And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old: [these were] the years of the life of Sarah.
1. the life of Sarah ] Sarah died at the age of 127, 37 years after the birth of Isaac. Cf. Gen 17:1; Gen 17:17, Gen 21:5 (P).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– The Death of Sarah
2. qryat–‘arba, Qirjath-arba, city of Arba. ‘arba, Arba, four.
8. epron, Ephron, of the dust, or resembling a calf. tshochar, Tsochar, whiteness.
9. makpelah, Makpelah, doubled.
The death and burial of Sarah are here recorded. This occasions the purchase of the field of Makpelah, in the cave of which is her sepulchre.
Gen 23:1-2
Sarah is the only woman whose age is recorded in Scripture. She meets with this distinction as the wife of Abraham and the mother of the promised seed. A hundred and twenty and seven years, and therefore thirty-seven years after the birth of her son. In Kiriatharba. Arba is called the father of Anak Jos 15:13; Jos 21:11; that is, of the Anakim or Bene Anak, a tall or gigantic tribe Num 13:22; 28; 33, who were subsequently dispossessed by Kaleb. The Anakim were probably Hittites. Abraham had been absent from Hebron, which is also called Mamre in this very chapter Gen 23:17, Gen 23:19, not far from forty years, though he appears to have still kept up a connection with it, and had at present a residence in it. During this interval the sway of Arba may have commenced. In the land of Kenaan, in contradistinction to Beer-sheba in the land of the Philistines, where we last left Abraham. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah, either from Beer-sheba or some out-field where he had cattle pasturing.
Gen 23:3-16
Abraham purchases a burying-ground in the land. The sons of Heth. These are the lords of the soil. A stranger and a sojourner. He is a stranger, not a Hittite; a sojourner, a dweller in the land, not a mere visitor or traveller. The former explains why he has no burial-ground; the latter, why he asks to purchase one. Bury my dead out of my sight. The bodies of those most dear to us decay, and must be removed from our sight. Abraham makes his request in the most general terms. In the somewhat exaggerated style of Eastern courtesy, the sons of Heth reply, Hear us, my lord. One speaks for all; hence, the change of number. My lord is simply equivalent to our Sir, or the German mein Herr. A prince of God in those times of simple faith was a chief notably favored of God, as Abraham had been in his call, his deliverance in Egypt, his victory over the kings, his intercession for the cities of the vale, and his protection the court of Abimelek. Some of these events were well known to the Hittites, as they had occurred while he was residing among them.
Gen 23:7-9
Abraham now makes a specific offer to purchase the field of Makpelah from Ephron the son of Zohar. Treat for me – deal, use your influence with him. Abraham approaches in the most cautious manner to the individual with whom he wishes to treat. The cave of Makpelah. The burial of the dead in caves, natural and artificial, was customary in this Eastern land. The field seems to have been called Makpelah (doubled) from the double form of the cave, or the two caves perhaps communicating with each other, which it contained. For the full silver. Silver seems to have been the current medium of commerce at this time. God was known, and mentioned at an earlier period Gen 2:11; Gen 13:2. A possession of a burying-ground. We learn from this passage that property in land had been established at this time. Much of the country, however, must have been a common, or unappropriated pasture ground.
Gen 23:10-16
The transaction now comes to be between Abraham and Ephron. Was sitting. The sons of Heth were seated in council, and Ephron among them. Abraham seems to have been seated also; for he stood up to make his obeisance and request Gen 23:7. Before all that went in at the gate of his city. The conference was public. The place of session for judicial and other public business was the gate of the city, which was common ground, and where men were constantly going in and out. His city. This implies not that he was the king or chief, but simply that he was a respectable citizen. If Hebron was the city of the Hittites here intended, its chief at the time seems to have been Arba. The field give I thee. Literally, have I given thee – what was resolved upon was regarded as done. In the sight of the sons of my people. This was a public declaration or deed before many witnesses.
He offers the field as a gift, with the Eastern understanding that the receiver would make an ample recompense. This mode of dealing had its origin in a genuine good-will, that was prepared to gratify the wish of another as soon as it was made known, and as far as it was reasonable or practicable. The feeling seems to have been still somewhat fresh and unaffected in the time of Abraham, though it has degenerated into a mere form of courtesy. If thou wilt, hear me. The language is abrupt, being spoken in the haste of excitement. I give silver. I have given in the original; that is, I have determined to pay the full price. If the Eastern giver was liberal, the receiver was penetrated with an equal sense of the obligation conferred, and a like determination to make an equivalent return. The land is four hundred shekels. This is the familiar style for the land is worth so much. The shekel is here mentioned for the first time. It was originally a weight, not a coin. The weight at least was in common use before Abraham. If the shekel be nine pennyweights and three grains, the price of the field was about forty-five pounds sterling. And Abraham weighed. It appears that the money was uncoined silver, as it was weighed. Current with the merchant. The Kenaanites, of whom the Hittites were a tribe, were among the earliest traders in the world. The merchant, as the original imports, is the traveller who brings the wares to the purchasers in their own dwellings or towns. To him a fixed weight and measure were necessary.
Gen 23:17-20
The completion of the sale is stated with great formality. No mention is made of any written deed of sale. Yet Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob remained in undisturbed possession of this burial-ground. Undisputed tenure seems to have been acknowledged as a title. The burial of Sarah is then simply noted. The validity of Abrahams title is practically evinced by the actual burial of Sarah, and is recited again on account of the importance of the fact.
This chapter is interesting as containing the first record of mourning for the dead, of burial, of property in land, of purchase of land, of silver as a medium of purchase, and of a standard of weight. Mourning for the dead was, no doubt, natural on the first death. Burial was a matter of necessity, in order, as Abraham says, to remove the body out of sight, as soon as it was learned by experience that it would be devoured by beasts of prey, or become offensive by putrefaction. To bury or cover it with earth was a more easy and natural process than burning, and was therefore earlier and more general. Property in land was introduced where tribes became settled, formed towns, and began to practise tillage. Barter was the early mode of accommodating each party with the articles he needed or valued. This led gradually to the use of the precious metals as a current medium of exchange – first by weight, and then by coins of a fixed weight and known stamp.
The burial of Sarah is noted because she was the wife of Abraham and the mother of the promised seed. The purchase of the field is worthy of note, as it is the first property of the chosen race in the promised land. Hence, these two events are interwoven with the sacred narrative of the ways of God with man.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 23:1-2
Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her
Abraham in the house of mourning
What lessons would such a man as Abraham learn in this house of mourning?
I. THAT IN VIEW OF THE AWFUL FACT OF DEATH THE LITTLENESS OF HUMAN LIFE IS SEEN.
II. TO REALIZE THE FACT OF HIS OWN MORTALITY. I may be the next to go.
III. TO FEEL THAT THERE IS A LIFE BEYOND.
IV. THE SACREDNESS OF SORROW FOR THE DEAD. (T. H. Leale.)
Mourning for the departed
The true mourning a sanctified feeling of death.
1. A fellow-feeling of death with the dead.
2. An anticipation of death or a living preparation for ones own death.
3. A believing sense of the end or destination of death to be made useful to the life. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Lessons
1. On Mount Moriah we find Abraham doing Gods will; here we find him suffering it.
2. Look at Abraham buying a grave; the best man of his age here bargains for burial ground. Ponder well this transaction, and consider that in return for four hundred pieces of silver Abraham gets a burying-place.
3. The behaviour of the children of Heth calls for appreciative notice. They treated Abraham with generous pity and helpfulness.
4. Mans final requirement of man is a grave. In the grave there is no repentance; the dead man cannot obliterate the past.
5. Abraham mourned for Sarah. Consecration to Gods purpose does not eradicate our deep human love; say, rather, that it heightens, refines, sanctifies it. (J. Parker, D. D.)
A break in the home circle
Perhaps we who lead briefer and, at the same time, more stirring and varied lives, with rapid change and a multitude of interests to divide attention, cannot fully realize how the members of such a home circle as Abrahams grew into each other, or how one out of such a circle would be missed. Through long unbroken periods they lived constantly together, and were everything to one another. Of society, except that of their own slaves, there was little or none. The round of easy occupations which made up their shepherd life left ample leisure for domestic converse. It was inevitable that their lives should grow together as if welded into one. Husband and wife, parent and child, must have moulded one anothers character to an extent hardly possible in other states of society. Stronger natures impressed themselves upon feebler ones. The older generation made that which succeeded it. The experiences and the teaching of the aged father created an unwritten family code, which ruled alike his son and his grandson. Each memorable incident in the family annals crystallized itself, no doubt, through constant repetition, and passed down with hardly any change of form as part of the family tradition. From such a close circle of relations the disappearance of one loved and familiar face would leave a blank never to be filled and scarcely ever to be forgotten. This must have been especially the case when death made its first breach in the family, and, at the ripe age of a hundred and twenty-seven years, Sarah, princess, wife, and mother, fell asleep. Her death made Abraham a lonely man. It broke the final link to his ancestral home. It robbed him of the only one who cherished with him a common memory of his fathers house and the happy days of youth. She alone was left of those who, sixty-two years before, had shared his venturous emigration from Haran. He was her senior by ten years; and her removal must have come to him like a warning that before him likewise there lay another emigration, more venturous than the last–one final journey into a land still farther off. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
I. THE DEATH.
1. Of Sarah, princess. Kings and great men die. Wealth cannot deliver in the day of his power.
2. The wife of a great man. Derives her chief dignity from this connection. Little expected the honour that would befall her from this marriage. The source of Abrahams joy, as well as the occasion of some of his sins.
3. The mother of the free. The ancestress of Jesus, and those who believe in Him.
4. Died at Hebron = alliance. The alliance with Abraham dissolved, and her eternal alliance with Abrahams God, and one who was before Abraham Joh 8:58), now inaugurated. Happy are those who compose the bride–the Lambs wife; the day of death is with them the day of theirespousals. The alliances of earth, abandoned for a better and more lasting one.
II. THE GRAVE.
1. A cave. We are of the earth, earthy. Dust, and must return to dust.
2. Purchased. Abraham selected one that would receive his own remains. (The family meeting-place is an epitaph at Pere la Chaise.) Men sometimes think more of their sepulchres than of death; and make greater preparation for the temporary repose of the body than the eternal rest of the soul. It was all that Abraham purchased of the promised land. The country was given to the living. The promised land of heaven for the living is a free gift, and there will be no bargaining for graves there. Man sells a place for the dead, God gives a home for the living.
III. THE BURIAL. That I may bury my dead out of my sight. The object that once most pleased the eye must be put out of sight, as a loathsome thing. Life, a fountain of beauty and attractiveness. How glorious that world must be where they die no more, and are never put out of sight. Those who die in the Lord, and are put out of sight, will presently be in sight for ever. The aged man before the grave of his wife. The parting is not for long. A few more steps, and he will be at home with his princess for ever. But with all this Christian hope, the loss of dear friends and the sunderings of long companionships is painful. At such times may we be able to say, Thy will be done. Learn:
1. The great and good and best loved must die.
2. The earthly dissolution may be the beginning of our eternal union.
3. It is little the world can furnish us besides a place to lie down in at the end of the journey.
4. Happy are those who, being saved themselves, have a good hope of meeting those who are not lost, but gone before. (J. C. Gray.)
Tears over the dead
In those tears of Abraham was anguish; but there might have been remorse. Apparently Abraham had nothing to reproach himself with. Quarrels in his married life are recorded, but in all he behaved with tenderness, concession, and dignity. In all things he had supported and cherished his wife, bearing, like a strong man, the burdens of the weak. But oh! let us beware. There are bitter recollections which enhance the sorrow of bereavement and change it into agony–recollections which are repeated to us in words which remorse will not cease to echo for ever and ever. Oh, if they would but come again, Id never grieve them more. It is this which makes tears scald. To how many a grown heart have not those childish words of the infant hymn gone home, sharp, with an undying pang! (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
A burying-place
Constantine the Great, in order to reclaim a very worldly man, marked out, with a lance, a piece of ground the size of a human body, and then said, If you could increase your possessions till you acquired the whole world, in a short time such a spot as this will be all you will have.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXIII
The age and death of Sarah, 1, 2.
Abraham mourns for her, and requests a burial-place from the
sons of Heth, 24.
They freely offer him the choice of all their sepulchres, 5, 6.
Abraham refuses to receive any as a free gift, and requests
to buy the cave of Machpelah from Ephron, 7-9.
Ephron proffers the cave and the field in which it was situated
as a free gift unto Abraham, 10, 11.
Abraham insists on giving its value in money, 12, 13.
Ephron at last consents, and names the sum of four hundred
shekels, 14, 15.
Abraham weighs him the money in the presence of the people;
in consequence of which the cave, the whole field, trees, c.,
are made sure to him and his family for a possession, 16-18.
The transaction being completed, Sarah is buried in the cave, 19.
The sons of Heth ratify the bargain, 20.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIII
Verse 1. And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old] It is worthy of remark that Sarah is the only woman in the sacred writings whose age, death, and burial are distinctly noted. And she has been deemed worthy of higher honour, for St. Paul, Ga 4:22-23, makes her a type of the Church of Christ and her faith in the accomplishment of God’s promise, that she should have a son, when all natural probabilities were against it, is particularly celebrated in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 11:11. Sarah was about ninety-one years old when Isaac was born, and she lived thirty-six years after, and saw him grown up to man’s estate. With SARAH the promise of the incarnation of Christ commenced, though a comparatively obscure prophecy of it had been delivered to Eve, Ge 3:15; and with MARY it terminated, having had its exact completion. Thus God put more honour upon these two women than upon all the daughters of Eve besides. Sarah’s conception of Isaac was supernatural; she had passed the age and circumstances in which it was possible, naturally speaking, to have a child; therefore she laughed when the promise was given, knowing that the thing was impossible, because it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women. God allows this natural impossibility, and grants that the thing must be the effect of Divine interposition; and therefore asks, Is any thing too hard for God? The physical impossibility was in creased in the case of Mary, she having no connection with man; but the same power interposed as in the case of Sarah: and we find that when all aptitude for natural procreation was gone, Sarah received strength to conceive seed, and bore a son, from whom, in a direct line, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, was to descend; and through this same power we find a virgin conceiving and bearing a son against all natural impossibilities. Every thing is supernatural in the births both of the type and antitype; can it be wondered at then, if the spiritual offspring of the Messiah must have a supernatural birth likewise? hence the propriety of that saying, Unless a man be born again-born from above-born, not only of water, but of the Holy Ghost, he cannot see the kingdom of God. These may appear hard sayings, and those who are little in the habit of considering spiritual things may exclaim, It is enthusiasm! Who can bear it? Such things cannot possibly be.” To such persons I have only to say, God hath spoken. This is sufficient for those who credit his being and his Bible; nor is there any thing too hard for him. He, by whose almighty power, Sarah had strength to conceive and bear a son in her old age, and by whose miraculous interference a virgin conceived, and the man Christ Jesus was born of her, can by the same power transform the sinful soul, and cause it to bear the image of the heavenly as it has borne the image of the earthly.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This is the peculiar honour of Sarah the mother of the faithful, 1Pe 3:6, to have the years of her life numbered in Scripture.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Sarah was an hundred and sevenand twenty years old, &c.Sarah is the only woman inScripture whose age, death, and burial are mentioned, probably to dohonor to the venerable mother of the Hebrew people.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old,…. This following immediately upon the account of the offering up of Isaac, led many of the Jewish writers to conclude, that Isaac was when thirty seven years of age, as he must be when Sarah his mother was one hundred and twenty seven, for he was born when she was ninety years of age; but this seems not to be observed on that account, but to give the sum of her age at her death, since it follows:
[these were] the years of the life of Sarah; who, as it is remarked by many interpreters, is the only woman the years of whose life are reckoned up in Scripture.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Sarah is the only woman whose age is mentioned in the Scriptures, because as the mother of the promised seed she became the mother of all believers (1Pe 3:6). She died at the age of 127, thirty-seven years after the birth of Isaac, at Hebron, or rather in the grove of Mamre near that city (Gen 13:18), whither Abraham had once more returned after a lengthened stay at Beersheba (Gen 22:19). The name Kirjath Arba, i.e., the city of Arba, which Hebron bears here and also in Gen 35:27, and other passages, and which it still bore at the time of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites (Jos 14:15), was not the original name of the city, but was first given to it by Arba the Anakite and his family, who had not yet arrived there in the time of the patriarchs. It was probably given by them when they took possession of the city, and remained until the Israelites captured it and restored the original name. The place still exists, as a small town on the road from Jerusalem to Beersheba, in a valley surrounded by several mountains, and is called by the Arabs, with allusion to Abraham’s stay there, el Khalil, i.e., the friend (of God), which is the title given to Abraham by the Mohammedans. The clause “ in the land of Canaan ” denotes, that not only did Sarah die in the land of promise, but Abraham as a foreigner acquired a burial-place by purchase there. “ And Abraham came ” (not from Beersheba, but from the field where he may have been with the flocks), “ to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her, ” i.e., to arrange for the customary mourning ceremony.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Death of Sarah. | B. C. 1857. |
1 And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. 2 And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
We have here, 1. Sarah’s age, v. 1. Almost forty years before, she had called herself old, ch. xviii. 12. Old people will die never the sooner, but may die the better, for reckoning themselves old. 2. Her death, v. 2. The longest liver must die at last. Abraham and Sarah had lived comfortably together many years; but death parts those whom nothing else could part. The special friends and favourites of Heaven are not exempted from the stroke of death. She died in the land of Canaan, where she had been above sixty years a sojourner. 3. Abraham’s mourning for her; and he was a true mourner. He did not only perform the ceremonies of mourning according to the custom of those time, as the mourners that go about the streets, but he did sincerely lament the great loss he had of a good wife, and gave proof of the constancy of his affection to her to the last. Two words are used: he came both to mourn and to weep. His sorrow was not counterfeit, but real. He came to her tent, and sat down by the corpse, there to pay the tribute of his tears, that his eye might affect his heart, and that he might pay the greater respect to the memory of her that was gone. Note, It is not only lawful, but it is a duty, to lament the death of our near relations, both in compliance with the providence of God, who thus calls to weeping and mourning, and in honour to those to whom honour is due. Tears are a tribute due to our deceased friends. When a body is sown, it must be watered. But we must not sorrow as those that have no hope; for we have a good hope through grace both concerning them and concerning ourselves.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
GENESIS – CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Verses 1-16:
Some time following the offering of Isaac on Mt Moriah, Abraham moved again to Hebron. There Sarah his wife died, being 127 years old. Isaac at that time was thirty-seven years of age. Abraham observed the proper time of mourning, then sought a burial-place for Sarah, among the “children of Heth.” Heth was the son of Canaan (Ge 10:15), and his descendants were known as Hittites. History shows these were men of valor. Many found places of service in Israel during the reigns of the kings.
The narrative of Abraham’s negotiations for a burial plot is pictorial of Oriental trading. These negotiations were carried on in public assembly in strict protocol of the times. Abraham made a request, and the “sons of Heth” made an offer to “give” him the burial place at no charge. But Abraham insisted on paying for the burial site. He identified the plot he desired as the field and cave of Machpelah. This belonged to a Hittite named Ephron. It was situated near Hebron. The site is known today, but a Moslem mosque stands over the cave and entrance is forbidden to non-Moslems.
The negotiations concluded with Abraham paying the full price of the cave and its field, four hundred shekels of silver. The exact monetary value of this purchase is impossible to calculate. The “shekel” of Abraham’s time was not a coin of money but a measure of weight. According to the value of silver in today’s market, the cost of this burial plot would be in excess of $200, which-at that time was a considerable price.
Abraham declined the offer of the Hittites to share their own sepulchers. He chose instead to purchase this grave-site. It is worthy of note that although the entire Land of Palestine was Abraham’s by Divine grant, the only part he ever truly owned was a cemetery plot!
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old (450) It is remarkable that Moses, who relates the death of Sarah in a single word, uses so many in describing her burial: but we shall soon see that the latter record is not superfluous. Why he so briefly alludes to her death, I know not, except that he leaves more to be reflected upon by his readers than he expresses. The holy fathers saw that they in common with reprobates, were subject to death. Nevertheless, they were not deterred, While painfully leading a life full of suffering, from advancing with intrepidity towards the goal. Whence it follows, that they, being animated by the hope of a better life, did not give way to fatigue. Moses says that Sarah lived a hundred and twenty-seven years, and since he repeats the word years after each of the numbers, the Jews feign that this was done because she had been as beautiful in her hundredth, as in her twentieth year, and as modest in the flower of her age, as when she was seven years old. This is their custom; while they wish to prove themselves skillful in doing honor to their nations they invent frivolous trifles, which betray a shameful ignorance: as, for instance, in this place, who would not say that they were entirely ignorant of their own languages in which this kind of repetition is most usual? The discussion of others also, on the word חים, ( lives,) is without solidity. The reason why the Hebrews use the word lives in the plural number, for life, cannot be better explained, as it appears to me, than the reason why the Latins express some things which are singular in plural forms. (451) I know that the life of men is manifold, because, beyond merely vegetative life, and beyond the sense which they have in common with brute animals, they are also endued with mind and intelligence. This reasoning, therefore, is plausible without being solid. There is more color of truth in the opinion of those who think that the various events of human life are signified; which life, since it has nothing stable, but is agitated by perpetual vicissitudes, is rightly divided into many lives. I am, however, contented to refer simply to the idiom of the language; the reason of which is not always to be curiously investigated.
(450) Literally, “The lives of Sarah were a hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years.”
(451) “ Quam quod Latini quadrigas dicant non quadrigam.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
ABRAHAMTHE FRIEND OF GOD
Gen 11:10 to Gen 25:10.
ONE week ago we gave this hour to a study in Genesis, our subject being, The Beginnings. The birds-eye view of ten chapters and ten verses brought us to Babel, and impressed upon us the many profitable lessons that come between the record of creation and the report of confusion.
