Grief and losing someone

And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

The oldest grief in the book is also practical. Abraham mourns and weeps for Sarah, then stands up from beside her body and bargains with strangers for a piece of ground to bury her in, because he owns no land in the country he lives in.

How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!

David's lament for Jonathan, composed as a song and taught to the people. It makes no claim about death or the afterlife at all. It says a friend is dead, that his love was wonderful, and repeats the line about the mighty fallen.

And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

David's son died leading a rebellion against him, and the king's grief is not tidy. He goes up to the room over the gate and says the boy's name over and over, wishing he had died instead. His commander rebukes him for it in the next scene.

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

Job tears his robe, shaves his head, falls to the ground and says the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. It is a sentence of acceptance spoken in the first hour. Thirty chapters of protest follow, from the same man.

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Honest about how little the Hebrew Bible claims for the dead. They know nothing, they have no further reward, their love and hatred and envy have perished. A living dog, the writer says, is better off than a dead lion.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

The ruined city speaks to the people walking past and asks whether her sorrow is nothing to them. It is the complaint of someone whose loss is the whole world to her and barely visible to anyone else on the road.

Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!

Jesus reaches Bethany four days after Lazarus died and weeps with the sisters before doing anything else, including raising him. Knowing what was coming did not spare him the grief. The bystanders read the tears as love.

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

Paul writes to people frightened that believers who had already died were going to miss out. He does not tell them to stop grieving. He distinguishes their sorrow from the sorrow of those with no hope, which leaves the sorrow itself standing.