There is no instance to be found in the Old Testament of dancing being performed as a mourning or burial rite; that must be acknowledged; yet in spite of this there are strong reasons for believing that the custom did exist among the Israelites. The silence does not imply that the rite was not in vogue; there are, also, sufficient reasons to account for the absence of reference to it. In the first place, excepting incidentally we should not necessarily expect it to be mentioned at all; it was not a public rite; if it had been one might conceivably have looked for some reference to it in the records, supposing it to have been performed on some great or special occasion; but as a private rite there was no reason for its being recorded in Hebrew literature. Another reason for its not being mentioned is because its original significance and importance had, it may be confidently asserted, been forgotten; like some other mourning and burial customs it would have been kept up for no other reason than that it had been handed down from time immemorial; so that there was no point in speaking of it. Moreover, in the case of some other Israelite mourning customs there is only here and there incidental mention in the Old Testament, although some of them were certainly very often practised, e.g. flute-playing, laceration of the body (modified later by the rending of the garment), cutting off of the hair, baring the feet, covering the head, the funeral feast; it might easily have happened in the case of any one of these that the incidental mention had not occurred (as, indeed, is the case with flute-playing); but that silence would not have justified denial of its existence, provided always that there were reasons for believing that it was practised. Now, as we shall see, in the case of dancing as a mourning or burial rite there are reasons for believing that it was in vogue among the Israelites, and that therefore the silence of the Old Testament is not in itself sufficient reason for denying that it existed among them.
There is a further potent reason for this custom never being mentioned: its practice was incompatible with Jahwe-worship, because of its connexion with Ancestor-worship, and therefore the suppression (supposing it had been mentioned) of all reference to it would have been regarded as a sacred duty by the later redactors of the sacred text. As is well known, the Old Testament literature was subjected to such redactions in times when a full development in the direction of a more rigid insistence upon and a more emphatic declaration of monotheistic worship had taken place; under these circumstances it would have been the most natural thing in the world for any reference to this rite in the sacred literature to have been deleted. So that, on this ground, again, the silence in the Old Testament regarding this mourning rite is no reason for denying that it existed.
But there are, on the other hand, positive grounds for the belief that it was in existence among the Israelites:
If analogies count for anything (and in the case of ancient customs, and especially burial rites, they are of the greatest importance), then the fact that dancing as a mourning or burial rite either is, or has been, widespread among all kinds of peoples all over the world would suggest that the Israelites practised it too. There are a number of other mourning and burial rites common to the races of antiquity (including the Israelites) and to the uncultured races of the present day[346]; if dancing formed an exception to these, being practised by all excepting the Israelites, there would have to be some very special reason assigned for this; but it is evident that such reason is not forthcoming.
Another reason which suggests the probability of dancing as a mourning rite among the Israelites is that it was a natural concomitant to flute-playing, which, as we know from the New Testament, was a very usual mourning rite; the two belong together, and where the one was in vogue it is reasonable to suppose that the other was not wanting. This applies, of course, to early times; it is always possible that with the development of religious ideas an antique custom may be modified, or even fall into disuse; in the present case neither the dancing nor the flute-playing fell into disuse until well into the Christian era (indeed, the former is still performed), but a modification of the custom took place in so far that they were not necessarily performed at the same time.
Then we have this further reason: it will be seen, when we come to consider the objects of dancing as a mourning rite, that they involve beliefs which seem to be common to man during some stages in his cultural and religious development. It is difficult to suppose that what had been characteristic of man generally should not have been so in the case of the Israelites. We touch upon this point again later.
But, finally, the strongest reason for believing that this custom was in vogue among the ancient Israelites is that it exists at the present day. Such things as mourning and burial customs are never innovations; modifications may arise, as we have just said; a custom may fall into disuse and be discontinued altogether; but when a rite is practised at the present day, it is not a new thing, but has a long history behind it. Regarding the particular example to be given presently it is known to go back at any rate to the beginning of the Christian era; but it is safe to say that it must be vastly older than that in reality; for of all customs none are so tenacious as those which have to do with mourning and burial, for they touch men at a very sensitive spot. If at any time such a custom as we are thinking of is known to have existed, or to exist now, it may be taken for granted that, as a matter of fact, it goes back to very much earlier, indeed to prehistoric, times. That much may be safely gathered from what we know of the customs of savage man and the way in which so many of them are still existent in modified forms. So that since, at the least, something corresponding to the sacred dance as a mourning rite is still in vogue among some of the Jews, it is hardly too much to say that that ipso facto proves its existence among their Hebrew ancestors in days gone by.
One other consideration may be urged. It must be allowed that the number of words found in the Old Testament for dancing is significant. When we know that dancing on various religious occasions formed an important element, as shown in the preceding chapters, the presumption is strong that it occurred also during the very solemn period of mourning.
It may, then, be contended that the cumulative effect of these arguments justifies the belief that the sacred dance as a mourning or burial rite was well known to, and practised by, the ancient Israelites, and that the silence of the Old Testament upon the subject is no reason to doubt this.