Coffin
Coffin
(אָרון, aron', a box for gathering articles; Sept. σορός) is used with reference to the burial of Joseph (Ge 1; Ge 26): "They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." This was undoubtedly a mummy- chest, such as are now found in the tombs of the same country, and frequently exhibited in modern museums, SEE MUMMY, — a mode of burial peculiarly favorable to the removal of that patriarch's remains to Palestine (ver. 25, where the term "bones" is evidently used in this general sense). SEE BURIAL; SEE SEPULCHRE.
The same word is spoken in the original of a "money-chest" (2Ki 12:10-11), SEE TREASURY, but most frequently of the sacred "ark," in which were deposited the tables of the law. SEE ARK. It has been thought by some that the iron "bedstead" of Og (De 3:11) was rather his coffin. SEE GIANT.
⇒Bible concordance for COFFIN.
Numerous coffins of earthenware were disinterred by Loftus at Wurka and by Layard at Niffer, varying in length from three to six feet, and closed by an oval lid; the corpse having been swathed in linen and then smeared with bitumen, except the features (Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 474 sq.).