Beginning with the 10th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis (Gen 11:10), and concluding with the 10th verse of the 25th chapter (Gen 25:10), we have the whole history of Abraham, the friend of God; and while other important persons, such as Sarai, Hagar, Lot, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Isaac, Rebecca and even Melchisedec appear in these chapters, Abraham plays altogether the prominent part, and aside from Melchisedec, the High Priest, is easily the most important person, and the most interesting subject presented in this inspired panorama. It may be of interest to say that Abraham lived midway between Adam and Jesus, and such was his greatness that the Chaldeans, East Indians, Sabeans and Mohammedans all join with the Jew in claiming to be the offspring of Abraham; while it is the Christians proud boast that he is Abrahams spiritual descendant.
It is little wonder that all these contend for a kinship with him whom God deigns to call His friend. The man who is a friend of God is entitled to a large place in history. Fourteen chapters are none too many for his record; and hours spent in analyzing his character and searching for the secrets of his success are hours so employed as to meet the Divine approval.
The problem is how to so set Abrahams history before you as to make it at once easy of comprehension, and yet thoroughly impress its lessons. In trying to solve that question it has seemed best to call attention to
THE CALL AND THE COVENANT.
Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed (Gen 12:1-3).
Did you ever stop to think of the separations involved in this call?
It meant a separation from home. From thy fathers house. How painful that call is, those of us who have passed through it perfectly understand; and yet many of us have gone so short a distance from home, or else have made the greater journey with such extended stops, that we know but little how to sympathize with Abrahams more effective separation from that dear spot. To go from Chaldea to Canaan in that day, from a country with which he was familiar to one he had never seen; and from a people who were his own, to sojourn among strangers, was every whit equal to William Careys departure from England for India. But as plants and flowers have to be taken from the hot-bed into the broad garden that they may best bring forth, so God lifts the subject of His affection from the warm atmosphere of home-life and sets him down in the far field that he may bring forth fruit unto Him; hence, as is written in Hebrews, Abraham had to go out, not knowing whither he went.
This call also involves separation from kindred. And from thy kindred. In Chaldea, Abram had a multitude of relatives, as the 11th chapter fully shows. Upon all of these, save the members of his own house, and Lot, his brothers son, Abram must turn his back. In the process of time the irreligion of Lot will necessitate also a separation from him. In this respect, Abrahams call is in no whit different from that which God is giving the men and women today. You cannot respond to the call of God without separating yourself from all kin who worship at false shrines; and you cannot make the progress you ought and live in intimate relation with so worldly a professor of religion as was Lot.
We may have marvelled at times that Abraham so soon separated himself from Lot, but the real wonder is that the man of God so long retained his hold upon him. No more difficult task was ever undertaken than that of keeping in the line of service a man who, in the lust of his eyes and the purpose of his heart, has pitched his tent toward Sodom. It is worthy of note that so soon as Abraham was separated from Lot, the Lord said unto him,
Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place that thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever (Gen 13:14-15).
The men of the broadest view in spiritual things, the men upon whom God has put His choicest blessing, have been from time immemorial men who have separated themselves from idolaters and pretenders that they might be the more free to respond to the call of God, and upon such, God has rested His richest favors.
This call also involves separation from the Gentiles. The Gentiles of Chaldea and the Gentiles of Canaan; from the first he was separated by distance and from the second by circumcision. Gods appeal has been and is for a peculiar people, not that they might be queer, but that He might keep them separatedunspotted from the world. God knows, O so well, how few souls there are that can mingle with the unregenerate crowd without losing their testimony and learning to speak the shibboleth of sinners. Peter was a good man; in some respects greater than Abraham; but Peter in that porch-company was a poor witness for Jesus Christ, while his profanity proved the baneful effect of fellowship with Gods enemies. The call to separation, therefore, is none other than the call to salvation, for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.
But Gods calls are always attended by
GODS COVENANTS.
As this call required three separations with their sacrifices, so its attendant covenant contained three promised blessings. God never empties the heart without filling it again, and with better things. God never detaches the affections from lower objects without at once attaching them to subjects that are higher; consequently call and covenant must go together.
I will make of thee a great nation. That was the first article in His covenant. To the Jew, that was one of the most precious promises. This ancient people delighted in progeny. The Psalmist wrote, As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. If our Puritan fathers, few in number and feeble as they were, could have imagined the might and multitude of their offspring, they would have found in the prospect an unspeakable pride, and a source of mighty pleasure. It was because those fathers did, in some measure, imagine the America to come, that they were willing to endure the privations and dangers of their day; but the honor of being fathers of a nation, shared in by a half hundred of them, was an honor on which Abraham had a close corporation, for to him God said,
I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall also thy seed be numbered.
If the heart, parting from parents and home, is empty, the arms into which children have been placed are full; and homesickness, the pain of separation, is overcome when, through the grace of God, one sits down in the midst of his own.
This covenant contained a further promise. I will . . . make thy name great. We may believe that the word great here refers not so much to empty honors as to merited praise. The Jewish conception of such a promise was expressed by Solomon when he said, A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. And, notwithstanding the fact that our age is guilty of over-estimating the value of riches, men find it difficult to underrate the value of a good name.
Years ago, Jonas Chickering decided to make a better piano than had ever appeared on the market. He spared neither time nor labor in this attempt. His endeavor was rewarded in purity and truthfulness of tone as well as in simplicity of plan, and there came to him the ever-attendant result of success. His name on a piano was that instruments best salesman.
A Massachusetts man, seeing this, went to the Massachusetts legislature and succeeded in getting them to change his name to Chickering, that he might put it upon his own instruments.
As Marden said when referring to this incident, Character has a commercial value.
And, when God promised Abraham to make his name great, He bestowed the very honor which men most covet to this hour.
But the climax of His covenant is contained in this last sentence, In thee shall all the families of the earth be blest. That is the honor of honors! That is the success of all successes! That is the privilege of all privileges!
When Mr. Moody died some man said, Every one of us has lost a friend, and that speaker was right, for there is not a man in America who has not enjoyed at least an opportunity to be better because Moody lived. No matter whether the individual had ever seen him or no; had ever read one of his sermons or no; yet the tidal waves of Moodys work have rolled over the entire land, over many lands for that matter, and even the most ignorant and debased have breathed the better atmosphere on account of him. George Davis claims that Moody traveled a million miles, and addressed a hundred million people, and dealt personally with 750,000 individuals! I think Davis claim is an overstatement, and yet these whom he touched personally are only a tithe of the multitudes blessed indirectly by that evangelism for which Moody stood for forty years. If today I could be privileged to make my choice of the articles of this covenant, rather than be the father of a great nation, rather than enjoy the power of a great name, I would say, Give me the covenant that through me all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Such would indeed be the crowning glory of a life, and such ought to be the crowning joy of a true mans heart.
In the next place, I call your attention to
ABRAHAMS OBEDIENCE AND BLUNDERS.
His obedience was prompt No sooner are the call and covenant spoken than we read,
So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him (Gen 12:4).
In that his conduct favorably contrasted with the behavior of some other of the Old Testaments most prominent men. Moses was in many respects a model, but he gave himself to an eloquent endeavor to show God that He was making a mistake in appointing him Israels deliverer. Elijah at times indulged in the same unprofitable controversy, and the story of Jonahs criticism of the Divine appointment will be among our later studies. I am confident that Abraham brings before every generation a much needed example in this matter. In these days, men are tempted to live too much in mathematics and to regard too lightly Gods revelations of duty. That is one of the reasons why many pulpits are empty. That is one of the reasons why many a Sunday School class is without a teacher. That is the only reason why any man in this country can say with any show of truthfulness, No man careth for my soul. If the congregations assembled in Gods sanctuary should go out of them, as Abram departed from his home in Haran, to fulfil all that the Lord had spoken unto them, the world would be turned upside down in a fortnight, and Christ would quickly come.
In his obedience Abraham was steadfast also. There are many men who respond to the calls of God; there are only a few who remain faithful to those calls through a long and busy life. There were battles ahead for Abram. There were blunders in store for Abram. There were bereavements and disappointments to come. But, in spite of them all, he marched on until God gathered him to his people. I thank God that such stedfastness is not wholly strange at the present time. When we see professors of religion proving themselves shallow and playing truant before the smaller trials, and we are thereby tempted to join in Solomons dyspeptic lament, All is vanity and vexation of spirit, it heartens one to remember the history that some have made and others are making. Think of Carey and Judson, Jewett and Livingstone, Goddard and Morrison, Clough and Ashmoremen who, through long years, deprivations and persecutions, proved as faithful as was ever Abraham; and so, long as the world shall stand, stedfastness in obedience to the commands of God will be regarded highly in Heaven. Why is it that we so much admire the company of the apostles, and why is it that we sing the praises of martyrs? They withstood in the evil day, and having done all, stood.
Again, Abrams obedience was inspired by faith.
When he went out from Chaldea to come into Canaan, he was not yielding to reason but walking according to revelation. His action was explained in the sentence, He believed in the Lord. Joseph Parker commenting on the world believed as here employed says, This is the first time the word believed occurs in the Bible. * * * * What history opens in this one word. Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God. * * * * He took the promise as a fulfilment. The word was to him a fact. The stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and of his greatness. They were henceforward not stars only but promises and oaths and blessings.
One great need of the present-day church is a truer trust in God. Oh, for men who like Columbus can let the craft of life float out on the seas of thought and action, and look to the starry heavens for the guidance that shall land them upon newer and richer shores! Oh, for men that will turn their ears heavenward to hear what God will say, and even though His commissions contain sacrifice will go about exercising it! Such men are never forgotten by the Father. We are not surprised to hear Him break forth in praise of Abraham, saying,
Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, m blessing 1 will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gates of the enemy, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.
No sacrifice made in faith is ever forgotten, and when Gods rewards for service are spoken, good men always regard them more than sufficient. If you could call up today the souls of Carey, Judson, Livingstone and Morrison, and assemble Clough, Ashmore, Taylor, Powell, Clark, Richards and a hundred others worthy to stand with them, and ask them the question Has God failed in any particular to keep with you any article of His covenant? they would answer in a chorus, No. And has God more than met the expectations of your faith? they would reply without dissent, Yes. As He was faithful to our father Abraham, so He is faithful to the present-day servant.
And yet Abraham, the obedient, was
GUILTY OF BLUNDERING.
Twice he lied, and the third time he approached the utmost limits of truth. He told Sarai to say she was his sister. She was his half-sister, and so he thought to excuse himself by dissembling and keeping back a part. But a lie is not a question of words and phrases! It may be acted as easily as spoken! When God comes to make a report upon your conduct and mine, dissembling will be labeled falsehood, for God does not cover up the sins of men. Somebody has asked, Do you suppose, if the Bible had been written by some learned Doctor, revised by a committee of some eminent scholars, and published by some great ecclesiastical society, we would ever have heard of Noahs drunkenness, of Abrams deception, of Lots disgrace, of Jacobs rascality, of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas, or of Peters conduct on the porch? Not at all. But when the Almighty writes a mans life, He tells the truth about him.
I heard a colored preacher at Cincinnati say, The most of us would not care for a biography of ourselves, if God was to be the Author of it. Yet the work of the Recording Angel goes on, and as surely as we read today the report of Abrams blunders, we will be compelled to confront our own. Let us cease, therefore, from sin.
But Abrams few blunders cannot blacken his beautiful record. The luster of his life is too positive to be easily dimmed; and like the sun, will continue to shine despite the spots. Run through these chapters, and in every one of the fourteen you will find some touch of his true life. It was Abraham whose heart beat in sweetest sympathy with the sufferings of Hagar. It was Abraham who showed the most unselfish spirit in separating from Lot and dividing the estate. It was Abraham who opened his door to strangers in a hospitality of which this age knows all too little. It was Abram who overcame the forces of the combined kings and snatched Lot out of their hands. It was Abraham whose prayers prevailed with God in saving this same weakkneed professor out of Sodom. It was Abraham who trusted God for a child when Nature said the faith was foolish. It was Abraham who offered that same child in sacrifice at the word, not halting because of his own heart-sufferings. It was Abraham who mourned Sarahs death as deeply as ever any bereft bride felt her loss.
The more I search these chapters, the more I feel that she was right who wrote, A holy life has a voice. It speaks when the tongue is silent and is either a constant attraction or a continued reproof. Put your ear close to these pages of Genesis, and if Abraham does not whisper good to your heart, then be sure that your soul is dead and you are yet in your sins.
There remains time for but a brief review of these fourteen chapters in search of
THEIR TYPES AND SYMBOLS
Abrams call is a type of the Church of Christ. The Greek word for Church means the called-out. Separation from the Chaldeans was essential to Abrams access to the Father, and separation from the world is essential to the Churchs access to God and also essential to its exertion of an influence for righteousness. I believe Dr. Gordon was right when, in The Two-Fold Life he said, The truest remedy for the present-day naturalized Christianity and worldly consecration is to be found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity to the world on the part of Christians. With the most unshaken conviction, we believe that the Church can only make headway, in this world, by being loyal to her heavenly calling. Towards Ritualism her cry must be not a rag of popery; towards Rationalism, not a vestige of whatsoever is not of faith; and towards
Secularism, not a shred of the garment spotted by the flesh. The Bride of Christ can only give a true and powerful testimony in this world as she is found clothed with her own proper vesture even the fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints.
Isaacs offering is a type of Gods gift of Jesus. He was an only son and Abraham laid him upon the altar of sacrifice. And, if one say that he fails as a type because he passed not through the experience of death, let us remember what is written into Heb 11:17 following,
By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, *** accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him, in a figure.
It might be written in Scripture, Abraham so believed God that he gave his only begotten son, for Gods sake. It is written in Scripture, God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Melchisedec is a type of our High Priest, Jesus Christ. His record in Gen 14:18-20 is brief, but the interpretation of his character in Hebrews 7 presents him as either identical with the Lord Himself, or else as one whose priesthood is the most perfect type of that which Jesus Christ has performed, and performs today for the sons of men.
In Sodom, we find the type of the days of the Son of Man. Of it the Lord said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me.
Jesus Christ referred to that city and likened its condition to that which should obtain upon the earth at the coming of the Son of Man, saying, As it was in the days of Lot, they did eat; they drank; they bought; they sold; they planted; they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
The newspapers some time ago reported great religious excitement in a Southern city through the work of two evangelists. Doctors said, We will prescribe no more liquor for patients, druggists said, We will sell no more liquor as a beverage; gamblers gave up their gambling; those called the toughs of the town turned to the Lord; the people of means put off their jewels, changed their frivolous clothes to plainer style; and wherever one went he heard either the singing of hymns or the utterance of prayers, and a great newspaper said this had all come about because the people in that little college town expected the speedy return of Christ. You may call it fanaticism, if you will, and doubtless there would be some occasion, and yet call it what you may, this sentence will remain in the Scriptures, Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 23:1. The years of the life of Sarah.] Heb. pl. lives. Probably used as the plural of eminence. Some of the Jewish expositors refer the expression to three stages in the life of Sarah.
Gen. 23:2. Hebron.] Same as Kirjath-Arba. Here Abraham had resided, and, having been absent some forty years, had returned. This was a most ancient city, the earliest seat of civilised life, having been built seven years before Zoan, the oldest capital of Egypt (Num. 13:22). It is now a town of some prominence, but chiefly notable for the mosque built over the tomb of Sarah. (Jacobus.) In the land of Canaan. Hebron was situated in the hill country of Judea, about thirty miles south of Jerusalem.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 23:1-2
ABRAHAM IN THE HOUSE OF MOURNING
Abraham, who had been tried by the word of the Lord, is now tried in the ordinary course of Providence. His wife dies. The desire of his eyes is stricken down by his side. We now find him in the house of mourning. He had long known God, and had been familiar with spiritual truth, and therefore would not fail to lay to heart the solemn teachings of such an event as this. What lessons, then, would such a man learn in this house of mourning?
I. That in view of the awful fact of death, the littleness of human life is seen. Abraham, at such a time as this, would naturally dwell upon the strange and eventful history of that life which had just closed. Full as it was of wonderful experiences and varied incident, yet, in the face of this awful fact of death, these things seemed as though they had never been. They seemed to depart for ever, like a shadow that passes over a field of corn. When death comes, human life appears to be stripped of all substance, and to be only like the memory of a dream. However long a man may live, truly his days are few and evil. For when time is once gone it matters not how long it has been. All the distinctions which are among men, of learning and ignorance, riches and poverty, high and low estate, vanish before this common lot, mortality. Life passes on quickly to its close, and then, to all human seeming, disappears. How rapid was the succession of events in the life of Sarah! A few chapters back, and we read of her marriage; then of the birth of her child; and now we read the account of her death and funeral. This rapid passing over a long history arises, as we know, from the brevity of Scripture biography; yet herein human life is truly represented. Our life, after all, consists of but a few chapters. A baptism, then a wedding; and pass a few more years at most, then a funeral. Such are the short and simple heads of our mortal story. And when the end comes, what a poor and despicable thing life seems! Abraham learned further:
II. To realise the fact of his own mortality. The living know that they shall die. We all accept the fact of our mortality, but we seldom realise it until death strikes down a near object, and wounds our own heart. When those loved ones die, whose lives have been bound up closely with our own, then death becomes awfully credible. Men tell us of the horror they have felt upon their first sensations of the shock of an earthquake. They felt as if this firm-set earth was no longer to be trusted. They were safe nowhere. And so, when the stroke of death falls upon those whom we have long and deeply loved, the feeling rushes upon us suddenly, that after all this solid life is hollow. Our first thought is, I may be the next to go. When Abraham saw his wife lying dead, the thought of his own mortality would be forced upon him as it never had been before. Such is the estimate which must be formed of human life when seen from this side. But a godly man could not rest in such a despairing view of human life and destiny. Therefore he learned also:
III. To feel that there is a life beyond. Abraham lived the life of faith. He knew that his soul was linked with the ever-living God who would be the eternal possession of those who trust in Him. The soul that partakes of the Divine nature cannot die. Abraham had a fixed belief in a future life, but there are moments when such a belief becomes more intense and real. When he came to mourn and weep for Sarah, he would not merely know, but feel the truth of an immortality. Our conviction of a future life does not depend upon reasoning. We can reason ourselves just as easily into the opposite conclusion. There is no absurdity in supposing the mind altogether to perish. Why should we not go back again to that original nothing whence we came? It is, after all, not the intellect but the heart that believes. Our affections will not allow us to believe that our loved ones are clean gone for ever. When we mourn for the dead, the immortal part of us sends out its feelers for that part which is severed and gone. That grief which blinds the eyes with tears, does, at the same time, open the eyes of the soul to see beyond into the invisible world. Sorrow pierces the veil, and when all is lost here that other world becomes more real. Again, Abraham learned:
IV. The sacredness of sorrow for the dead. Abraham believed in God; had submitted to His will; had resolved to obey that will, even when it seemed cruel. He was a stern saint, a man of iron determination, who would not shrink from the most difficult duties in the service of his God. Yet this strong man weeps. He feels that it is right to weepthat religion has not destroyed, but rather intensified his humanity. He must pay nature her tribute. The example of those saints whose lives are recorded in the Bible shows us that sorrow for the dead is consistent with perfect submission to the will of God. Joseph, we are told, lifted up his voice and wept. We read of the tears of Jacob and of Peter. And even the Lord Jesus, who was free from the sins of our nature, but possessed of its power to feel sorrow, wept over the grave of Lazarus. Piety towards God does not condemn us to lose our humanity. That religion which seeks to eradicate the essential qualities of human nature is not of God. Cloistered virtue, which aims to stifle the domestic affections, has no encouragement from the Bible. True to the facts of human nature, that Book shows us how those who have lived nearest to God have had the largest heart towards mankind. Abraham, the chief example of strong and unstaggering faith, weeps for his dead. The saint had not destroyed the man. The heart, which has the power to believe, has also the power to suffer.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 23:1. It is instructive to observe the time of her death. She was younger by ten years than Abraham, and yet died thirty-eight years before him. Human life is a subject of very uncertain calculation. God often takes the youngest before the eldest. She lived, however, thirty-seven years after the birth of Isaac, to a good old age, and went home as a shock of corn ripe in its season.(Fuller.)
Few incidents in Sarahs life are recorded. This tells much for the excellence of her character, as it implies the sober and noiseless manner in which she discharged her duties in the retired ways of domestic life. There the virtues of a womans character shine to the most advantage.
Sarah
1. The pattern-woman (1Pe. 3:6).
2. The mother of the Hebrew people.
3. The mother of Isaac, in whom the promised seed was to be called. In the history of redemption she was second in importance only to the mother of our Lord.
Her name was significant of her illustrious and distinguished fame. To Abraham, from the beginning of his pilgrimage, she was Saraimy princess. So he delighted affectionately to honour her. To the Church at large, the vast multitude of Abrahams believing children, she is Sarahthe princessto whom, as to a princess, they are all to look, and whom in all generations they are to call blessed (Gen. 17:16-17). Yet the tenour of her life was very private, unostentatious, and unassuming. She tarried at home. The leading features of her character, which the word of inspiration commends, were these: her holy and unadorned simplicity; her meek and quiet spiritan ornament in the sight of God of great price; and her believing subjection to a believing husband (1Pe. 3:1-6). She was devoted to Abraham. Nor was it merely in the blindness of natural and fond affection that she waited on him, but with an intelligent apprehension and appreciation of his high standing, as the friend of God and the heir of the covenant.(Candlish.)
Gen. 23:2. Death is the solemn thought of the world. Let it be ever so vulgarized or common, still, beneath the tent of the eastern emir or in the crowded cemeteries of the capital, death is an awful arresting thing. While civilisation has robbed other horrors of their wonder, death is still the insoluble event. But here we have something more than deathwe have separation. Abraham and Sarah had lived together for long, but they were parted at last. The shock was broken in Abrahams case by its naturalness. The dissolution of the aged is expected; and often the survivor dies soon.(Robertson.)
