probable that the buriall place, which Abraham bought, was so spacious that he and his son, and grand-children, might dig themselves severall cells or repositories for their dead bodies in it, as they conceived they might have occasion to make use of them; and it was the manner of many in former times so much to mind their mortality, as to build sepulchres for their dead bodies, as well as to build houses for living habitations. bury me] The bodies of the dead have in divers ages and countreys been diversly disposed of; some have been embalmed and not buryed, as hath been noted of the manner of the Egyptians, some buryed without embalming, as the ordinary people every where, some embalmed and buryed, and of them some had the Aromatick spices incorporated into their bodies, and some had their dead bodies laid upon them and so were buryed; for some sweet odours were burned at their buriall, 2 Chronicles 16:14. &Chap. 21. 19. and sometimes the bodies themselves were burned, 2 Samuel 31:12. And this among the Jewes; among the Romanes burning was taken up by Sylla, that others might not doe by him, as he did by Marius, whose reliques he removed from their buriall place, and scattered them abroad: Cic. lib. 2. de leg. pag. 340, 341. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. cap. 54. and some people wrapped their dead in skinnes, and hanged them up upon trees; so did the Colchi. Aian. Var. Hist. lib. 4. cap. 1. Yet buriall, as it is most ancient, so it is most ordinary; so that to want it is complained of as a calamitie in respect of Gods people, Psalms 79:3. and threatned as a judgement on the wicked in generall, Jeremiah 7:33. and on Jehojakim in particular, of whom the Lord saith, He shall be buried with the buriall of an asse, Jeremiah 22:19. that is, not buried at all, but cast out of the gates to the common dunghill, where dogs and fowles may devoure his body as the body of an Asse. Dub. But is not burning better then burying? Answ. In some respects it is, for so neither men nor devils can abuse the body of the dead; but in this respect buriall is better: First, because it is more answerable to Gods decree and doome concerning man; Genesis 3:19. Secondly, because it is a sowing of the body in the earth, with expectation of the resurrection of the dead, as of the sowen corne, to which the Apostle compareth it, 1 Corinthians 15:36. 42, 43. and in this respect it is not fit that any creatures, who are not raised from the dead, should be solemnly buried; which was practised by Poliarchus, who used with great solemnitie to bury his dead dogs, and cocks, which he tooke delight in, and to set up pillars, and write Epitaphs upon their graves, which is noted as a luxurious vanitie by Aelian; Var. Hist. lib. 8. cap. 4.