Consider the place of her death. It was anciently called Kirjath-Arba, afterwards Hebron, situated in the plain of Mamre, where Abraham had lived more than twenty years before he went into the land of the Philistines, and whither he had since returned. Here Sarah died, and here Abraham mourned for her. We may take notice of the forms of it. He came to mourn, i.e., he came into her tent where she died, and looked at her dead body; his eye affected his heart. There was none of that false delicacy of modern times which shuns to see or attend the burial of near relations. Let him see her, and let him weepit is the last tribute of affection which he will be able in that manner to pay her. We should also notice the sincerity of it; he wept. Many affect to mourn who do not weep; but Abraham both mourned and wept. Religion does not stop the course of nature, though it moderates it, and by inspiring the hope of a blessed resurrection, prevents our being swallowed up of overmuch sorrow.(Fuller.)
In those tears of Abraham was anguish; but there might have been remorse. Apparently Abraham had nothing to reproach himself with. Quarrels in his married life are recorded, but in all he behaved with tenderness, concession, and dignity. In all things he had supported and cherished his wife, bearing, like a strong man, the burdens of the weak. But oh! let us beware. There are bitter recollections which enhance the sorrow of bereavement and change it into agonyrecollections which are repeated to us in words which remorse will not cease to echo for ever and ever. Oh, if they would but come again, Id never grieve them more. It is this which makes tears scald. To how many a grown heart have not those childish words of the infant hymn gone home, sharp with an undying pang!(Robertson.)
The true mourning a sanctified feeling of death.
1. A fellow-feeling of death, with the dead.
2. An anticipation of death, or a living preparation for ones own death.
3. A believing sense of the end or destination of death, to be made useful to the life.(Lange.)
Is the believer the whole plot or fiemerely suffered, by way of indulgence to sorrow? The assurance that he may sorrow without sinningthat he may indulge his grief without offenceis an unspeakable consolation. The fact that Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for herstill more the fact that Jesus weptis as oil poured into the wounds of the hearts lacerated and torn affections. But still more complete is the adaptation of the Gospel to mans nature and mans trials. The Patriarch evidently made conscience of his mourning. His sighs and tears were not merely regarded by him as lawful, for the relief of his overcharged and overburdened soul. Even into this department of his experience he carried his sense of obligation. In a religious and spiritual sense he made a business of his grief. He went about the indulgence of it as a work of faith. He allotted to it a fixed and definite time. He came to Sarahs tent for the express purpose. He gave up for this work his other avocations and employments. His occupation was to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. There is, therefore, a time to weep; there is a time to mourn. There is a season during which to mourn and weep is not merely the allowed license or tolerated weakness of the believer, but his proper business, the very exercise to which he is called. This instance of Abraham is not only a warrant and precedent, but a binding and authoritative example. It not merely sanctions a liberty; it imposes an obligation.(Candlish.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PART THIRTY-FIVE
THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: HIS PROVISIONS FOR POSTERITY
Gen. 23:1 to Gen. 25:18
1. Provision of a Burial Place (Gen. 23:1-20)
1 And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years: these were the years of the life of Sarah. 2 And Sarah died in Kiriatharba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. 3 And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spake unto the children of Heth, saying, 4 I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. 5 And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, 6 Hear us, my lord; thou art a prince of God among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. 7 And Abraham rose up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. 8 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, 9 that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for the full price let him give it to me in the midst of you for a possession of a burying-place. 10 Now Ephron was sitting in the midst of the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, 11 Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the children of my people give, I it thee: bury thy dead. 12 And Abraham bowed himself down before the people of the land. 13 And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt, I pray thee, hear me: I will give the price of the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. 14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, 15 My lord, hearken unto me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that betwixt me and thee) bury therefore thy dead. 16 And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.
17 So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the border thereof round about, were made sure 18 unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. 19 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan. 20 And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth.
(1) The Death of Sarah is the next recorded event in the life of Abraham. At the age of 127 years Sarah died at Hebron (the earlier name of which was Kiriatharba). The fact that Sarah died at Hebron indicates that Abraham had returned from Beersheba to his old home there; or he could have sojourned back and forth repeatedly between Beersheba and Hebron throughout the intervening years. (It could have been, too, that Sarah was away from Beersheba, possibly on a visit to her former home, when she died, Gen. 23:1-2). It so happens that Sarah is the only woman whose age and death are reported in the Scriptures, as commentators have observed from days of old. This cannot be without design. She is the mother of all believers, according to 1Pe. 3:6, and so deserving of some such distinction (EG, 640). (For Kiriath-arba, cf. Num. 13:28; Jos. 15:13-14; Jos. 21:11; Jdg. 1:20). Abraham mourned and wept for her: a reference to formal rites, which has no bearing, one way or another, on the survivors personal feelings; just so, a Nuzi adoption document provides that when A dies, B shall weep for him and bury him (ABG, 69). But such demonstrations of grief are as natural and as proper to the Oriental as is our greater measure of restraint to us (EG, 642); and we must therefore believe that this mourning and weeping was the expression of deep and sincere sorrow on Abrahams part.
(2) Negotiations for a Burying-place (Gen. 23:3-16). As burial within one days time after death was the rule in this land, Sarahs death made necessary the purchase of a burial ground. Hence we now have the story of how Abraham becomes the owner of the field and cave of Machpelah, by formal purchase from the Hittites, and there proceeds to bury his dead. Although the land had been promised to Abraham and his seed, up to this time God had given him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on (Act. 7:5). Now, however, the sanctity of the desired burying-place demanded that it be his own. Abraham acquires proprietary rights in Canaan: the promise of the Land, Gen. 12:7, Gen. 13:15, Gen. 15:7, is beginning to be fulfilled (JB, 39). Abraham enters into negotiations with the sons of Heth, that is, the Hittites. The transaction was conducted with punctilious regard to all the necessary formalities, and these are recited in detail (UBG, 292). Abraham wanted to purchase a burying-place in Canaan, and to have the claims thereunto ascertained, that he and his nearest relatives might have their dust laid there apart from the heathen natives; and might have it as a pledge and earnest to confirm their faith in Gods promise of their possession of the whole country in His due time, cf. Gen. 25:9, Gen. 47:29-30, Gen. 49:31, Gen. 50:13; Gen. 50:24-26 (SIBG, 249). The Sons of Heth were the Hittites. (The Hittite Empire was founded about 1800 B.C. by a Indo-European people who had settled in Canaan and throughout the Near East in city-states at a much earlier time. Hence the name is given to an ethnic group living in Canaan from patriarchal times and until after the Israelite occupation (cf. Jos. 1:4; Gen. 15:20, Deu. 7:1, Jdg. 3:5). These were called the children of Heth (Gen. 23:5) after their eponymous ancestor Heth, a son of Canaan (Gen. 10:15). The center of the great Hittite empire was in what is now Turkey; their capital city was Hattusas (or Boghazkoi) located in the bend of the Halys River. The discovery of iron is reported to have occurred in this area, in the region of the Black Sea, during this period of Hittite hegemony.)
Abraham instituted the negotiations with the frank statement that he was a sojourner and a stranger in the land, that is, a kind of resident-alien (a settled sojourner, so to speak, a long-term resident, but one who lacked the usual privileges of a citizen, notably, the right to own land). (Cf. Gen. 12:10; Gen. 19:9; Gen. 20:1, etc.). The concession that the patriarch seeks is simply the acquiring of enough land to serve as a burial site. In the course of the entire transaction, he behaves, and is treated by the inhabitants, as a generous and powerful prince. Finally he strikes a bargain with Ephron the Hittite, in the presence of the entire populace. (It seems obvious that behind their generosity there lurked an aversion to the idea of a purchase Skinner, ICCG, 337). Courteously refusing the use of their sepulchres, and the offer of a burial-place for his own use as a gift, Abraham finally succeeds in buying for its full value of 400 shekels weight of silver (current money with the merchant) the Cave of Machpelah, close to the oak of Mamre, with the field and all the trees that were in the field, in which the Cave was located. Here Abraham buried Sarah (Gen. 23:19); here Abraham himself was buried later by Isaac and Ishmael (Gen. 25:9); here also were buried Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah (Gen. 35:27-29, Gen. 47:29-30, Gen. 49:31, Gen. 50:13).
(3) The Cave of Machpelah, Gen. 23:17-20. Literally, the cave of double. Some hold that it consisted of two stories; others that the name indicated that several couples were to be buried there; still others, that it was a double cave, one within the other, etc. Many interesting facts have been brought to light by recent archaeological findings which authenticate the details of the purchase of this burial-place. Wiseman writes (NBD, 765): Recent comparisons of the details of Abrahams purchase of Machpelah with Middle Assyrian and Hittite laws support the antiquity of Genesis 23. Thus M. R. Lehmann draws attention to the inclusion of the number of the trees, the weighing of silver at the current merchant valuation, and the use of witnesses at the city-gate where the transaction was proclaimed (Gen. 23:16-18). These accord with Hittite laws which fell into oblivion by c. 1200 B.C. The desire of Ephron to sell all the property rather than the cave at the edge of the field (Gen. 23:9) may be linked with legal and feudal requirements of the time. At the present day in many of the outlying villages of Palestine, where primitive customs are still kept up, I have seen the elders sitting in the gates conducting public business. In ancient times the gate of a town or village was the place where the elders or judges sat, where cases were heard and adjudicated, and where all matters affecting the public welfare were discussed, Gen. 34:20, Deu. 16:18, Rth. 4:1 (SIBG, 249). Hittite real estate transactions made specific reference to the trees on the property (HSB, 37). Verses 17, 18 are in the form of a legal contract. Specifications of the dimensions and boundaries of a piece of land, and of the buildings, trees, etc., upon it, are common in ancient contracts of sale at all periods (Skinner, ICCG, 338).
The modern site of this burial cave is in the famous sanctuary of Haram (Gunkel, Genesis, 273) at Hebron, under the great Mosque. It is one of the holiest shrines of Mohammedanism, and is venerated also by both Jews and Christians. Machpelah is mentioned in the Talmud. Entrance is forbidden Jews and Christians unless they can secure permission from the Moslem Supreme Council. Visitors who have been admitted to the mosque describe the cenotaphs of Abraham, Isaac, and their wives, as being covered with elaborately ornamented palls. The cenotaphs of Jacob and Leah are in a small adjacent structure. The tombs are said to be in the cave below the cenotaphs. Moslems claim that the tomb of Joseph is just outside the Cave of Machpelah, represented by a cenotaph West of the Mosque of the Women. But see Jos. 24:32 (HBD, 409). The whole enclosure, we are told, is jealously guarded by massive stone walls, probably of Herodian work, though the antiquity of the cave itself and its furnishings has not been verified by archaeological research (NBD, 765). The cave below has never been examined in modern times, but it is stated by its guardians to be double. There is no reason to doubt that the tradition as to the site has descended from biblical times; and it is quite probable that the name Makepelah is derived from the feature just referred to (Skinner, ICCG, 339).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXIII.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF SARAH.
(1) Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old.Sarah is the only woman whose age at her death is mentioned in the Bible, an honour doubtless given her as the ancestress of the Hebrew race (Isa. 51:2). As she was ninety at Isaacs birth, he would now be thirty-seven years of age.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. A hundred and seven and twenty The only woman whose age is given in the Bible is this mother of the chosen seed . Sixty-two years had passed since she left Haran to wander with her husband she knew not whither, and thirty-seven years since Isaac’s birth .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And the life of Sarah was one hundred and twenty seven years. These were the years of the life of Sarah.’
As mentioned of ages before, this age may not necessarily be intended literally (see on Genesis 5). It is one of those ending in seven as with Ishmael (Gen 25:17) and Jacob (Gen 47:28). Otherwise dates connected with Abraham and his descendants tend to end in nought or five. But it does indicate a good age.
Ishmael and Jacob were distinctive in dying outside the land of promise. It may be that Sarah, as a woman, is also not seen as directly connected with the promise. But in the end, while recognising that numbers are symbolic, we must admit that we do not know conclusively what their final significance was. After all Joseph died outside the land at one hundred and ten.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Abraham Purchases a Burial Plot – The story of Abraham purchasing a plot of land from the sons of Heth was a reflection of the customs of his day. The Code of Hammurabi, believed by some scholars to have been written by a Babylonian king around 2100 B.C., impacted its culture for centuries. It is very likely that Abraham based this purchase upon rule number 7 of this Code, which says, “If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.”
Gen 23:1 And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.
Gen 23:1
Gen 23:2 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.
Gen 23:1-2
Gen 23:3 And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying,
Gen 23:4 Gen 23:5 Gen 23:6 Gen 23:7 Gen 23:7
Gen 23:8 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,
Gen 23:9 Gen 23:10 Gen 23:11 Gen 23:12 Gen 23:13 Gen 23:13
1Ch 21:24, “And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings without cost.”
Gen 33:11, “Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. And he urged him, and he took it.”
Gen 23:14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him,
Gen 23:15 Gen 23:16 Gen 23:17 Gen 23:18 Gen 23:19 Gen 23:20 Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.
The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.
The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.
In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.
It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.
We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.
In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26
a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25
b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24
c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26
2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8
3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29
4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9
5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26
6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43
10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Genealogy of Terah (and of Abraham) The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.
Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11 gives the account of the genealogy of Terah and his son Abraham. (Perhaps the reason this genealogy is not exclusively of Abraham, but rather of his father Terah, is because of the importance of Lot and the two tribes descended from him, the Moabites and the Ammonites, who will play a significant role in Israel’s redemptive history.) Heb 11:8-19 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when it describes Abraham’s acts of faith and obedience to God, culminating in the offering of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. The genealogy of Abraham opens with God’s promise to him that if he would separate himself from his father and dwell in the land of Canaan, then God would make from him a great nation through his son (Gen 12:1-3), and it closes with God fulfilling His promise to Abraham by giving Him a son Isaac. However, this genealogy records Abraham’s spiritual journey to maturity in his faith in God, as is typical of each child of God. We find a summary of this genealogy in Heb 11:8-19. During the course of Abraham’s calling, God appeared to Abraham a number of times. God reappeared to him and told him that He would make his seed as numerous as the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5). God later appeared to Abraham and made the covenant of circumcision with him and said, “I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”(Gen 17:2) After Abraham offered Isaac his son upon the altar, God reconfirmed His promise that “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Gen 22:17). The event on Mount Moriah serves as a testimony that Abraham fulfilled his part in believing that God would raise up a nation from Isaac, his son of promise. Thus, Abraham fulfilled his calling and destiny for his generation by dwelling in the land of Canaan and believing in God’s promise of the birth of his son Isaac. All of God’s promises to Abraham emphasized the birth of his one seed called Isaac. This genealogy testifies to God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promise of giving Abraham a son and of Abraham’s faith to believe in God’s promises. Rom 9:6-9 reflects the theme of Abraham’s genealogy in that it discusses the son of promise called Isaac.
Abraham’s Faith Perfected ( Jas 2:21-22 ) – Abraham had a promise from God that he would have a son by Sarai his wife. However, when we read the Scriptures in the book of Genesis where God gave Abraham this promise, we see that he did not immediately believe the promise from God (Gen 17:17-18).
Gen 17:17-18, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
Instead of agreeing with God’s promise, Abraham laughed and suggested that God use Ishmael to fulfill His promise. However, many years later, by the time God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, he was fully persuaded that God was able to use Isaac to make him a father of nations. We see Abraham’s faith when he told his son Isaac that God Himself was able to provide a sacrifice, because he knew that God would raise Isaac from the dead, if need be, in order to fulfill His promise (Gen 22:8).
Gen 22:8, “And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”
Heb 11:17-19, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
The best illustration of being fully persuaded is when Abraham believed that God would raise up Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill His promise. This is truly being fully persuaded and this is what Rom 4:21 is referring to.
What distinguished Abraham as a man of faith was not his somewhat initial weak reaction to the promises of God in Gen 17:17-18, but it was his daily obedience to God. Note a reference to Abraham’s daily obedience in Heb 11:8.
Heb 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”
Abraham was righteous before God because he believed and obeyed God’s Words on a daily basis. A good illustration how God considers obedience as an act of righteousness is found in Genesis 19. Abraham had prayed for ten righteous people to deliver Sodom from destruction. The angels found only four people who hearkened to their words. These people were considered righteous in God’s eyes because they were obedient and left the city as they had been told to do by the angels.
Abraham’s ability to stagger not (Rom 4:20) and to be fully persuaded (Rom 4:21) came through time. As he was obedient to God, his faith in God’s promise began to take hold of his heart and grow, until he came to a place of conviction that circumstances no longer moved him. Abraham had to learn to be obedient to God when he did not understand the big picture. Rom 5:3-5 teaches us that tribulation produces patience, and patience produces experience, and experience hope. Abraham had to pass through these four phases of faith in order to develop strong faith that is no longer moved by circumstances.
Let us look at Abraham’s history of obedience to God. He had first been obedient to follow his father from Ur to Haran.
Gen 11:31, “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.”
He was further obedient when he left Haran and went to a land that he did not know.
Gen 12:1, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:”
He was further obedient for the next twenty-five years in this Promised Land, learning that God was his Shield and his Reward. Note:
Gen 15:1, “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
God called Himself Abraham’s shield and reward because Abraham had come to know Him as a God who protects him and as a God who prospers him. Note that Abraham was living in a land where people believed in many gods, where people believed that there was a god for every area of their lives. God was teaching Abraham that He was an All-sufficient God. This was why God said to Abraham in Gen 17:1, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” In other words, God was telling Abraham to be obedient. Abraham’s role in fulfilling this third promise was to be obedient, and to live a holy life. As Abraham did this, he began to know God as an Almighty God, a God who would be with him in every situation in life. As Abraham fulfilled his role, God fulfilled His divine role in Abraham’s life.
God would later test Abraham’s faith in Gen 22:1 to see if Abraham believed that God was Almighty.
Gen 22:1, “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.”
God knew Abraham’s heart. However, Abraham was about to learn what was in his heart. For on Mount Moriah, Abraham’s heart was fully persuaded that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill His promise:
Heb 11:19, “Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
Abraham had to die to his own ways of reasoning out God’s plan. He had taken Eliezer of Damascus as his heir as a result of God’s first promise. Then, he had conceived Ishmael in an attempt to fulfill God’s second promise. Now, Abraham was going to have to learn to totally depend upon God’s plan and learn to follow it.
The first promise to Abraham was made to him at the age of 75, when he first entered the Promised Land.
Gen 12:7, “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.”
This first promise was simple, that God would give this land to Abraham’s seed. So, Abraham took Eliezer of Damascus as his heir. But the second promise was greater in magnitude and more specific.
Gen 15:4-5, “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
This next promise said that God would give Abraham this land to Abraham’s biological child and that his seed would proliferate and multiply as the stars of heaven. So, Abraham has a son, Ishmael, by Hagar, his handmaid in order to fulfill this promise.
The third promise, which came twenty-five years after the first promise, was greater than the first and second promises. God said that Abraham would become a father of many nations through Sarah, his wife. Abraham had seen God be his Shield and protect him from the Canaanites. He had seen God as his Reward, by increasing his wealth (Gen 15:1). But now, Abraham was to learn that God was Almighty (Gen 17:1), that with God, all things are possible.
It was on Mount Moriah that Abraham truly died to himself, and learned to live unto God. In the same way, it was at Peniel that Jacob died to his own self and learned to totally depend upon God. After Mount Moriah, Abraham stopped making foolish decisions. There is not a fault to find in Abraham after his experience of sacrificing his son. When Abraham was making wrong decisions, he had the wisdom to build an altar at every place he pitched his tent. It was at these altars that he dealt with his sins and wrong decisions.
At Peniel God called Jacob by the name Israel. Why would God give Jacob this name? Because Jacob must now learn to totally trust in God. His thigh was limp and his physical strength was gone. The only might that he will ever know the rest of his life will be the strength that he finds in trusting God. Jacob was about to meet his brother and for the first time in his life, he was facing a situation that he could not handle in his own strength and cunning. He has been able to get himself out of every other situation in his life, but this time, it was different. He was going to have to trust God or die, and Jacob knew this. His name was now Israel, a mighty one in God. Jacob would have to now find his strength in God, because he had no strength to fight in the flesh. Thus, his name showed him that he could look to God and prevail as a mighty one both with God and with man. After this night, the Scriptures never record a foolish decision that Jacob made. He began to learn how to totally rely upon the Lord as his father Abraham had learned.
After Mount Moriah and Peniel, we read no more of foolish decisions by Abraham and Jacob. We just see men broken to God’s will and humble before God’s mercy.
Obedience is the key, and total obedience is not learned quickly. I believe that it takes decades, as we see in the life of Abraham, to learn to be obedient to a God whom we know as Almighty. This is not learned over night.
Abraham had a word from God before he left Ur. When he reached Canaan, he received a promise from God. Don’t mess with a man and his promise. Pharaoh tried to mess with this man’s promise and God judged him. King Abimelech tried to take Abraham’s promise, but God judged him.
Like Abraham, we may start the journey making some poor judgments, but God is greater than our errors.
We will first know God as our shield and our reward. He will protect us throughout our ministry. He will reward us. He will prosper our ministry. As we learn to be obedient, we will come to know our God as the Almighty in a way that we have never known Him before.
Do not mess with a man who has laid Isaac on the altar. I have heard Gen 17:17 taught as the laugh of faith.
Gen 17:17-18, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
I see very little faith in Abraham’s words in these verses. On the other hand, I have heard other preachers criticize Abraham for his lack of faith at these times in his life; yet, I do not see God criticizing his faith. Abraham was not fully persuaded at this point, but he did not fail God. Abraham simply continued being obedient and living holy until the faith grew in his heart. Every wrong decision that Abraham made brought him that much closer to the right decision. We call this the school of hard knocks. As a result, faith continued to grow in his heart. By Genesis 22, Abraham was fully persuaded and strong in faith that God was Almighty.
Watch out, lest you criticize a man learning to walk in his promise. He may look foolish at times, but do not look on the outward appearance. You either run with him, or get out of the way, but don’t get in the way.
When I left Seminary and a Master’s degree, I was given a job driving a garbage truck while learning to pastor a Charismatic church. I was learning to walk in a promise from God. I will never forget riding on the back of these garbage trucks in my hometown, while the church members who had given money to send me to Seminary watched me in disbelief.
God does not measure a man by the size of his ministry, but by the size of his heart. When Jimmy Swaggart fell into sin, Alethia Fellowship Church was one of his partners, so this church was receiving his monthly ministry tapes during this period in his ministry. In a cassette tape immediately after his fall, he gave a testimony of how he told the Lord that he had failed. The Lord replied to him that he had not failed; rather the Lord had to get some things out of his life. [170] That word from God gave him the courage to go on in the midst of failure. You see, God was more pleased with Jimmy Swaggart living a godly life in fellowship with Him than preaching in great crusades while living in sin.
[170] Jimmy Swaggart, “Monthly Partner Cassette Tape,” (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, February 1988), audiocassette.
Joyce Meyer said that if God measured our success by the way the world measured us, He would have called us “achievers” and not “believers.” [171] Abraham was justified by faith and not by his works. Our work is to believe, not to achieve.
[171] Joyce Meyer, Life in the Word (Fenton, Missouri: Joyce Meyer Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Many of my church friends and relatives criticized me as a failure. However, I knew somehow that the walk of faith was obedience to the Word of God, and not a walk of pleasing man. I obviously did not spend much time with people who thought that I was nuts. Instead, I spent so much time in my bedroom studying my Bible that I looked dysfunctional. Yet, the Lord strengthened me. I will never forget, after riding the garbage truck during the day, and hiding in God’s Word in the night. One night, I laid down about 1:00 a.m. and the glory of God filled my room until 5:00 a.m. in the morning. It was during these most difficult times that the Lord strengthened me the most.
The Lord strengthened Abraham in the midst of his questions and errors. If you will just stay obedient, God will see His Word come to pass through you, as did Abraham learn to see God as Almighty.
Gen 11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
Gen 11:28 Gen 11:28 “And in the thirty-fifth jubilee, in the third week, in the first year [1681 A.M.] thereof, Reu took to himself a wife, and her name was ‘Ora, the daughter of ‘Ur, the son of Kesed, and she bare him a son, and he called his name Seroh, in the seventh year of this week in this jubilee. And ‘Ur, the son of Kesed, built the city of ‘Ara of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father. And they made for themselves molten images, and they worshipped each the idol, the molten image which they had made for themselves, and they began to make graven images and unclean simulacra, and malignant spirits assisted and seduced (them) into committing transgression and uncleanness.” ( The Book of Jubilees 11.1-5)
Gen 11:29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
Gen 11:29 Gen 20:12, “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.”
Compare the comments in Gen 11:29 where Nahor, Abraham’s brother, took his niece, the daughter of Haran, as his wife.
Gen 11:29 “and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah” – Word Study on “Milcah” Gesenius tells us that by Chaldean usage the Hebrew name “Milcah” “Milkah” ( ) (H4435) means “counsel.” Strong tells us that the name means, “queen.” PTW tells us it means, “counsel.” She is daughter of Haran and sister to Lot and Iscah. She married her uncle named Nahor and bare him eight children. She is first mentioned in Gen 11:29 in the genealogy of Terah. She is mentioned a second time in Scripture Gen 22:20-24, where Nahor’s genealogy is given. Her name is mentioned on a third occasion in the chapter where Isaac takes Rebekah as his bride (Gen 24:15; Gen 24:24; Gen 24:47). She is mentioned no more in the Scriptures.
Word Study on “Iscah” Gesenius says the Hebrew name “Iscah” “Yickah” ( ) (H3252) means, “one who beholds, looks out” from ( ). Strong tells us that it comes from an unused word meaning “to watch.” PTW tells us it means, “Jehovah is looking” or “who looks.” Iscah was the sister to Milcah and Lot. Nothing more is mentioned of this person in the Scriptures, her significance being her relationship to her siblings, of whom Lot is the best known.
Gen 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
Gen 11:30 Gen 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Gen 11:31 “And Terah went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, he and his sons, to go into the land of Lebanon and into the land of Canaan, and he dwelt in the land of Haran, and Abram dwelt with Terah his father in Haran two weeks of years.” ( The Book of Jubilees 12.15-16)
However, Act 7:1-4 says that it was Abraham who moved out from Ur due to a Word from the Lord.
Act 7:1-4, “Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.”
Gen 11:31 Scripture References – Note:
Jos 24:2, “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah , the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.”
Gen 11:32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Gen 12:1-3 The Calling of the Patriarchs of Israel We can find two major divisions within the book of Genesis that reveal God’s foreknowledge in designing a plan of redemption to establish a righteous people upon earth. Paul reveals this four-fold plan in Rom 8:29-30: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.
Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
The book of Genesis will reflect the first two phase of redemption, which are predestination and calling. We find in the first division in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 emphasizing predestination. The Creation Story gives us God’s predestined plan for mankind, which is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with righteous offspring. The second major division is found in Gen 2:4 to Gen 50:25, which gives us ten genealogies, in which God calls men of righteousness to play a role in His divine plan of redemption.
The foundational theme of Gen 2:4 to Gen 11:26 is the divine calling for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, which commission was given to Adam prior to the Flood (Gen 1:28-29), and to Noah after the Flood (Gen 9:1). The establishment of the seventy nations prepares us for the calling out of Abraham and his sons, which story fills the rest of the book of Genesis. Thus, God’s calling through His divine foreknowledge (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26) will focus the calling of Abraham and his descendants to establish the nation of Israel. God will call the patriarchs to fulfill the original purpose and intent of creation, which is to multiply into a righteous nation, for which mankind was originally predestined to fulfill.
The generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob take up a large portion of the book of Genesis. These genealogies have a common structure in that they all begin with God revealing Himself to a patriarch and giving him a divine commission, and they close with God fulfilling His promise to each of them because of their faith in His promise. God promised Abraham a son through Sarah his wife that would multiply into a nation, and Abraham demonstrated his faith in this promise on Mount Moriah. God promised Isaac two sons, with the younger receiving the first-born blessing, and this was fulfilled when Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing above his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph received two dreams of ruling over his brothers, and Jacob testified to his faith in this promise by following Joseph into the land of Egypt. Thus, these three genealogies emphasize God’s call and commission to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their response of faith in seeing God fulfill His word to each of them.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Origin of the Nation of Israel After Gen 1:1 to Gen 9:29 takes us through the origin of the heavens and the earth as we know them today, and Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26 explains the origin of the seventy nations (Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26), we see that the rest of the book of Genesis focuses upon the origin of the nation of Israel (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26). Thus, each of these major divisions serves as a foundation upon which the next division is built.
Paul the apostle reveals the four phases of God the Father’s plan of redemption for mankind through His divine foreknowledge of all things in Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Predestination – Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:26 emphasizes the theme of God the Father’s predestined purpose of the earth, which was to serve mankind, and of mankind, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. Calling – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, which is His divine calling to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. (The additional two phases of Justification and Glorification will unfold within the rest of the books of the Pentateuch.) This second section of Genesis can be divided into five genealogies. The three genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begin with a divine calling to a patriarch. The two shorter genealogies of Ishmael and Esau are given simply because they inherit a measure of divine blessings as descendants of Abraham, but they will not play a central role in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
Divine Miracles It is important to note that up until now the Scriptures record no miracles in the lives of men. Thus, we will observe that divine miracles begin with Abraham and the children of Israel. Testimonies reveal today that the Jews are still recipients of God’s miracles as He divinely intervenes in this nation to fulfill His purpose and plan for His people. Yes, God is working miracles through His New Testament Church, but miracles had their beginning with the nation of Israel.
The Death of Sarah
v. 1. And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old; these were the years of the life of Sarah. v. 2. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. EXPOSITION
Gen 23:1
And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old (literally, and the lives of Sarah were an hundred and twenty and seven years); so that Isaac must have been thirty-seven, having been born in his mother’s ninetieth year. Sarah, as the wife of Abraham and the mother of believers (Isa 51:2; 1Pe 3:6), is the only woman whose age is mentioned in Scripture. These were the years of the life of Sarahan emphatic repetition designed to impress the Israelitish mind with the importance of remembering the age of their ancestress.
Gen 23:2
And Sarah died in Kirjath-arbaor city of Arba, Abraham having again removed thither after an absence of nearly forty years, during which interval Murphy thinks the reign of Arba the Anakite may have commenced, though Keil postpones it to a later period (cf. Jos 14:15). The same is Hebronthe Original name of the city, which was supplanted by that of Kir-jath-arba, but restored at the conquest (Keil, Hengstenberg, Murphy; vide Gen 13:18) in the land of Canaanindicating that the writer was not then in Palestine (‘Speaker’s Commentary’); perhaps rather designed to emphasize the circumstance that Sarah’s death occurred not in the Philistines’ country, but in the promised land (Rosenmller, Keil, Murphy). And Abraham cameor went; (LXX.), venit (Vulgate); not as if he had been absent at her death (Calvin), either in Beersheba, where he retained a location (Clarke), or in Gerar, whither he had gone to sell the lands and other properties he held there (Luther), or in the pasture grounds adjoining Hebron (Keil, Murphy)’; but as addressing himself to the work of mourning for his deceased wife (Vatablus, Rosenmller), or perhaps as going into Sarah’s tent (Maimonides, Ainsworth, Wordsworth, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’)to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. “To arrange for the customary mourning ceremony” (Keil); the first verb, (cf. ), referring to the beating of the breast as a sign of grief (cf. 1Ki 14:13); and the second, , to flow by drops, intimating a quieter and more moderate sorrow. Beyond sitting on the ground and weeping in presence of (or upon the face of) the dead, no other rites are mentioned as having been observed by Abraham; though afterwards, as practiced among the Hebrews, Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity, mourning for the dead developed into an elaborate ritual, including such ceremonies as rending the garments, shaving the head, wearing sackcloth, covering the head with dust and ashes (vide 2Sa 3:31, 2Sa 3:35; 2Sa 21:10; Job 1:20; Job 2:12; Job 16:15, Job 16:16). Cf. the mourning for Patroclus (‘Il.,’ 19:211-213).
Gen 23:3
And Abraham stood upduring the days of mourning he had been sitting on the ground; and now, his grief having moderated (Calvin), he goes out to the city gatefrom before (literally, from over the face of) his dead,”Sarah, though dead, was still his” (Wordsworth)and spake unto the sons of Heth.the Hittites were descendants of Heth, the son of Canaan (vide Gen 10:15). Cf. “daughters of Heth” (Gen 27:46) and “daughters of Canaan” (Gen 28:1)saying.
Gen 23:4
I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Ger, one living out of his own country, and Thoshabh, one dwelling in a land in which he is not naturalized; advena et peregrinus (Vulgate); (LXX.). This confession of the heir of Canaan was a proof that he sought, as his real inheritance, a better country, even an heavenly (Heb 11:13). Give me a possession of a burying-place with you. The first mention of a grave in Scripture, the word in Hebrew signifying a hole in the earth, or a mound, according as the root is taken to mean to dig (Furst) or to heap up (Gesenius). Abraham’s desire for a grave m which to deposit Sarah’s lifeless remains was dictated by that Divinely planted and, among civilized nations, universally prevailing reverence for the body which prompts men to decently dispose of their dead by rites of honorable sepulture. The burning of corpses was a practice common to the nations of antiquity; but Tacitus notes it as characteristic of the Jews that they preferred interment to cremation (‘Hist.,’ 5.5). The wish to make Sarah’s burying-place his own possession has been traced to the instinctive desire that most nations have evinced to lie in ground belonging to themselves (Rosenmller), to an intention on the part of the patriarch to give a sign of his right and title to the land of Canaan by purchasing a grave in its soilcf. Isa 22:16 (Bush), or simply to anxiety that his dead might not lie unburied (Calvin); but it was more probably due to his strong faith that the land would yet belong to his descendants, which naturally led him to crave a resting-place in the soil with which the hopes of both himself and people were identified (Ainsworth, Bush, Kalisch). That I may bury my dead out of my sightdecay not suffering the lifeless corpse to remain a fit spectacle for grief or love to gaze on.
Gen 23:5, Gen 23:6
And the children of Heth answered. Abraham, saying unto him, Hear us, my lord. My lord (Adoni) = sir, monsieur, or mein herr. One acts as the spokesman of all; the number changing from plural to singular. The LXX; reading instead of , after the Samaritan Codex, render , Not so, my lord; but hear us. Thou art a mighty prince among us. Literally, a prince of Elohim; not of Jehovah, since the speakers were heathen whose ideas of Deity did not transcend those expressed in the term Elohim. According to a familiar Hebrew idiom, the phrase might be legitimately translated as in the A.V.cf. “mountains of God,” i.e. great mountains, Psa 36:6; “cedars of God,” i.e. goodly cedars, Psa 80:10 (Calvin, Kimchi, Rosenmller, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’); but, as employed by the Hittite chieftains, it probably expressed that they regarded him as a prince or phylarch, not to whom God had given an elevated aspect (Lange), but either whom God had appointed (Gesenius), or whom God manifestly favored (Kalisch, Murphy). This estimate of Abraham strikingly contrasts with that which the patriarch had formed (Psa 80:4) of himself. In the choice of our sepulchers bury thy dead; none of us will withhold from thee his sepulcher, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. This remarkable offer on the part of the Hittites Thomson regards as having been merely compliment, which Abraham was too experienced an Oriental not to understand. But, even if dictated by true kindness and generosity, the proposal was one to which for many reasonsfaith in God, love for the dead, and respect for himself being among the strongestthe patriarch could not accede. With perfect courtesy, therefore, though likewise with respectful firmness, he declines their offer.
Gen 23:7
And Abraham stood up (the customary posture among Orientals in buying and selling being that of sitting), and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Hathan act of respect quite accordant with modern Oriental manners.
Gen 23:8, Gen 23:9
And he communed with them, saying, If it be year mindliterally, if it be with your souls, the word nephesh being used in this sense in Psa 27:12; Psa 41:3; Psa 105:22that I should bury my dead out of my might; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar. The ruler of the city (Keil); but this is doubtful (Lange). “There is scarcely anything in the habits of Orientals more annoying to us Occidentals than this universal custom of employing mediators to pass between you and-those with whom you wish to do business. Nothing can be done without them. A merchant cannot sell a piece of print, nor a farmer a yoke of oxen, nor any one rent a house, buy a horse, or get a wife, without a succession of go-betweens. Of course Abraham knew that this matter of the field could not be brought about without the intervention of the neighbors of Ephron, and therefore he applies to them first”. That he may give me the cave of Machpelah,Machpelah is regarded as a proper noun (Gesenius, Keil, Kalisch, Rosenmller), as in Gen 49:30, though by others it is considered as an appellative, signifying that the cave was double (LXX; Vulgate), either as consisting of a cave within a cave (Hamerus), or of one cave exterior and another interior (Abort Ezra), or as having room for two bodies (Calvin), or as possessing two entrances (Jewish interpreters). It is probable the cave received its name from its peculiar form,which he hath (Ephron’s ownership of the cave is expressly recognized, and its situation is next described), which is in the end of his field“so that the cession of it will not injure his property” (Wordsworth). At the same time Abraham makes it clear that an honest purchase is what he contemplates. For as much money as it is worthliterally, for full silver (1Ch 21:22). Cf. siller (Scotch) for money. This is the first mention of the use of the precious metals as a medium of exchange, though they must have been so employed at a very early period (vide Gen 13:2)he shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place amongst you. The early Chaldaeans were accustomed to bury their dead in strongly-constructed brick vaults. Those found at Mughheir are seven feet long, three feet seven inches broad, and five feet high, are composed of sun-dried bricks embedded in mud, and exhibit a remarkable form and construction of arch, resembling that occur ring in Egyptian buildings and Scythian tombs, in which the successive layers of brick are made to overlap until they come so close that the aperture may be covered by a single brick. In the absence of such artificial receptacles for the dead, the nearest substitute the patriarch could obtain was one of those natural grottoes which the limestone hills of Canaan so readily afforded.
Gen 23:10
And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth. Not habitabat (Vulgate), in the sense of resided amongst, but sedebat, (LXX.); was then present sitting amongst the townspeople (Rosenmller), but whether in the capacity of a magistrate or councilor is not stated. And Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Hath, even of all that went in at the gate of his city,this does not imply that he was the chief magistrate (Keil), but only that he was a prominent citizen (Murphy). On the gate of the city as a place for transacting business vide Gen 19:1saying
Gen 23:11
Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it theean Oriental mode of expressing willingness to sell. Ephron would make a present of cave and field to the patriarch,”and just so have I had a hundred houses, and fields, and horses given to me”,the design being either to obtain a valuable compensation in return, or to preclude any abatement in the price (Keil), though possibly the offer to sell the entire field when he might have secured a good price for the cave alone was an indication of Ephron’s good intention (Lange). At least it seems questionable to conclude that Ephron’s generous phrases, which have now become formal and hollow courtesies indeed, meant no more in that simpler age when the ceremonies of intercourse were newer, and more truly reflected its spirit. In the presence of the ions of my people give I it thee (literally, have I given, the transaction being viewed as finished): bury thy dead.
Gen 23:12, Gen 23:13
And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. To express his sense of their kindness, and appreciation of Ephron’s offer in particular; aider which he courteously but firmly urged forward the contemplated purchase. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me. Literally, if thou, I would that thou wouldst hear me, the two particles and being conjoined to express the intensity of the speaker’s desire. I will give thee money for the field. Literally, money of the field, i.e. the value of the field in money. This seems to indicate that Abraham at least imagined Ephron’s offer of the field and cave as a gift to be not wholly formal. Had he regarded Ephron as all the while desirous of a sale, he would not have employed the language of entreaty. Take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.
Gen 23:14, Gen 23:15
And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. The word “shekel,” from shakal, to weigh, here used for the first time, was not a stamped coin, but a piece of metal of definite weight, according to Exo 30:13, equal to twenty gerahs, or beans, from garar, to roll. Coined money was unknown to the Hebrews until after the captivity. In the time of the Maccabees (1 Macc. 15:6) silver coins were struck bearing the inscription . According to Josephus (Ant; iii. 8, 2) the shekel in use in his day was equal to four Athenian drachmae; and if, as is believed, these were one-fifth larger than the old shekels coined by Simon Maccabeus, the weight of the latter would be equal to three and one-third drachms, or two hundred grains, reckoning sixty grains to a drachm. It is impossible to ascertain the weight of the shekel current with the merchant in the time of Abraham; but reckoning it at a little less than 2s. 6d. sterling, the price of Ephron’s field must have been somewhat under 50; a very consider able sum of money, which the Hittite merchant begins to depreciate by representing as a trifle, saying, What is that betwixt me and thee?words which are still heard in the East on similar occasionsbury therefore thy dead.
Gen 23:16
And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron (either as knowing that the price he asked was reasonable, or as being in no humor to bargain with him on the subject); and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver,”Even this is still common; for although coins have now a definite name, size, and value, yet every merchant carries a small apparatus by which he weighs each coin to see that it has not been tampered with by Jewish Clippers”which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth (the stipulation and the payment of the money were both made in the presence of witnesses), four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchantliterally, silver passing with the merchant, or goer about, i.e. with merchandise; from sachar, to go about (cf.. , ). The Canaanites, of whom the Hittites were a branch, were among the earliest traders of antiquity (cf. Job 40:1-24 :30; Pro 31:24); and the silver bars employed as the medium of exchange in their mercantile transactions were probably stamped in some rude fashion to indicate their weight.
Gen 23:17, Gen 23:18
And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah,here the word is used as a proper name (vide supra)which was before Mamre, over against (Lange), to the east of (Keil), the oak grovethe field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about,”In like manner the operations in the contract are just such as are found in modern deeds. It is not enough that you purchase a well-known lot; the contract must mention everything that belongs to it, and certify that fountains or wells in it, trees upon it, &c; are sold with the field”were made sureliterally, stood up or arose, i.e. were confirmed (cf. Le Gen 27:14, Gen 27:19)unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of the city. “This also is true to life. When any sale is now to be effected in a town or village, the whole population gather about the parties at the usual place of concourse, around or near the gate where there is one. There all take part and enter into the pros and cons with as much earnestness as if it were their own individual affair. By these means the operation, in all its circumstances and details, is known to many witnesses, and the thing is made sure without any written contract”.
Gen 23:19
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wifewith what funeral rites can only be conjectured. Monumental evidence attests that the practice of embalming the dead existed in Egypt in the reign of Amunophth I., though probably originating, earlier.; and an examination of the Mugheir vaults for burying the dead shows that among the early Chaldaeans it was customary to place the corpse upon a matting of reed spread upon a brick floor, the head being pillowed on a single sun-dried brick, and the body turned on its left side, the right arm falling towards the left, and the fingers resting on the edge of a copper bowl, usually placed on the palm of the left handin the cave of the field of Machpelah before: Mamre. In which also in succession his own remains and those of Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah were deposited, Rachel alone of the great patriarchal family being absent. This last resting-place of Abraham and his sons, as of Sarah and her daughters, has been identified with Ramet-el-Kalil, an hour’s journey to the north of Hebron (which is too distant), where the foundations of an ancient heathen temple are still pointed out as Abraham’s house; but is more probably to be sought for in the Mohammedan mosque Haram, built of colossal blocks, and situated on the mountain slope of Hebron towards the east (Robinson, Thomson, Stanley, Tristram), which, after having been for 600 years hermetically sealed against Europeans,only three during that period having gained access to it in disguise,was visited in 1862 by the Prince of Wales and party. The same is Hebron in the land of Canaan (vide Gen 23:2).
Gen 23:20
And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the sons of Heth. The palpable discrepancy between the statements of the Hebrew historian in this chapter concerning the patriarchal sepulcher and those of the Christian orator when addressing the Jewish Sanhedrim (Act 7:16) has been well characterized as praegravis quaedam et perardua, et quorundam judicio inextricabilis quaestio (Pererius). Of course the Gordian knot of difficulty may be very readily cut by boldly asserting that a mistake has been committed somewhere; either by Stephen, the original speaker, under the impulse of emotion confounding the two entirely different stories of Abraham’s purchase of Machpelah and Jacob’s buying of the field near Shechem (Beds, Clarke, Lange, Kalisch, Alford, and others); or by Luke, the first recorder of the Martyr’s Apology, who wrote not the ipsissima verba of the speech, but simply his own recollection of them (Jerome); or by some subsequent transcriber who had tampered with the original text, as, e.g; inserting , which Luke and Stephen both had omitted, as the nominative to (Beza, Calvin, Bishop Pearce). The Just of these hypotheses would not indeed be fatal to the Inspiration of the record; but the claims of either Luke or Stephen to be authoritative teachers on the subject of religion would be somewhat hard to maintain if it once were admitted that they had blundered on a plain point in their own national history. And yet it is doubtful if any of the proposed solutions of the problem is perfectly satisfactory; such as
(1) that the two purchases of Abraham and Jacob are here intentionally, for the sake of brevity, compressed into one account (Bengel, Pererius, Willet, Hughes); or
(2) that Abraham bought two graves, one at Hebron of Ephron the Hittite, as recorded by Moses, and another at Shechem of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem (Words. worth); or
(3) that the words “which Abraham bought for a sum of money” should be regarded as a parenthesis, and the sentence read as intimating that Jacob and the fathers were carried over into Shechem, and (afterwards) by the sons of Hamor the lather of Shechem interred in Abraham’s sepulcher at Hebron (Cajetan). Obvious difficulties attach to each of them; but the facts shine out clear enough in spite of the encompassing obscurity, viz; that Abraham bought a tomb at Hebron, in which first the dust of Sarah was deposited, and to which afterwards the bodies of himself, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah were consigned, while Joseph and the twelve patriarchs, who all died in Egypt, were brought over to the promised land and buried in Jacob’s field at Shechem.
HOMILETICS
Gen 23:1-20
The death and burial of Sarah.
I. THE DEATH OF SARAH.
1. The mournful event. The death of
(1) An aged woman. “Sarah was an hundred and twenty-seven years old.”
(2) A distinguished princess. As the wife of Abraham and the mother of the promised seed, Sarah was doubly ennobled.
(3) An eminent saint. Sarah, like her husband, was renowned for faith and piety; indeed in these respects only second to the mother of our Lord, whom she conspicuously typified, and proposed by, the Holy Spirit as a pattern for Christian women.
(4) A beloved wife. Sarah’s married life extended over the greater part of a century, and the tender and constant love which gilded it with happiness through all the passing years shines on every page of the inspired narrative.
(5) A revered parent. In the death of Sarah Isaac lost a loving and a much-loved mother.
2. The attendant circumstances. Sarah died
(1) In the land of Canaan. If not the place of her birth, Canaan had become the country of her adoption, and the scene of her spiritual nativity. A special sadness attaches to death upon a foreign shore, and among heathen peoples. Sarah may be said to have expired upon her own inheritance, and in Jehovah’s land.
(2) In the bosom of her family. If Sarah was not spared the anguish of dying in the absence of her noble husband, her latest moments, we may be sure, were soothed by the tender ministries of her gentle son.
(3) In the exercise of faith. Sarah was one of those “all” who “died in faith,” looking for a better country, even an heavenly. Hence the last enemy, we cannot doubt, was encountered with quiet fortitude and cheerful resignation.
II. THE BURIAL OF SARAH.
1. The days of mourning. “Abraham came to mourn and to weep for Sarah.” The sorrow of the patriarch was
(1) Appropriate and becoming. Lamentation for the dead agreeable to the instincts of nature and the dictates of religion. Witness Joseph (Gen 1:1), David (2Sa 12:16), Job (Gen 1:20), the devout men of Jerusalem (Act 8:2), Christ (Joh 11:35).
(2) Intense and sincere. Though partaking of the nature of a public ceremonial, the patriarch’s grief was none the less real and profound. Simulated sorrow is no less offensive than sinful.
(3) Limited and restrained. If there is a time to mourn and a time to weep, there is also a time to cast aside the symbols of sorrow, and a time to refrain from tears. Nature and religion both require a moderate indulgence in the grief occasioned by bereavement.
2. The purchase of a grave. Here may be noted
(1) The polite request. Its objecta grave for a possession; its purposeto bury his dead; its pleahis wandering and unsettled condition in the land.
(2) The generous proposal; prefaced with respect, proffered with magnanimity; teaching us the respect owing neighbors, the honor due superiors, and the kindness which should be shown strangers.
(3) The courteous refusal. Unwilling to acquiesce in the proposed arrangement, Abraham declines with much respectfulness (Verse 12), expresses his desire with greater clearness (Verse 13), and urgently requests the friendly intercession of the people of the land (Verse 8). Abraham’s politeness a pattern for all.
(4) The liberal donation. Ephron indicates his wish to bestow the cave upon the patriarch as a gift. Liberality a Christian virtue which may sometimes be learnt from the men of the world.
(5) The completed purchase. Abraham weighs out the stipulated sum, neither depreciating Ephron’s property nor asking an abatement in the price; an example for merchants and traders.
(6) The acquired possession. The field and cave were made sure to Abraham forever. The only thing on earth a man can really call his own is his grave.
3. The last rites of sepulture. “After this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah;” with unknown funeral rites, but certainly with reverence, with sadness, with hope.
Learn
1. The duty of preparing for death.
2. The propriety of moderate indulgence in grief.
3. The obligation resting on surviving relatives to carefully dispose of the lifeless bodies of the dead.
4. The wisdom of good men acquiring as soon as possible for themselves and their families a burial-place for a possession.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Gen 23:19, Gen 23:20
The death and burial of Sarah.
I. TRUE RELIGION SANCTIFIES NATURAL RELATIONSHIPS. Those who know themselves blessed of God do not only feel that their human affections are precious and true, but do, in obedience to his will, preserve the greatest respect for their bodily frame, and for their dead who died in the Lord, and whose dust is committed tenderly to his keeping.
II. THE PEOPLE OF GOD WERE UPHELD BY FAITH IN THEIR CARE FOR THE DEAD. They looked beyond the grave. Some say there is no evidence of the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament until after the captivity Surely Abraham’s feelings were not those of one who sorrowed without hope. The purchase of the field, the securing possession for all time of the burying-place, pointed to faith, not the lack of it. Where there is no sense of immortality there is no reverence for the dead.
III. THE PURCHASE OF THE FIELD was not only its security, but a testimony to the heathen that the people of God held in reverence both the memory of the dead and the rights of the living. All social prosperity has its root in religious life.R.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 23:20
Lessons from the sepulcher.
“And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place.” Abraham’s first and only possession in Canaan, a sepulcher. The importance of the par-chase appears in the careful narrative of the transaction. For himself he was content to live as a stranger and pilgrim (cf. 1Pe 5:7); but Sarah’s death led him to acquire a burying-place. Declining the offer to use any of the sepulchers of the people of the land, he bought the field and the cave, and carefully prepared the evidence of the purchase. The purchase showed his faith in God’s truth; one of the branches of Adam’s temptation (Gen 3:4). It had been promised that his seed, after dwelling in a land not theirs, should return and possess that whereon he stood (cf. Jer 32:14, Jer 32:15). Type of entrance into rest after pilgrimage (cf. 2Co 5:1). It showed also his faith in a resurrection (cf. Psa 16:10). The desire that he and his family should lie in the same sepulcher speaks of a life beyond the present. Parted by death, they were one family still. Sarah was to him “my dead.” There was a link between them still. The living and dead still one family. Doctrine of communion of saints (cf. Mat 22:32). Death was the gate of life (cf. 1Th 4:16). Canaan a type of the rest which remaineth; Abraham of the “children of the kingdom,” pilgrims with a promise. No rest here. Life full of uncertainties. One thing sure, we must die. But
I. WE ENTER THE HEAVENLY REST THROUGH DEATH; THE CITY OF GOD THROUGH THE VALLEY OF BACA. Here we walk by faith. Great and glorious promises for our encouragement, that we may not make our home here; yet we know not what we shall be. Sight cannot penetrate the curtain that separates time from eternity. Thus there is the trial, do we walk by faith or by sight? We instinctively shrink from death. It is connected in our mind with sorrow, with interruption of plans, with breaking up of loving companionship; but faith bids us sorrow not as those without hope. It reminds that it is the passing from what is defective and transitory to what is immortal. Here we are trained for the better things beyond, and our thoughts are turned to that sepulcher in which the victory over death was won; thence we see the Lord arising, the pledge of eternal life to all who will have it.
II. THE SEPULCHRE WAS MADE SURE TO ABRAHAM. In time he should enter it as one of the company gathered there to await the resurrection day; but meanwhile it was his. And if we look upon this as typical of our interest in the death of Christ, it speaks of comfort and trust. He took our nature that he might “taste death for every man.” His grave is ours (2Co 5:14). We are “buried with him,” “planted together in the likeness of his death.’ The fact of his death is a possession that cannot be taken from us (Col 3:3, Col 3:4). He died that we might live. If frail man clings to the tomb of some dear one; if the heart is conscious of the link still enduring, shall we not rejoice in our union with him whose triumph makes us also more than conquerors?
III. THE FIELD AND CAVE. How small a part did Abraham possess in his lifetime, but it was an earnest of the whole; he felt it so, and in faith buried his dead (cf. Gen 1:25; Heb 11:22). An earnest is all we possess here, but still we have an earnest. In the presence of the Lord (Joh 14:23), in the peace which he gives, in the spirit of adoption, we have the “substance of things hoped for,” a real fragment and sample of the blessedness of heaven.M.
Gen 23:1-2. Sarah was an hundred, &c. It has been observed, that Sarah is the only woman whose entire age is recorded in Scripture. She died in Kirjath-arba, or the city of Arba. It is the same which was afterwards called Hebron. Kirjath-arba signifying properly “the city of four;” the Jews will have it to be so called, because Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were buried there. But it is more reasonable to suppose, from Jos 14:15 that it had its name from Arbah, the father of the Anakims.
ELEVENTH SECTION
The sorrows and joys of Abrahams domestic life. The account and genealogy of those at home. Sarahs death. Her burial-place at Hebron; the seed of the future inheritance of Canaan. The theocratic foundation of the consecrated burial
Gen 22:20 to Gen 23:20
20And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham, saying [what follows], 21Behold, Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor; Huz [see Gen 10:23; a light sandy land, in northern Arabia] his first born, and Buz [a people and region in western Arabia] 22his brother, and Kemuel [the congregation of God] the father of Aram. And Chesed [the name of a Chaldaic tribe], and Hazo [an Aramaic and Chaldaic tribe; Gesenius: perhaps for , vision], and Pildash [Frst: , flame of fire], and Jidlaph [Gesenius: tearful; Frst: melting away, pining], and Bethuel [Gesenius: man of God. Frst: dwelling-place or people of God]. 23And Bethuel begat Rebekah [Ribkah, captivating, ensnaring; Frst: through beauty]: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abrahams brother. 24And his concubine, whose name was Reumah [Gesenius: raised, elevated; Frst: pearl or coral], she bare also Tebah [Frst: extension, breadth; a locality in Mesopotamia], and Gaham [Gesenius: having flaming eyes; Frst: the black; an Aramaic, dark-colored tribe], and Thahash [the name of an unknown animal: badger, marten, seal?], and Maachah [low-lands; a locality at the foot of Hermon; used besides as a female name].
Gen 23:1.And Sarah was an hundred and twenty and seven years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. 2And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba [city of Arba]; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
3And Abraham stood-up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, 4I am a stranger and a sojourner [not a citizen] with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. 5And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, 6Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince [a prince of God] among us: in the choice [most excellent] of our sepulchres bury thy dead: none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. 7And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. 8And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind [soul, soul-desire] that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron [Frst: more powerful, stronger] the son of Zohar [splendor, noble]. 9That he may give me the cave of Machpelah [Gesenius: doubling; Frst: winding, serpentine], which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth [full money] he shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place [hereditary sepulchre] among you. 10And Ephron dwelt [sat] among the children of Heth. And Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience [ears] of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, 11Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. 12And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. 13And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me [give me hearing]: I will give thee money for the field; take it from me, and I will bury my dead there. 14And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, 15My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. 16And Abraham hearkened [followed] unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.
17And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees which were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure [stood] 18Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. 19And after this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan. 20And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the sons of Heth.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Survey. The two sections which we have here placed together, with the following and the last sections of the life of Abraham, form a contrast with his previous history. The revelations from God, the wonderful events of his life, cease, for Abrahams life of faith is completed with the sacrifice of Isaac. To the wonderful completion of the faith of Abraham there is now added the purely natural and human perfection of Abraham. Its history is certainly much shorter, but it is at the same time a proof that the miraculous in the Old Testament does not stand in any exclusive relation to the material and human. A mythology seeking to produce effect, would have closed the life of the father of the faithful with some splendid supernatural or heroic events. It is, on the other hand, a trait of the true historical character of the tradition here, that it closes the life of Abraham in the way already stated. But at the same time the true christological character of the Old Testament history, wherein it forms the introduction to the New Testament manifestation of the God-man, discovers itself therein, that the history of the life of Abraham does not close abruptly with his greatest act of faith, but that from and out of this act of faith there proceeds a natural and human progress of a consecrated and sanctified life, a course of life into which even the second marriage of Abraham does not enter as a disturbing element. A termination of this kind has already appeared in the life of Noah, appears later in the life of Jacob; and has its New Testament counterpart in the history of the forty days of the risen Christ. But as in the life of Jesus, so in the life of Abraham, the events after the great contests of faith are not without importance. The two sections which we have combined under this point of view, the family sorrows and family joys of Abraham point downwards to the history of Isaac and Israel. From the son of Abraham there must now be a family of Abraham, and to this the family genealogy of the house of Nahor serves as an introduction. This genealogical register first names Rebekah, and then lays the ground for the mission and the wooing of the bride by Eliezer (Genesis 24), a history in which also the wooing of his bride by Jacob is introduced through the mention of Laban. But as the history of the family of Abraham is introduced through the record of the house of Nahor, so also is the first possession of Abraham and his descendants in Canaan introduced by the narrative of the death of Sarah. The burial-place in the cave and field of Machpelah, are made a point of union for the later appropriation of Canaan by the people of God, just as in the new covenant, the grave of Christ has introduced for Christians the future possession of the earth; a method of conquest which unfolds itself through the graves of the martyrs and the crypts of Christian churches throughout the whole world. The testing of the faith of Abraham is completed with the sacrifice of Isaac, the end of his divine calling is fulfilled, and henceforward the history of his life hastens to its conclusion. It is altogether fitting that there should follow now, after this event, a communication to him concerning the family of his brother Nahor (Gen 11:27 ff.), which is joined with so much appropriateness to the sacrifice of Isaac, since it leads on to the history of the marriage of the heir of the promise. The (comp. Gen 2:29) also points to this actual connection. As Sarah had borne a son to Abraham, Milcah also bare sons to Nahor. of Gen 23:24 refers back to Gen 23:20. Keil.Schrder: This paragraph is merely a continuation of Gen 11:27 ff. As Gen 19:37-38, brought the side line of Haran to its goal and end, so here the side line of Nahor is continued still further, a testimony, moreover, that Moses never loses the genealogical thread of the history.
2. Gen 22:20-24. Knobel holds the number twelve of the sons of Nahor, as also of the sons of Ishmael (Gen 25:13 ff.) for an imitation of the twelve tribes of Israel. It is unjustifiable to infer from such accidental, or even important resemblances, without further grounds, that the record is fiction. It is certainly true also, that of the sons of Nahor, as also of the sons of Jacob, four are the sons of a concubine. Still, as Keil observes in the history of the sons of Jacob, there are two mothers as also two concubines. Keil also opposes, upon valid grounds, the view of Knobel, that the twelve sons of Nahor must signify twelve tribes of his descendants; thus, e.g., Bethuel does not appear as the founder of a tribe. It is probably true only of some of the names, that those who bore them were ancestors of tribes of the same name. Keil.Huz his first-born.He must be distinguished from the son of Aram (Gen 10:23), and from the Edomite (Gen 30:28). Knobel holds that he must be sought in the neighborhood of the Edomites.Buz.Also, since this tribe is mentioned (Jer 25:23) in connection with Dedan, and Thema, aud since Elihu, the fourth opponent of Job, belonged to it (Job 32:2). Knobel.KemuelIs not the ancestor or founder of the Aramaic people, but an ancestor of the family of Ram, to which the Buzite, Elihu, also belonged, since stands for . Keil.Chesed.The chief tribe of the Chaldees appears to have been older than Chesed, but he seems to have been the founder of a younger branch of the Chaldees who plundered Job (Job 1:17).Bethuel, the father of Rebekah (see Gen 25:20).Maacha.Deu 3:14; Jos 12:5, allude to the Maachathites. At the time of David the land Maacha was a small Aramaic kingdom (2Sa 10:6-8; 1Ch 19:6). The others never appear again. Keil. For conjectures in regard to them, see Knobel, p. 194. For the difference in the names Aram, Uz, Chasdim, see Delitzsch, p. 422.
3. Gerlach: The German word Kebsweib signifies a woman taken out of the condition of service, or bondage, and this is the meaning of the Hebrew term. Besides one or more legal wives, a man might take, according to the custom of the ancients, one from the rank of slaves, whose children, not by Abraham, but by Jacob, were made sharers alike with the legally born (naturally, since, they were held for the adopted children of Rachel and Leah). It was a kind of lower marriage, as with us the marriage on the left,1 for the concubine was bound to remain faithful (Jdg 19:2; 2Sa 3:7), and any other man who went in unto her, must bring his trespass offering (Lev 19:20); the father must treat the concubine of his son as his child, and the son also, after the contraction of a marriage with one of equal rank, must still treat her as his concubine (Exo 21:9-10).
4. Gen 23:1-20. Sarahs death and burial in the cave of Machpelah, purchased with the adjoining field, by Abraham, from the children of Heth as a possession of a burying-place. Knobel and Delitzsch find in the antique and detailed method of statement, and similar traits, the stamp of the characteristics of the fundamental Elohistic writing. The more truly the human side of the theocratic history comes into relief, this peculiar, pleasant, picturesque tone of the narrative appears, as, e.g., in the next so-called Jehovistic chapter. The division of this section into two parts, the one of which should embrace only the two first verses, Sarahs death (Delitzsch) is not in accordance with the unique, pervading method of statement throughout the whole. Sarahs grave was the cradle of the Abrahamic kingdom in Canaan. The scene of the narration is in Hebron (now El Chalil). When Isaac was born, and also at the time of his sacrifice, Abraham dwelt at Beersheba (Gen 22:19). At Isaacs birth Sarah was ninety years old (Gen 17:17), now she has reached 127 years, and Isaac is thus in his 37th year (see Gen 25:20). Between the journey to Moriah, and Sarahs death, there is thus an interval of at least 20 years. Delitzsch. During this interval Abraham must have changed his dwelling place to Hebron again. The mention of this change of residence may have appeared, therefore, superfluous to the writer, and further, it may be that even during his abode at Beersheba, Hebron was his principal residence, as Knobel conjectures.The years of the life of Sarah.The age of Sarah was impressed on the memory of the Israelites through this repetition, as a number which should not be forgotten. Keil: Sarah is the only woman whose age is recorded in the Bible, because, as the mother of the seed of promise, she became the mother of all believers (1Pe 3:6).Kirjath-Arba, the same is Hebron (see Gen 13:18).The name Kirjath-Arba, i.e., city of Arba, is marked by Keil after Hengstenberg as the later name (coming after Hebron), since the Anakim had not dwelt there at the time of the patriarchs, but Delitzsch, on the contrary, according to Jos 14:15, and Jdg 1:10, views it as the earlier name. Since, however, Num 13:22, the city at the very blooming period of the Anakim, was called Hebron, and, indeed, with reference to its being founded seven years before Zoan (Tanis) in Egypt, it seems clear that while the time mentioned in the books of Joshua and Judges, was an earlier time, it was not the earliest, and the succession in the names is this: Hebron, Kirjath-Arba, Hebron, El Chalil (the friend of God, viz., Abraham). It is still, however, a question whether Hebron may not designate specially a valley city of this locality, which belonged to the Hittites (see Gen 37:14, where Hebron is described as a valley), the name Kirjath-Arba, on the contrary, the mountain and mountain city, belonging to the Anakim. The locality seems to favor the supposition of two neighboring cities, of which one could now use the valley city as the abode of Abraham for the whole locality, and now the mountain city. We have confessedly to accept such a relation between Sichem and the neighboring town Sichar, in order to meet the difficulty in Joh 4:5. Delitzsch explains the change of names through a change of owners. Even now Hebron is a celebrated city, at the same time a hill and valley city, although no longer, great and populous, situated upon the way from Beersheba to Jerusalem, and about midway between them (78 hours from Jerusalem), surrounded by beautiful vineyards, olive trees and orchards; comp. the articles in Winers Dictionary, Von Raumer, and the various descriptions of travellers. [Robinsons description (ii. 431462) is full and accurate, and leaves little to be desired.A. G.]In the land of Canaan.This circumstance appears here conspicuously in honor of Sarah, and from the importance of her burial-place.And Abraham came.The shepherd prince was busy in his calling in the field, or in the environs. It is not said that he was absent at the death of Sarah, but only that he now sat down by the corpse at Hebron, to complete the usages of mourning (to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her), and to provide for her burial.From before his dead (corpse).From before his dead.2 He had mourned in the presence of the dead; now he goes to the gate of the city, where the people assembled, where the business was transacted, and where he could thus purchase a grave.To the sons of Heth.The name, according to Knobel, appears only in the Elohistic writings. [This attempt to define and characterize particular points of the book by the use of special names, breaks down so often that it may be regarded as no longer of any serious importance.A. G.]A possession of a burying-place with you.It is, as F. C. V. Moser remarks, a beautiful scene of politeness, simplicity, kindness, frankness, humility, modesty, not unmingled with some shades of avarice, and of a kind of expectation when one in effecting a sale, throws himself upon the generosity of the purchaser. Delitzsch. The delicate affair is introduced by the modest request of Abraham. As a stranger and a sojourner3 he had no possession, thus even no burying-place among them. He therefore asks that they would sell him a piece of ground for the purpose of a burial-place.Thou art a mighty prince (a prince of God).That is, a man to whom God has given a princely aspect, in consequence of communion with him. [A man whom God has favored and made great.A. G.] They offer him a sepulchre, among the most select of their sepulchres (upon the exchange of for see Knobel and the opposing remarks by Keil). [ is generally used absolutely, but the peculiarity here is not without analogy (see Lev 11:1), and does not justify the change to nor that adopted by the Sept. .A. G.] But Abraham cannot consent thus to mingle himself with them. He has a separate burying-place in his eye.And Abraham stood up.The reverential bowing is an expression of his gratitude and of his declining the offer. In the oriental bowing the person touches the earth with his brow. Luther often translates the word in question by to worship, in relation to men, where it is obviously unsuited to the sense.If it be your mind.Abraham introduces, in a very courtly and prudent way, his purpose to secure the cave of Ephron. It marks Ephron as a man of prominence and rank, that he avails himself of their intercession; Keil infers from the words his city (Gen 23:10), that he was then lord of the city. This is doubtful.The cave of Machpelah.The name is rendered in the Septuagint: , according to the meaning of . But it is a proper name, which is also true of the field (Gen 49:30; Gen 50:13), although it was originally derived from the form of the cave. Keil. Caves were often used for sepulchres in Palestine (see Winer, sepulchres).And Ephron, the Hittite, answered.When now Ephron offered to give the cave to Abrahamthis is a mode of expression still in use in the East, by which, so far as it is seriously intended, leaving out of view any regard to a counterpresent, richly compensating the value of the present, for the most part it is designed to prevent any abatement from the price desired. [See The Land and the Book, by Thompson, ii. 381388.A. G.] (Comp. Dieterici and descriptions of the Eastern lands, ii. p. 168 f.). Keil. It is not certain that we should identify so directly the original utterance of true generosity with the like sounding form of a later custom. It must be observed, still, that Abraham modestly desired only to gain the cave, a place which was at the end of the field, and to this no one objected; on the contrary, Ephron offered him at the same time, the adjoining field. And this is in favor of the good intention of Ephron, since he could have sold to him the cave alone at a costly price.And Abraham bowed down himself (again).An expression, again, of esteem, thankfulness, and at the same time, of a declinature, but, also, an introduction to what follows. He presses, repeatedly, for a definite purchase. The answer of Ephron: The field, four hundred shekels, etc., announces again the price in courtly terms. Knobel explains: A piece of land of so little value could not be the matter of a large transaction between two rich men. But it is the more distinct echo of the offer of the present, and with this utters an excuse or apology for the demand, because he (Abraham) would insist upon having it thus.And Abraham weighed.At that time none of the states had stamped coins which could be reckoned, but pieces of the metals were introduced in the course of trade, and these pieces were of definite weight, and, indeed, also marked with designations of the weight, but it was necessary to weigh these pieces in order to guard against fraud (see Winer, article Mnzen). Knobel. The use of coins for the greater convenience of original barter, has been regarded as the invention of the Phnicians, as also the invention of letters is ascribed to them.Current money with the merchant.The Hebrew term is , passing over, transitive; i.e., current, fitted for exchange in merchandise. The idea of the distinction between light pieces, and those of full weight, existed already. Keil: The shekel of silver used in trade was about 274 Parisian grains, and the price of the land, therefore, about 250 dollars, a very considerable sum for the time. The Rabbins ascribe the high price to the covetousness of Ephron. Delitzsch, however, reminds us, that Jacob purchased a piece of ground for 100 (Gen 33:19), and the ground and limits upon which Samaria was built, cost two talents, i.e., 6,000 heavy shekels of silver (1Ki 16:24). For the shekel see Delitzsch, p. 426. [Also article in Kitto on Weights and Measures, and in Smiths Dictionary.A. G.] It must be observed, too, that we cannot judge of the relation between the price and the field, since we do not know its bounds.Machpelah, which was before Mamre.For these local relations compare Delitzsch and Keil, and also 5. Raumer, p. 202. [Compare also Robinson: Researches, vol. ii. pp. 431462; Stanley: History of the Jew. Church. This cave, so jealously guarded by the Mohammedans, has recently been entered by the Prince of Wales with his suite. Dean Stanley, who was permitted to enter the cave, says that the shrines are what the Biblical narrative would lead us to expect, and there is evidence that the Mohammedans have carefully guarded these sacred spots, and they stand as the confirmation of our Christian faith.A. G.] The cave lay (Gen 23:17; comp. Gen 23:19) before Mamre, i.e., over against the oak grove of Mamre; Keil and Knobel think eastward, Delitzsch southerly. But the expression here does not appear to refer to any quarter of the heavens. The valley of Hebron runs from north to south, in a southeasterly direction. Mamre and Machpelah must have been situated over against each other in the two sides, or the two ends, of this valley. Since the structure Haram, which the Mohammedan tradition (without doubt, a continuation of the earlier Christian tradition,) designates as the cave of Machpelah, or as Abrahams grave, and which the Mohammedan power jealously guards against the entrance of Jews or Christians, lies upon the mountain-slope towards the east, it is clear that Mamre must be sought upon the end of the valley, or mountain-slope toward the west (which forms its eastern side). Here lies the height Numeidi, which Rosenmller says is the land of Mamre. We must then hold that the grove of Mamre descended into the valley, and that Abraham dwelt here in the valley at the edge of the grove. Still the opposition in locality (the vis–vis) may be defined from the high ground which lies northerly from Hebron, and is called Nimre or Nemreh (= Mamre?), but even then also Abraham must have dwelt at the foot of this eminence. However, according to the old Christian tradition (Schubert, Robinson, Seetzen, Ritter and others), this Hebron of Abraham (Wady el Rame or Ramet el Chalil, with its ruins of old walls and foundations) lay about an hour northward from the present city. This view is abandoned by the most recent commentators, since this would require too great a distance between Mamre and Hebron. So much seems at least to be established, viz., that the tradition in regard to Machpelah is confirmed, then that the tradition concerning Mamre and the location of Mamre, must be determined by the situation of Machpelah. [In regard to the words of St. Stephen, Act 7:16, Wordsworth holds that Abraham purchased two burial-places, the first, the cave of Machpelah, the second at Sichar or Shechem; and that it is by design that the one should be communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, speaking by Moses, the Hebrew legislator, and the other by the Hellenist Stephen, when he pleaded before the Jewish Sanhedrim the cause of the faithfulness of all nations, p. 103. See also Alexander on the Acts.A. G.]And the field of Ephron was made sure.The record of the transaction is very minute; first, in regard to the purchase price and the witnesses (Gen 23:16), then in regard to the piece of ground (the cave, the field and all the trees) (Gen 23:17), finally, in reference to the right of possession (again with the mention of witnesses) (Gen 23:18); as if a legal contract was made and executed. Even the burial of Sarah belongs to the confirmation of the possession, as is apparent from the forms of Gen 23:19, and from the conclusion of the account in Gen 23:20.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
(Upon Gen 22:20-24.)
1. See the Exegetical and Critical remarks.
2. Joy follows upon sorrow, comfort succeeds the conflict. The message which Abraham received was very providential, and comes at the right moment. Isaac was saved, Soon Abraham must think of his marriage, and of the establishment of his family through him. The opportune account from Mesopotamia of the children of his brother Nahor laid the foundation for the hope in him. that he might find in his family a suitable bride for Isaac. Rebekah also is mentioned in the report. Rebekah appears as the youngest branch of the children of Nahor, his grandchild through Bethuel. She is in so far a late-birth, as Isaac was. Her brother Laban, who, in some respects, forms a parallel to Ishmael, the brother of Isaac, first appears later in the history. (Upon Genesis 23.)
1. See the Exegetical and Critical remarks.
2. Sarah. It was in the land of promise that Sarah, the ancestress of Israel, died. The Old Testament relates the end of no womans life so particularly as the end of the life of Sarahfor she is historically the most important woman of the old covenant. She is the mother of the seed of promise, and in him of all believers (1Pe 3:6). She is the Mary of the old Testament. In her unshaken faith Mary rises still higher than Sarah, but the Scriptures neither record the length of her life, nor her death. This occurs because the son whom Sarah bare was not greater than herself, but Mary bore a son before whose glory all her own personality fades and vanishes away, etc. Delitzsch.
3. Abraham, the father of believers, also a model of the customary courtliness, and a proof how this courtliness is, at the same time, an expression of regard, of human love and gratitude, a polished form of human friendship, and a protection of personality and truth. [Religion does not consist entirely in acts of worship, in great self-denials or heroic virtues, but in all the daily concerns and acts of our lives. It moulds and regulates our joys and sorrows; it affects our relations; it enters into our business. Thus we have the faith and piety of Abraham, presented in the ordinary changes, the joys, the sorrows, and the business transactions of his life.A. G.] 8. Notwithstanding the ancients did not easily receive a stranger into their families (among the Greeks and Romans usage forbade it), the Hittites are ready to receive Sarah into their best family sepulchres, as Joseph of Arimathea took the body of our Lord into his own tomb. This is a strong testimony to the impression which Abraham, and Sarah also, had made upon them, to their reverence and attachment for the patriarchal couple. They appear also, like Abimelech at Gerar, to have had their original monotheism awakened and strengthened by their intercourse with Abraham, whom they honor as a Prince of God. 10. The custom of burial and the sanctification of the grave, after the intimation, Gen 15:15, appears here in a striking and impressive manner.
11. In order to preserve his hope for Canaan pure, Abraham could not entangle, himself with the Caananites, thus: 1. He could not use, in common with the heathen, their sepulchre; 2. he could not receive as a present a possession in the land. [This chapter is interesting as containing the first record of mourning for the dead, of burial, of property in land, of purchase of land, of silver as a medium of purchase, and of a standard of weight. Murphy, p. 347.A. G.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
(Upon Gen 22:20-24.)
Human consolation follows the great conflict and victory of faith.The joyful message which Abraham received: a. From his home; b. from his blood relations; c. from his spiritual kindred.The destination and the blessing of the ties of relationship, in the widest sense.The end and the blessing of all communication in the world.All human messengers should be messengers of love, in joy and sorrow.Salutations, messages, letters, journals, are all also under the conduct of divine providence. Human missions are accompanied by divine missions.A people spring from children, or how significantly Rebekah here comes forward from her concealment.The joy of a loving participation in the happiness of companionsneighbors. Starke: (A picture of Syria and Babylon.) Psa 112:2; Psa 127:3,Osiander: God usually refreshes and quickens his people again, after temptation.Calwer, Handbuch: When Isaac was about to be offered, God allows him to hear that his future wife was born and educated.
(Upon Genesis 23.)
The richly blessed end of Sarah as it appears: 1. In the quenchless memory of her age by Israel; 2. in the mourning of Abraham; 3. in his care for her grave; 4. in the esteem of the Hittites (every one is ready to admit her into his sepulchre); 5. in the opportunity for the securing of the sepulchre as a possession by Abraham.The whole chapter instructive on the grave, as is chapter fifth on death, the eleventh chapter of John on the resurrection from the grave: 1. Of death;4 2. of mourning; 3. of the acquisition of sepulchres; 4. of the burial itself; 5. of hope over the grave.The true mourning a sanctified feeling of death: 1. A fellow-feeling of death, with the dead; 2. an anticipation of death, or a living preparation for ones own death; 3. a believing sense of the end or destination of death, to be made useful to the life.Sarahs grave a sign of life: 1. A monument of faith, a token of hope; 2. an image of the state of rest for the patriarchs; 3. a sign of the home and of the longing of Israel; 4. a sign or prognostic of the New-Testament graves.The solemn burial of the corpse: 1. An expression of the esteem of personality even in its dead image; 2. an expression of the hope of a new life.5The sanctification of the grave for a family sepulchre, foreshadowing the sanctification of the church-yards or Gods-acres.Abraham the father of believers, also the founder of a believing consecration of the graveoffers themes for funeral discourses, dedication of church-yards, and at mourning solemnities.The first possession which Abraham bought was a grave for Sarah, for his household, for himself even.The choice of the grave: 1. Significantly situated (a double cave); 2. still more suitably (at the end of the field).Israels first possession of the soil: the grave of Sarah; the first earthly house of the Christian; the grave of Christ and the graves of the martyrs.
Gen 23:2. The mourning of Abraham: 1. Its sincerity (as he left his pursuits and sat or lay before the corpse); 2. its limit, and the preservation of his piety (as he rose up from before the corpse, and purchased the grave).Abraham himself must have had his own mortality brought to his mind by the death of Sarah, since he cared for a common grave.
Gen 23:9; Gen 23:13. Abrahams traffic; 1. In his transparency; 2. his purity; 3. his carefulness and security.Abraham and the Hittites a lively image of the Eastern courtliness in the early times.The true politeness of spirit as a cultivation of hearty human friendliness, in its meaning: 1. Upon what it rests (respect for our fellows and self-respect); 2. what it effects (the true position toward our neighbors, as an olive-branch of peace and a protection of personal honor).The mysterious sepulchre at Hebron.The Mohammedans as the intelligent protectors of the graves of the East until the time of its restitution.Starke: (There is no ground for the saying of the Rabbins, that Sarah died from sorrow when she learned of the sacrifice of Isaac).The fear of God makes no one insensible to feeling, as the Stoics have asserted (Job 14:5; 1Th 4:13; Psa 39:5-6).
Gen 23:13. There is a reference here to the first money transaction, for the land was not to be received as a present, or be held without price, by Abraham, but by his successors, hence he must pay for what he obtains (Act 7:5). This was, however, plainly the ordering of God, that Abraham, through a purchase of a burial-place with money, should have a foothold, and some possession of property, as a pledge of the future possession.God also shows that he takes the dead into his care and protection, and he would never do this had he not a purpose to reawaken the dead.Cramer: We should proceed with gentleness and modesty in our dealings with any one.Bibl. Tub.: Purchases should be made with prudence, that we may not give cause for controversy (1Co 6:7).We should veil in a seemly way the bodies of the dead, and bear them reverently to the grave.Lisco: Thus Abraham gained the first possession in the land of promise; here he would bury Sarah, here he himself would be buried; thus he testifies to his faith in the certainty of the divine promise made to him, as in a later case the prophet Jeremiah, just before the exile, testified his faith in the return of Israel from its banishment, by the purchase of the field of Hanameel at Anathoth (Jeremiah 32.).Calwer, Handbuch: The possession of a burying-place as his own, satisfied the pious pilgrim, and is for him a pledge of the full possession of the land by his successors.Schrder: Gen 23:1. Then also the believer may recollect how God has written all his days in his book. Psa 139:16 (Berleb. Bibl.).
Gen 23:2. The tear of sorsow has its right in the heart, because it is a human heart: but there is a despair concerning death, as concerning sin.It is thoughtfully tender to lay the children of the mother earth again in her bosom (Sir 40:1).The money with which he secures the cave is the blessing of God; thus God procures for him peculiarly a possession in the land of promise.
Footnotes:
[1] [The allusion is to a German law or custom, in regard to marriage between persons of unequal rank, and the offspring of such a marriage.A. G.]
[The concubine was a secondary or half-wife, and among the Hebrews her position was well defined, and was not regarded as illegitimate. Her position was not that of a mistress, as we use the term concubine.A. G.]
[2][Sarah, though dead, was still his. Wordsworth.A.G.]
[3][Wordsworth here calls attention to the fact that the Apostle Peter (1Pe 2:11) quotes these words as found in the Septuagint, when he addresses believers as strangers and pilgrims. They were, like Abraham, the father of the faithful.A. G.]
[4][The patriarch had encountered other trials, but he had hitherto been spared this of death. But now death enters. No health, relations, affections, can resist the march and power of death. Abraham has in heart parted with his children, now he must part actually from her who had shared all his trials and hopes.A. G.]
[5][In that grave was implied the hope of Resurrection. Wordsworth, p. 104.A. G.]
And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.
The subject of this Chapter is that common place subject which belongs to our nature universally, and forms a part in the history of all persons and families. Death here we are told makes an inroad into the house of Abraham, and takes away Sarah, the desire of his eyes, with a stroke. The Patriarch’s concern for the purchase of a burying ground is here related; his treaty for that purpose with the sons of Heth; his agreement with them: the place obtained: and the funeral of Sarah is observed with all due solemnity.
The Burial of Sarah
Gen 23
It has been remarked as a singular circumstance that Sarah is the only woman whose age is mentioned in the Scriptures. At the time of her death her only son Isaac was thirty-seven years old, she herself being ninety at the time of his birth. We know little about Sarah, except that she was comely to look upon; somewhat severe towards Hagar her handmaid, and that she was the mother of Isaac! This seems quite little when mentioned in one sentence, but really it comes to a great deal in the full working out. Her good looks made travelling rather dangerous for Abraham; her conduct towards Hagar showed her temper and moral quality, and her motherhood of Isaac made her the mother of all believers ( 1Pe 3:6 ). How large an oak may come out of one acorn! As we are about to attend the burial of Sarah, we should reflect a little upon the lessons of her life before we leave the cave of the field of Machpelah, which is in Hebron in the land of Canaan.
Some of us have to live in a kind of reflected lustre and fame. We are next to nothing in ourselves, but our brother is famous, our uncle is influential; we have not seen the Queen ourselves, but we have seen a man who has seen her. Sarah was not much in herself, but she was the wife of Abraham. The window of your cottage is a very small one, but it looks out upon a park three thousand acres large. Some of us get our lustre at third or fourth hand, and of course it gets paler and paler as it comes along. John Stradwick kept a shop on Snow Hill; John Stradwick was the first deacon of one of the London Congregational churches; John Stradwick let a room or two above his shop, to lodgers; one of his lodgers was called John Bunyan; John Stradwick had a daughter and that daughter married Robert Bragge, and Robert Bragge was one of the pastors of this church! I like to think of one of my predecessors and his wife being with Bunyan in his last illness, and getting a grip of the tinker’s hand now and then.
This is a long way to have fetched one’s water, I admit; but when it is brought to me it is like water from the well of Bethlehem, and there is none like it! After all it is something to be in the tail of a kite if the kite be beautiful and a good flier. Even Boswell has become as one of the rings of Saturn. I should account it a fine thing if I could have an hour’s talk with one of Shakespeare’s servants, or spend a whole day with Luther’s sexton. If I made right use of my time I should feel that I had been in high company and had touched the threshold of immortal fame. Now these are only the lower applications of a principle universal in its operation and influence, and which reaches its highest point in Christian fellowship. I can come to One in the touch of the hem of whose garment there is eternal virtue! Poor though we be and nameless, yet if we be in Christ Jesus, we come to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. Nothing in ourselves: we are yet kings and priests unto God! Our torch is lighted at the sun.
Some people have to wait a long time for their blessings. Sarah was ninety years old when Isaac was born. This thing itself is merely accidental, but the principle which is under it is living and beneficent. If we have the true life in our hearts, not one of us has yet seen his best days. Physically we may be on the wane; but spiritually we may win our greatest victories actually on the day of death. You have not yet got the best your brain can give. There is a finer wine in your heart than has yet been crushed out. Do not close the shutters, rather break out another window, for the light of the sun is yet plentiful. You may bring forth fruit in old age, and be fat and flourishing until the last. You have not got God’s best. He keeps the good wine for by-and-by. I hear your sigh and your groan, and for every one of them you shall yet have a hymn or a loud psalm. Your great prayer shall be answered: the prayer that drags your heart out in passionate entreaty for the runaway boy, for the lost girl, for the healing of a wound in the spirit never spoken to mortal ear! Live in this hope, and this hope will keep you young. Sarah laughed at ninety, and made all her friends laugh in her late-come joy.
And now that Sarah is dead, Abraham came to mourn and to weep for her. But was not Abraham a man of faith? Yes; but he was a man of feeling too, and his piety did not make his heart hard. But was not Isaac his son alive? Yes; but a love ninety years old, and tested in many a sharp flame, was not to be given up lightly. It is a hard thing to part with those we have known longest and best. When such parting comes, “’tis the survivor dies”; memory is quickened into strange vividness; the past life comes up and passes its days before the eyes in all their variety of colour and service. I hear Abraham talking to himself: “Oh, how sad is this loneliness; how awful is the stillness of this silence; I can talk to Isaac, but not as I did to his mother; there are some eighty years of life that he knows nothing about; Sarah and I wandered together, talked out our hearts to one another, planned and dreamed and suffered in one common experience, and there she lies a stranger amongst strangers, cold and silent for ever!” And Abraham wept! The man who slew the great kings, wept! The man whose name is to endure as long as the sun, wept! Jesus wept! Blessed will those of us be who have not to weep over neglect, harshness, bitterness; over speeches that made the heart ache, over selfishness that hastened the very death we mourn! If you would have few tears by-and-by, be kind now; if you would have a happy future, create a gracious present. Make your homes happy; banish from the sacred enclosure of the family all meanness, hardness, suspicion, and unkindness; that when the dark day comes, as come it will too soon, your deep and tender sorrow may not be mixed with the bitterness of self-reproach.
This is a sharp variety of experience for Abraham. In the last incident how brave he was, and what a kingliness dignified even the stoop of his sorrow as he went with Isaac to the altar! What is the difference between his case then and his case now? It is the difference between doing God’s will and suffering it. A wonderful difference as we all know! So long as we have something to do, something to call us from pensive meditation and set us to hard strife, we bear up with hopeful courage; but when the strife ceases, and we are left alone with the wreck it has wrought, we often express our emotion in tears which never came during all the battle. Such an instance as this goes far towards proving that Abraham’s faith was as human as his sorrow. If we can join him in grief, why not in faith? If we thought him nearly Divine on Moriah, we may see how human he is in Hebron. As for ourselves, we can fight resolutely; can we suffer patiently? We are heroes whilst the sound of the trumpet is maddening the air; what are we when laid up as wounded soldiers? The patient, uncomplaining sufferer, who for months or years has been waiting for her Lord, without ever suggesting that his steps were tardy, may have as strong a faith as Abraham had when he held the knife over his son. All the world’s faith is not historic. To-day has its chronicles of trust and patience, and hope, quite as instructive and thrilling as those which are recorded in the Bible. It is too early to read them through, or to comprehend all their sad, yet glorious meaning; but every syllable is accepted and honoured of God. We often wish that we were as good as the holy men of old; it will be a poor thing, however, if we are not better than the best man in any earlier dispensation. Among all that were born of women there had not appeared a greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. So may we be greater than Abraham, by reason of Jesus Christ’s promise that we should not only have life, but have it “more abundantly.” That some of the older generations might have greater gifts is not denied; but none of them had opportunities of having greater graces. They had special inspiration: we have the general baptism of the Spirit; they saw the unrisen light, we see the sun in a cloudless zenith. My opinion is that God never had better children upon the earth than he has at this moment; never was there such force of life, never such loyalty to the kingdom of heaven. We do not, then, set forth Abraham as a Divine model; we call up his history to see its points common with our own, to study the unchangeableness of God, and to take an estimate of the development of human destiny.
Look at Abraham buying a grave! True, he buys a field, and a cave, and all the trees that were in the field, and in all the borders round about; but, expand the list as we may, it was all for the sake of a place to bury his dead. The good man is forced into such commerce as well as the bad; the best man of his age is here bargaining for burial ground. I need not remind a Christian congregation of the advantages which a good man enjoys under such circumstances. To him the place of Christian sepulchre is not a wilderness given over to the desolation of everlasting winter; it is a garden, full of roots, that shall come up in infinite beauty in the summer that is yet to be. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” The law of mortality will operate until the close of this dispensation; all lower life has been given over to death; but death itself has been devoted by an unchangeable covenant to be destroyed by life. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Meanwhile we require graves. Our houses are overshadowed by a temporary destroyer; we are smitten and impoverished by the angel of death. All this we know as a matter of fact; in talking thus I trouble you with the tritest truisms; but have we turned our knowledge to account? Have we read the meaning of the shadow that lies along the whole path of life? Have we so balanced our proportions as to give to each its honest due? Have we not, on the contrary, forgotten our own mortality even in the very act of talking of other men’s deaths? What need there is then that we should see this transaction between Abraham and Ephron: listen to the words of the covenant, and ponder well that in return for four hundred shekels of silver Abraham gets a burying-place!
The matter in which the children of Heth answered Abraham should attract the most appreciative notice: “Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead.” How these incidental strokes of pathos attest the oneness of the human heart! Circumstances test the true quality of men. Irreverence in the presence of grief is an infallible sign of the deepest degeneracy: it marks the ultimate deterioration of the human heart. On the other hand, to be chastened by sorrow, to be moved into generous pity and helpfulness, is to show that there is still something in the man on which the kingdom of Jesus Christ may be built. Never despair of any man who is capable of generous impulses. Put no man down as incurably bad, who will share his one loaf with the hungry, or give shelter to a lost little one. Poor and crude may be his formal creed, very dim and pitifully inadequate his view of scholastic theology; but there is a root in him which may be developed into much beauty and fruitfulness. For this reason, I cannot overlook the genial humanity and simple gracefulness of this act of the Hittites.
Man’s final requirement of man is a grave. We may go down to the grave in one or two very different ways. Our grave may be respected, or it may be passed by as a dishonoured spot We may live so as to be much missed, or we may live so as to leave the least possible vacancy. Whichever way it be, we should remember that there is no repentance in the grave, the dead man cannot obliterate the past.
Abraham mourned for Sarah. What then? Consecration to God’s purposes does not eradicate our deep human love; say rather that it heightens, refines, sanctifies it! Every father is more a father in proportion as he loves and serves the great Father in heaven. We should be on our guard against any system of religion or philosophy that seeks to cool the fervour of natural and lawful love. It may be very majestic not to shed tears; but it is most inhuman, most ungodly. We have heard of Abraham mourning, of David crying bitterly, of the Saviour allowing his feet to be washed with a sinner’s tears, and of Jesus Christ weeping; but who ever heard of the devil being broken down in pity or mournfulness? Christianity educates our humanity, not deadens it; and when we are in tears it helps us to see through them nearly into heaven.
XXV
THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM–(Concluded)
Gen 19:29-25:18
This chapter concludes the life of Abraham. It covers over five chapters of Genesis. The important events are varied:
1. Lot’s history after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the incestuous origin of the Ammonites and Moabites.
2. Abraham’s dealing with Abimelech, the Philistine king.
3. The birth and weaning of Isaac.
4. The casting out of the handmaiden, Hagar, and Ishmael.
5. The great trial of Abraham’s faith.
6. The death and burial of Sarah.
7. The marriage of Isaac.
8. Abraham’s marriage with Keturah their children.
9. Abraham’s disposition of his property.
10. Death and burial.
11. Character.
All these events wonderfully illustrate Oriental life of that age.
Our lesson commences with Gen 19:29 : “And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plains, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.” An examination question will be, To whom was Lot indebted for his rescue from the destruction of Sodom? Gen 19:30 gives the origin of two famous should say infamous nations: Moabites and Ammonites. They resulted from the incest with his daughters on the part of Lot. No nations have developed so harmoniously with their origin. They were immoral, untrustworthy, every way a blot upon civilization, the bitterest enemies of the Israelites, except the Amalekites and Philistines.
The twentieth chapter returns to Abraham. He located in the territory of the Philistine king. The Philistines, descendants of a son of Ham, originally located in Egypt. But they get their name from their migratory habits. Leaving the place that God assigned to them, they took possession of the southwestern coast of the land which derives its name from them, in our time called Palestine. They had not yet developed the confederacy of the five cities, like the Swiss cantons, which they established later. Abimelech is not a name, but a title, like Pharaoh. The Philistine king has more honor than any subsequent king. We have discussed the responsibility of Abraham, making Sarah say that she was his sister. She is eighty years old, but a most beautiful young woman. God has restored youth to her and Abraham. Abimelech takes Sarah, but is prevented from harming her through a dream God sent, warning him that she was the wife of one of his prophets, and that he would die if he did not return her. Abimelech justly rebukes them both. In Gen 19:9 he says to Abraham, “What hast thou done unto us? and in what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and my kingdom a great sin?” Abraham makes a very lame excuse. Isaac repeats the very same thing with another Abimelech. To Sarah, Abimelech says, “Behold, I have given a thousand pieces of silver; behold it is for thee a covering of the eyes to all that are with thee; and in respect of all thou art righted.” The wrong that had been done by her captivity was thus amply compensated. The text of the King James Version says she was reproved. I think it was a gentle rebuke. Note the healing of Abimelech in Gen 19:17 at the prayer of Abraham, just as we see the friends of Job forgiven at the intercession of Job, and Israel forgiven at the intercession of Samuel and Moses. What mighty power has the intercessory prayer of good men with God!
According to promise Isaac was born. Then Sarah becomes both inspired and poetical. Her Magnification sounds like that of the virgin Mary. She said, “God hath made me to laugh; every one that heareth will laugh with me.” The child was named Isaac, which means laughter. Some children are born to make parental hearts sing with joy. Many children cause the parental heart to ache.
We come to another incident: “The child grew, and was weaned.” And Abraham made a great religious festival in honor of the weaning of Isaac. Sarah saw the son of Hagar making sport and said to Abraham, “Cast out this handmaid and her son; for the son of this handmaid shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” It was a little hard on Ishmael. He had been the only child, much loved by his father. He was taking a pretty wide swing in affairs at the birth of Isaac, which, according to an old saying, “broke his nose,” and put him out of commission. So, although it was a religious ceremony, Ishmael mocked, sinning against God, the father, mother, and child. Sarah seems rather hard, but she was exceedingly wise. It was very difficult to bring up two seta of children in a house where there is already a spirit of jealousy. Ishmael would not have been a safe guide for his little brother. It hurt Abraham very much. That night God appeared to him in a vision and confirmed what Sarah had said. Paul quotes the words of Sarah in Gal 4 , “Cast out the handmaid and her son.” In that famous letter he says that Hagar and Sarah are allegorical, representing two covenants: one according to the flesh, Hagar, typifying Israel; the other according to the spirit, in which Sarah represents the Jerusalem which is above. All true spiritual children of Abraham are children of promise, born of the spirit. This interpretation throws a great light on the incidents recorded here.
The story becomes still more pathetic when early next morning Abraham puts a goatskin full of water and some bread upon Hagar’s shoulder, and starts her and the boy off. She struck out, trying to find the way to Egypt. But she got tangled up in the desert. In a hot dry, sandy country it does not take long to drink all the water a woman can carry. The water gave out. Ishmael was famishing with thirst. The mother could not bear to see him die. So she put him under a little bush to shelter him as much as possible, and drawing off to a distance, wept and sobbed in anguish of spirit. And the angel of God spoke to her, “What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.” The boy, too, was praying. Once in preaching a sermon to children I took that text. The other night my little boy asked me to repeat a scripture before we had family prayer. I told him of the boy born to be a wild man, against whom was every man’s hand, and whose hand was against every man. How that he and his mother had to leave home when he was a little fellow. That hot walk in the desert, the insatiable thirst, and the mother going off to pray. How it occurred to the little boy to pray, and how when he prayed God heard the voice of the lad himself. Instantly my little boy spoke up and began to tell of two or three times when he had prayed and God had heard him. I encouraged him in that thought. I told him whenever he got into trouble, no matter how small, to pray; just as a child to tell God, and while nobody on earth might hear him, his Heavenly Father would hear even a whisper. I tell you this that you may impress upon young people the fact that God heard the voice of the lad himself. At the Arkansas convention in Texarkana, I preached a sermon for Dr. Barton’s church. A mother came to me before preaching and said that she had two boys in whom she was very much interested, and wanted me to pray for them that day. I said, “Suppose you tell those boys to pray while I preach.” She told them, and at the close of the sermon they were happily converted. Dr. Barton baptized them that night, both at one time, holding each other’s hands. It made a very impressive sight. Having heard about this, when I returned later to Texarkana, another mother came and stated a similar case. I told her to ask the lad to pray himself. That boy was converted and joined the church at the close of the service. In lecturing to the Y. M. C. A. in the afternoon, before I commenced my talk, I raised the point that God could hear anybody in that audience of five hundred men. There were some very bad cases, men who had stained their homes, grieved their wives, darkened the prospect of their children. I told them that God would hear them even on the brink of hell, if they would turn to him and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” One man stepped right up and gave me his hand. At night all the churches worshiped at one church. I preached to within ten minutes of train time, and left without knowing the result. But with two preachers to call out from the audience the people who would take God at his word, and judging from the seeming impression, there ought to have been a great many conversions there that night. I would be glad if every preacher would take that text, “I have heard the voice of the lad where he is,” and preach a sermon. Get it on the minds of the children that God will hear them. “God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad.” That is the second part of the text. First, I have heard the voice of the lad himself; second, God was with the lad.
His mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt, and he became the father of twelve nations. I have told you about the Arabs, the descendants of Ishmael. They hold the ground where Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Leah, Isaac, and Rachel were buried. There is an immense structure built at that place. Until 1869 they would not allow a Gentile to enter, but in that year the Prince of Wales was permitted to go inside. The remainder of the chapter states a remarkable covenant between Abraham and Abimelech. It became evident that God was with Abraham and nobody could harm him. Abimelech wanted a covenant with that kind of a man. In my preaching I used to advise sinners never to go into business with a backslidden Christian, for God will surely visit him with Judgments, and he may come with fire to burn up the store. Anyway, a backslidden Christian is an unsafe partner. But what a fine partner is a Christian who is not a backslidden one. Abraham said that he ought to rectify a certain offense. “I dug this well in order to water my stock and your servants took it.” Abimelech righted the wrong. They took an oath of amity toward each other, so that the place was called Beersheba, i.e., the well of the oath. That marks the southern boundary of Palestine as we regard it.
I am going to give you the salient points of the twenty-second chapter, which presents the most remarkable incident in the life of Abraham. God had said that in Isaac was all Abraham’s hope for the future. God determined to try the faith of Abraham. It has been forty years since his conversion, and he has been stepping up higher and higher until you would think he must have reached the heights and graduated. But the crowning touch to his faith is to come now. God said, “Take now thy sou, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering.” It was a staggering request, and yet Abraham staggered not in unbelief. He thought, “What will become of God’s promise?” In Hebrews it is explained how he argued it out and trusted. If God said, “Put Isaac to death,” he would do it, but God had said that through Isaac was to come the Messiah. So it would be necessary for God to raise Isaac from the dead. They set out early. If they had waked Sarah and told her what they were going to do, there probably would have been a row. So they took their servant, a mule, and some wood, and started to distant Mount Moriah, where Jerusalem is. As they drew near the place, Isaac, who had been doing some thinking, says, “Father, here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” It had not been mentioned what his part was. Abraham answered, “My son, the Lord will pro-, vide a sacrifice.” They reached the place near where Christ was later crucified. Abraham built the altar and placed the wood upon it. He commenced binding Isaac. The son, never saying a word, submitted. He stretched him over that altar, and drew his knife over the boy, and already in Abraham’s mind Isaac was dead. But just as the knife was about to descend, God said, “Abraham, Abraham, stay thy hand. Isaac shall not die.” He looked around and there in a bush was a ram caught by its horns. He took that and offered it.
There are two marvelous lessons to be derived from this incident. The most significant is that God made Abraham feel the anguish that God felt in giving up his only begotten Son to die for man. Abraham is the only man that ever entered into the sorrow of the Divine Mind in giving up Jesus to die. When he is bound on the cross and prays, “Save me from the sword,” the Father cries out, “Wake, O sword, and smite the Shepherd.” When he cries, “Save me from the enemy that goeth about like a roaring lion,” and when he prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” it was not possible if anybody was to be saved. The other thought is that as the Father consented to give up his Son, so the Son obediently submitted. Thus Isaac becomes the type of Christ. And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-jireh, “it shall be provided.” When I was a young preacher I preached a sermon on all the double names of Jehovah found in the Old Testament, such as Jehovah-Elohim, Jehovah-Tsidkena, Jehovah-jireh, etc.
Now we come to a passage that made a great impression on the mind of the author of the letter to the Hebrews. “And the angel of the Lord called unto Abram in a second time out of heaven, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” That matter is discussed in Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. When I was a young preacher I used to delight in preaching from this passage, and I like it yet, Heb 6:16 , “For men verily swear by the greater; and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.” In order to assure every child of God that his hope is well grounded and that he cannot be disappointed, two things in which it is impossible for God to lie are joined and twisted together to make a cable which is fastened to the anchor of hope: one, the promise of God, the other the oath of God. In commenting upon that Paul said that, though it was a covenant with a man, because it was confirmed by the oath of God, it could not be disannulled.
In Gen 22:20 we find, “And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor; Uz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, and Chesed, and Hazo and Pildash, and Jidlaph and Bethuel. And Bethuel begat Rebekah.” That incident is put in to prepare for a subsequent chapter, showing where Isaac got his wife. My wife’s brother, when he was a little fellow, came to his mother and wanted to know who were the boys that milked a bear. She said she did not know. He said it was in the Bible, so he read, “Those eight did Milcah bear.” Then his mother told him of the old Hardshell preacher’s sermon on that text, to this effect: They got out of milk at a certain house. The only available source was a she bear, and so the sturdy boys roped her and brought in the milk.
The twenty-third chapter, which gives an account of the death of Sarah, and the purchase of a burial place by Abraham, is a very interesting historical account because it gives all the details of a noted business transaction, showing how Orientals dealt in their trades. Notice particularly the Gen 23:11 , what Ephron says, “Nay, my lord, hear me: the field I give thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the children of my people gave I it thee: bury thy dead.” If an Englishman or an American had said that, it would have meant an outright gift, but for an Oriental or a Mexican, he expects the full price. If you enter a house in Mexico they will tell you everything is yours, cows, lambs, etc., but don’t you take for granted that it is so; it is just soft speech. Notice in closing this transaction that the currency was not coin, but weighed silver. Silver and gold were not put in pieces of money, but in any form; as, rings, bracelets, or bars, counted by weight; not numbered.
The twenty-fourth chapter tells how marriages were contracted in the East, and is an exceedingly interesting bit of history on that subject. Abraham brings out a revelation that God had previously made that we have no account of elsewhere, viz.: that God had told him not to marry his son to any of the idolaters of the land, but to his own people who were worshipers of God. So Abraham took Eliezer and swore him. The form of the oath is given, showing how these solemn oaths were taken between man and man. This head servant, taking ten camels, struck out from the southern part of Palestine, going to the Euphrates, a long trip, though common for caravans. He is much concerned about his mission and says to Abraham, “You tell me not to take Isaac there because God told you never to take your son back to that country.” There is another revelation, not previously recorded. “Now, suppose when I get there the girl won’t come to me?” Abraham said, “That will exempt you from your responsibility, but God will prosper you in this, his arrangement, and will govern you in everything.” We have a description of this old man falling on a plan by which a sign would be given. He sat down near a well and waited for the women to come and draw water. In this country men draw the water we don’t expect women to draw enough water for a herd of cattle. His plan was that he would steadily look at the women who came and fixing his mind on one, he would ask her to give him a drink, and if she inclined the bucket to him and said, “Let me water your camels,” she would be the one. Later we find Jacob falling upon the same method. In our time young men manage to find their wives without signs or omens. So when Rebekah, granddaughter of Nahor, brother of Abraham, came out, a beautiful virgin, and he asked her for a drink, and she let her pitcher down and held it in her hand, and then offered to water the camels, Eliezer knew she was the right one. He took a ring of gold, a half-shekel in weight, two bracelets for her hands, ten shekels in weight, and said, “Whose daughter art thou? Is there in thy father’s house a place for us to pass the night?” She told him who she was, and that there was a place and abundant provisions for him and his camels.
So when she got to the house she reported the case and her brothers came out. Her father was a polygamist, and the eldest of each set of children was the head. So Laban, Rebekah’s brother, came out and invited old Eliezer in. Food is set before him, but he says, “I will not eat until I have told my message.” Laban told him to tell it. And he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. And Jehovah hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men servants and maid servants, and camels and asses. And Sarah, my master’s wife, bare a son to my master when she was old; and unto him hath he given all that he hath.” That was a very fine introduction. Whenever you open negotiations with a young lady’s father for marriage in the case of a young man whose father is very wealthy and this son his only heir, you have paved the way for a fair hearing. He strengthened the case by stating that under the inspiration of God he was forbidden to take a wife from among the idolaters, but was commanded to come to this place for a wife, the idea of appointment by God, a match made in heaven. Some matches are made of sulfur, not in heaven. He gave his third reason. “Not only is my master’s son rich, and I am here under the arrangement of God, but after I got to this place, I let God give me a sign to determine the woman.” Having stated his case he says, “If you will deal truly and kindly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.”
In the King James Version, Eliezer’s speech has a translation that used to be very famous as a text. He says, “I have come to seek a bride for my lord.” A Methodist preacher in Edward Eggleston’s Circuit Rider, preaching from that text before an immense congregation, says, “My theme is suggested by the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis,” and gave a little of the history. “Now,” he says, “I am here to seek a bride for my Lord, to espouse a soul to God. And like old Eliezer, I am under an oath of God. Like him I am not willing to eat until I have stated my case. And like him I have come by divine appointment. And like him I have tokens of his spirit that somewhere in this congregation is the bride of God. And like him I commence wooing for my Lord by stating whose son he is. He is the Son of God. He is very rich. He is the heir of all things in the world.” Edward Eggleston, in telling that story, relates that Patsy, a beautiful girl, who had despised religion and circuit riders, was wonderfully impressed by the sermon. It was the custom in the early days of Methodism to demand that women should eschew jewels, basing it on a New Testament expression about bad worldly ornaments. So while the preacher was exhorting and pleading for a bride for his master, Patsy commenced taking off her earrings, loosening her bracelets, and putting them all on the table. Then she said, “I seek to be ornamented by the One to whom you propose to espouse me, even the Lord Jesus Christ. I lay aside the trappings of external wealth and splendour, and look for that quality of spirit that best ornaments a woman.” Paul says, showing that the Methodist preacher was not going out of the record, “I have espoused you to Christ.”
The custom was for the betrothal to take place at the house of the bride’s father, and Eliezer comes in the name of his master and the betrothal is undertaken. The marriage is consummated whenever the bride is taken to the bridegroom’s house, and he meets and takes her in. The virgins of Mat 25 are all espoused, but the bridegroom has not yet come to take them to his house. When Eliezer had stated his case the father and brother say, “This thing proceeds from Jehovah, and it is a question we cannot answer. Behold Rebekah is before you. Take her and go, and let her be the wife of thy master’s son.” As soon as the betrothal is completed, Eliezer according to custom, takes the lady to his camel and hands out the presents sent by the bridegroom. “And the servants brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah, and he gave also to her brother and her mother precious things.” We perpetuate that somewhat in our marriage festivals when friends bring bridal presents. According to an Eastern custom a bridegroom makes presents to the bride’s mother and family. As these samples of the richness of Abraham were displayed, they felt still better satisfied about the judiciousness of the marriage.
Next morning Eliezer wants to start right home, but they said, “Let the damsel stay awhile. You stay a couple of weeks or months.” But Orientals always expect the answer, “No, I am in a hurry. I must go.” So they proposed to leave it to the girl. I have often wondered if they were going to leave anything to her. They called Rebekah and she said, “I will go.” That leads me to remark what a singular thing it is that a girl raised in a loving family, sheltered by parental care from even a cold breath of air, the pride and light of the house, all at once, on one night’s notice, pulls up stakes and leaves the old home, saying to a man pretty much what Ruth said to Naomi, “Where thou goest I will go. Where thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people, and God do so to me, if I ever cease from following after thee.” And yet, it is God’s providence. So Rebekah and her maids, and the servant of Abraham and his men struck out from Haran on the Euphrates, on that long pilgrimage, south to Damascus; to the headwaters of the Jordan; then down either side of the river until you come to Hebron, where the bridegroom was. Just before Rebekah gets to Hebron, it happened that Isaac was out, taking a walk for meditation. In such a period of a young man’s life, he is given to meditation. When you see a young fellow that has always wanted to be surrounded by a crowd of boys, getting up early in the morning and taking a long walk by himself, there is something up. So Isaac was out on this meditating expedition, and Rebekah saw him. She instantly slipped down from the camel and put the veil over her face. The bridegroom could never see the face of the bride until he took her into his house. That part I do not think I would like. In the East the women are secluded until after their marriage.
The next chapter gives us an account of Abraham we hardly expect. Sarah has been dead sometime, and he took another wife, Keturah. Then there is a statement of their children and the countries they inhabit. They become mostly Arabs. We find this in Gen 25:5 : “And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines, Hagar and Keturah, that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away from his son Isaac, while he yet lived, eastward unto the east country.” Though he made provisions for all, his general estate went to the child of promise.
Abraham lived 175 years and died in a good old age, full of days. Brother Smith used that expression in conducting the funeral of President Brooks’ father. Going from the funeral I asked my wife, who is a good listener to a sermon of any kind, what Brother Smith said. She said, “He had the usual things to say on such occasions, but brought out the biblical interpretation I am not sure about. He interpreted ‘full of days’ to mean ‘satisfied with his days.’ ” I said, “He certainly is right. Old age and full of days are distinguished thus. A man might live to be an old man and not be full of days. Every retrospect of his life might bring him sorrow.” I am afraid few people, when they come to die, can say with Paul, “The time of my exodus is at hand, and I am ready to be poured out full of days. I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up a crown which God the righteous judge shall give to me.”
The next noticeable expression is, “He was gathered to his people.” That does not mean that his body was deposited in the family burying ground. As yet no member of his family was in the cave of Machpelah except his wife. In the Old Testament the expression refers to the soul and is one of those expressions that teach the belief in the immortality of the soul and the existence of the soul separate from the body. Next, Isaac and Ishmael bury him. The last time we saw Ishmael was at the weaning of Isaac, when he was mocking. Both are married. Ishmael has a large family. The fathers of these nationalities that are to be distinct until the second coming of Christ, come together at the father’s grave. It is very touching that these two boys whom the antagonism of life had parted, whom the very trend of destiny had led separate, when the father died, came back without antagonism to bury him.
The chapter then gives a brief account of the generations of Ishmael, which constitutes one of the sections of the book of Genesis. Note the fact that according to the promise made to Ishmael, he becomes the father of twelve tribes. He died at the age of 137. Gen 25:18 says, “Before the face of his brethren he abode.” That expression means that he dwelt in the sight of his brethren, yet separated from them, living his own independent life.
Abraham is now dead. Here is a question I put to every class in Genesis. Analyze the character of Abraham and state the constituent elements of his greatness. I give you some hints.
(1) His mighty faith, the father of the faithful, whose faith took steps and staggered not through unbelief, no matter how often or hard it was tried. That is the supreme element of his greatness.
(2) His habit of religion. He took no “religious furloughs” when he travelled, as some men do. Wherever he stopped he erected an altar to God. Some years ago at Texarkana, some young men got on the train, and among them a Baptist preacher, and all were drinking. Finally one of them turned to him and said, “I won’t drink with you any more unless you will promise to quit preaching.” He was away from home and thought nobody knew him.
(3) His capacity for friendship. He was one of very few men counted the friend of God. Christ says concerning some of his people, “I call you not servants. I call you friends, and ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Abraham was also a friend of his fellow men. No man or woman, no matter what the external conditions, who is not capable of great, strong, undying friendship, can be very great.
(4) His love of peace. He said to Lot concerning the strife between the herdsmen, “Let there be no strife between us. Though I am the older and came here first, you can take the land you want and I will take what is left.” Lot selected the fertile plain of the Jordan and pitched his tent. Wherever Abraham went there were warlike, quarrelsome tribes, men who lived with swords on and daggers in hand, yet he had no quarrels.
(5) But as we have seen, when necessary to make war, he struck fast, hard, and effectively. He evinced great courage.
(6) His independence of character. He would not accept a gift from Ephron the Hittite a burying place for his dead. He would not accept as much as a shoestring from the spoils of the Sodomites, which he had recovered in battle from the Babylonians, lest the king of Sodom should say, “I have made Abram rich.”
(7) His justice. In an old reader there is a legend that a stranger, lost and in trouble, came to his tent. Abraham cared for his stock, washed his feet, gave him food and a place to sleep. But when the man started to lie down, Abraham seized him and said, “You cannot sleep under my tent. You propose to lie down without thanking God for these blessings!” He put him out and the man went to sleep outside of the tent. In the night came a voice from heaven, “Abraham, where is the guest I sent?” “Lord, he came; I treated him kindly, but when I saw how unthankful to thee he was, I cast him out.” “Abraham, I have borne with that man many years. Could you not bear with him one night? I sent him that you might lead him to me.” Abraham, weeping, went out, and brought the man back in his arms.
(8) Governing his family. “I know Abraham, that he will command his children after him.”
(9) His unswerving obedience.
(10) His affection and provision for his family. He loved his wife very much, and made provision for every member of his family before he died. These are some of the characteristics of the greatness of Abraham. They are homely virtues, but they are rare on that account.
QUESTIONS 1. To whom was Lot indebted for his rescue from the destruction of Sodom? Proof?
2. What was the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites and how does their history harmonize with their origin?
3. In whose country does Abraham locate after the destruction of Sodom, of which son of Noah were they descendants and what the origin of their name?
4. Who was king of this people, what was Abraham’s aim here and what notable example of intercessory prayer?
5. Recite Sarah’s Magnification and give a New Testament parallel.
6. What was the occasion of Ishmael’s sin that drove him and his mother from home, what was the sin itself, the wisdom of Sarah, the divine approval and the New Testament use of this incident?
7. Tell the story of Hagar and Ishmael as outcasts, what text cited in this story, and what the application?
8. Whom did Ishmael marry, how many nations of his descendants and who are his descendants today?
9. What was the covenant between Abimelech and Abraham and what advice to businessmen is based thereon?
10. What great trial of Abraham’s faith and how did he stand the test?
11. What two marvelous lessons from this incident?
12. What blessing from heaven on Abraham because of his obedience in this test and what New Testament impress of this passage?
13. In the great trial of his faith when Isaac was offered, how was Abraham a type of the Father?
14. Why the incident of Gen 22:20-24 , given here, and what the text and Hardshell sermon cited?
15. What of particular interest in the twenty-third chapter, what Oriental custom here exemplified and what was the medium of exchange?
16. What two new revelations in Gen 24 , and tell the story of how Isaac got his wife.
17. What famous text is in this passage and what noted sermon cited on it?
18. What was the custom of Oriental marriages and what New Testament scripture does it illustrate?
19. What part of the Oriental marriage do we perpetuate in our marriages and with what modifications?
20. What part did Rebekah have in this affair and what eastern custom does she comply with upon her first sight of Isaac?
21. Who was Abraham’s second wife and who were his descendants by this wife?
22. How old was Abraham when he died and what is the meaning of “full of days”?
23. What is the meaning, both negatively and positively, of the expression: “He was gathered to his people,” what touching thing occurred at his funeral and what was the meaning of “Before the face of his brethren he abode”?
24. Analyze the character of Abraham and state the constituent elements of his greatness.
Gen 23:1 And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: [these were] the years of the life of Sarah.
Ver. 1. And Sarah was a hundred, &c. ] It is observed by divines, that God thought not fit to tell us of the length of the life of any woman in Scripture, but Sarah, to humble that sex, that because they were first in bringing in death, deserved not to have the continuance of their lives recorded by God’s pen.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 23:1-16
1Now Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. 2Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. 3Then Abraham rose from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, 4″I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” 5The sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying to him, 6″Hear us, my lord, you are a mighty prince among us; bury your dead in the choicest of our graves; none of us will refuse you his grave for burying your dead.” 7So Abraham rose and bowed to the people of the land, the sons of Heth. 8And he spoke with them, saying, “If it is your wish for me to bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and approach Ephron the son of Zohar for me, 9that he may give me the cave of Machpelah which he owns, which is at the end of his field; for the full price let him give it to me in your presence for a burial site.” 10Now Ephron was sitting among the sons of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the sons of Heth; even of all who went in at the gate of his city, saying, 11″No, my lord, hear me; I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the presence of the sons of my people I give it to you; bury your dead.” 12And Abraham bowed before the people of the land. 13He spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, “If you will only please listen to me; I will give the price of the field, accept it from me that I may bury my dead there.” 14Then Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him, 15″My lord, listen to me; a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.” 16Abraham listened to Ephron; and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, commercial standard.
Gen 23:1 The rabbis say that when Abraham returned home and told Sarah what he had done, in response she issued seven loud cries and died. Her death is recorded in chapter 23. Whether this is true or not, we can certainly see where the rabbis got their interpretation!
Gen 23:2 “Kiriath-arba” This name (BDB 900) is made up of
1. “Kiriath” means “city”
2. “Arba”
a. usually translated “city of four” (i.e., Anak and his three sons or four villages together)
b. the same root means ambush (BDB 70)
c. a person’s name, one of the Anakim, Jos 14:15; Jos 15:13; Jos 21:11
See Special Topic: Giants .
“Abraham went in to mourn Sarah and weep for her” One wonders how long this mourning and negotiating with the locals lasted. The body of Sarah would deteriorate quickly in this climate (see the chapter on Death and Funeral Rites” in Ancient Israel: Social Institutions, vol. 1 by Roland deVaux, pp 56-61). Today in Israel (which still does not embalm) one must be buried within twenty four hours.
Gen 23:3-13 What follows through the rest of the chapter is a record of the dialogue (using formalized and standard Oriental customs) between the local inhabitants near Hebron and Abraham. Note the formalities expressed in IMPERATIVES (note paragraphing of TEV).
1. “give me,” Gen 23:3, BDB 678, KB 733, Qal IMPERATIVE in the sense of a request
2. “burial site,” Gen 23:3 (lit. possession for a burying place), BDB 868, KB 1064, Qal COHORTATIVE
3. “hear,” Gen 23:6, BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal IMPERATIVE (used by the sons of Heth to Abraham)
4. “bury your dead,” Gen 23:6, BDB 868, KB 1064, Qal IMPERATIVE (this was not what Abraham wanted to do, i.e., bury Sarah on one of their lands)
5. “hear,” Gen 23:8, same as #3, but Abraham speaks to them
6. “approach” (or entreat), Gen 23:8, BDB 803, KB 910, Qal IMPERATIVE (as request)
7. “give,” Gen 23:9, BDB 678, KB 733
a. Qal JUSSIVE
b. Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
(Ephron responds in Gen 23:11 [three Qal PERFECTS], but this is not a literal offer of a gift of the land, rather part of the expected negotiations; it basically denotes a pending sale)
8. “hear,” Gen 23:11, same as #3 and #5 (Ephron speaks to Abraham and offers the cave and the field)
9. “bury,” Gen 23:11, same as #4
10. “listen” (lit. “hear”), Gen 23:13, same as #3,5,8 (Abraham speaks to Ephron)
11. “hear,” Gen 23:15, same as #3,5,8,10 (Ephron speaks to Abraham in such a way about the price of the field that all negotiation over the price is excluded, and this was apparently a high price)
Much of this dialogue seems formal or repetitious to us, but it was the expected protocol of Canaanite society in the second millennium B.C.
Gen 23:3 “the sons of Heth” The name Heth (, BDB 366) is an ancestor of the Hittites (, BDB 366, cf. Gen 10:15; 1Ch 1:13). See Special Topic: PRE-ISRAELITE INHABITANTS OF PALESTINE .
Gen 23:4 “a stranger and a sojourner” These two terms have different connotations, but are probably here a hendiadys.
1. “a stranger” (BDB 158) implies an alien resident, cf. Gen 15:13; Exo 22:21; Exo 23:9; Lev 19:34; Deu 10:19; Deu 23:8
2. “a sojourner” (BDB 444) is an alien just passing through with no legal rights, Lev 22:10; Lev 25:40
Possibly taken together, they imply someone who moved into an unsettled area, but did not own land. See article on “Resident Aliens” in Ancient Israel: Social Institutions, vol. 1, by Roland deVaux, pp. 74-76.
Gen 23:6 “you are a mighty prince” The term translated “mighty” is the term elohim (BDB 43), which can be used of
1. God, see Special Topic: Names for Deity
2. judges
3. angels
4. here denoting a powerful, local, family leader
The translation “mighty” comes from the root meaning of el (BDB 42, cf. 1Ch 12:22; Psa 68:15; Jon 3:3). Some commentators want to translate it “prince of God.”
The term translated “prince” (BDB 672) means “one lifted up” (from basic root, BDB 669). The NASB translates it as
1. “prince” in Gen 17:20; Gen 25:16; Gen 34:2
2. “leader” in Exo 16:22; Num 1:16; Num 1:44; Num 2:3; Jos 22:32
3. “ruler” in Exo 22:28; Exo 34:31; Exo 35:27; 1Ki 11:34
4. “chief” in Jos 13:21
In this highly stylized negotiation this is a polite title of respect. The Hittites are not making a religious statement.
Gen 23:9 “the cave of Machpelah” This seems to be a cave (common burial place) located in the district of Machpelah, an outlying region from Hebron toward Mamre (cf. Gen 13:18; Gen 14:13; Gen 18:1).
Several of Abraham’s family were buried here.
1. Sarah, Gen 23:19
2. Abraham, Gen 25:9
3. Isaac, Gen 35:29
4. Rebekah and Leah, Gen 49:31
5. Jacob, Gen 50:13
Gen 23:10 “at the gate” This would have been the place where local leaders met for fellowship, commerce, and legal matters.
“the Hittite” See Special Topic: Pre-Israelite Inhabitants of Palestine .
Gen 23:15 “shekels” See Special Topic: Ancient Near East Weights and Volumes .
Sarah. The only woman whose age is mentioned in the Bible. in Gen 22:23 Rebekah is mentioned: one sun rising before the other sets.
Chapter 23
And so Sarah was a hundred and twenty-seven years old. And she died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah ( Gen 23:1-2 ),
Now evidently Abraham had been away with the flocks or something when Sarah died and he wasn’t at her side at her death, which is a sad thing indeed. He came to mourn,
and to weep for her. And he stood up from before his dead, and he spake to the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession for a buryingplace with you, that I might bury my dead out of my sight ( Gen 23:2-4 ).
Now Abraham didn’t really possess anything. He was a stranger and a sojourner in the land of promise, knowing that God was going to someday give that land to him and to his descendants.
The children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us will withhold from thee his sepulchre, that you may bury your dead ( Gen 23:5-6 ).
So Abraham called the men together and he said, Look, I need a place to bury my dead. And they said, “Take your pick. All of our sepulchres, none of us will hold back from you and you can just use ours”.
Abraham stood up, and he bowed himself to the people of the land, to the children of Heth. And he communed with them, saying, If it be in your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth and give it to me for a possession for a buryingplace among you ( Gen 23:7-9 ).
And so he’s asking now for a particular area and he’s asking that they will entreat this man that he will sell or that he would give this area to Abraham.
Now Ephron was among the children of Heth ( Gen 23:10 ):
And he was in the crowd that was there.
And so he answered Abraham in the audience of all the children, and he said, Nay, my lord, hear me: the field I will give to you, and the cave that is therein, I will give it to you; in the presence of the sons of my people I give it to you: to bury thy dead ( Gen 23:10-11 ).
And so he gives a very generous offer, which is typical of the culture. In other words, the polite thing was to say, “Oh, I give it to you”. But it would be extremely impolite for Abraham to take it. In other words, it was one of those things, you know, it’s the way that they would deal and barter with each other; bow and they’d say, you know, “Oh”, in the audience of all the people I give it to you. But it would be, oh, if Abraham took it then man, you know, flames and fire and all would come.
And so,
Abraham bowed himself before the people of the land. And he spake to Ephron in the audience of the people, and he is saying, But if you wilt give it, I pray, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. So Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; but what is that between us? You take and bury your dead ( Gen 23:12-15 ).
Now four hundred shekels of silver is greatly overpriced. They always start off with a high price. And then they enter into this haggling where the guy offers a high price and you come back with about forty percent of what he offered and you expect to buy it for about fifty to sixty percent. But it’s just like a game. They’ll never give you the selling price for the first price. First price is always the sucker’s price.
You go over there today, the same thing. They, if you don’t haggle with them, they get disappointed, because it’s just like a game. They love the haggling. It’s just a part of their culture and you’ve got to say, “Ah, no, I don’t want it, you know, at that price”; and you go to turn. “Wait a minute, wait, come back, come back. How much will you give me for it?” “Oh, I’ll only give you fifty cents”. That’s not worth much. Oh, fifty cents, go away. That’s terrible. Get out of here. You start to leave. “Come back, come back, come back. If I sell this to you for fifty cents, the business is going to be lost. I can’t afford to. My grandfather owned this business and he gave it to my father, my father has given it to me. And now we’re going to lose the business if I sell for fifty cents. Sixty-five”. You know. And it’s just a game with them. They love to haggle like that.
And so Abraham is going through the old typical thing, you know, I will not take it but I want to buy it from you. Oh, it’s worth four hundred shekels of silver but what’s that between us? And suddenly, surprise, Abraham pulls out and rather than haggling, because of course it’s the thing now of a place to bury his dead and all, he doesn’t enter into the game. He just measures out the four hundred shekels of silver and he buys it at the inflated price. Everybody’s disappointed. Abraham didn’t get into the haggle but because of the death and the whole emotional thing, rather than haggling he pays the inflated value for the land in order that he might have the burying place for Sarah. And thus he buried Sarah in this cave there at Machpelah, which is in view of Mamre, where he was dwelling near Hebron.
Now there is one difficulty with this. According to the seventh chapter of Acts in the New Testament, as Stephen is rehearsing their history, he speaks of Joseph and Jacob being buried in the cave in Shechem that Abraham bought from Hamor. And so either Stephen didn’t know the facts or made a mistake in the facts or a copyist made a mistake in the facts or what is probably correct is that not recorded. Abraham also bought a field in Shechem at an earlier or a later time from Hamor, also for a burying place. So that Abraham actually purchased two parcels; one in Shechem, the place where he first came, and now this parcel in Hebron, the cave of Machpelah where Sarah was buried. But it’s nothing to lose your faith over. There’s easy explanations.
Next week we get into the bride for Isaac, one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible as the servant goes into the far country to get a bride for his master’s son and we see the beautiful sequel of the Holy Spirit in this world, drawing out a bride for the son of God, Jesus Christ. “
We now see Abraham in the midst of personal sorrow, which reveals his character in a remarkable way.
Sarah, who had ever been to him a princess, was now taken from his side, which meant the loss of the strongest human prop to Abraham’s faith. It must be remembered that she had been with him along the whole pathway of obedience from Ur of the Chaldees. She had shared his hours of darkness and his hours of light. Doubtless at times she had been a cause of fear and trembling to him, and his very love for her had brought him to some deflections from faith. But far more often her comradeship had strengthened him.
When she died, Abraham is seen in his action as a man full of the dignity that comes from faith. He was first of all a mourner, shedding the tears which expressed the sorrow and loneliness of his life. Faith never kills affection, and the man was keenly alive to the loss he had sustained.
Yet faith never allows sorrow to overwhelm. He “rose up from before his dead.” His next action was definitely one of faith. He did not take Sarah to Ur, but buried her in the land which God had given to him. That faith operated, moreover, in the method he now followed. He was willing to receive the land as a gift from God, but would not receive part of God’s gift as a gift from the sons of Heth. Abraham’s first actual possession in the land, therefore, was a grave. This in itself is a teaching and a prophecy. God begins where man ends. The sorrows of life reveal a man’s true character as perhaps nothing else can. Faith weeps beside the dead and then moves on to fulfillment of duty as it puts a check on sorrow. Faith takes hold of earth’s greatest despair, death, and makes it the occasion of a possession which holds within itself all the future.
Abraham Buys a Burial Place
Gen 23:1-20
Death is an ever-constant monitor that this world is not our home. We rise up from before our dead to confess that we are only strangers and sojourners on the earth. Though the whole country, by Gods deed and gift, belonged to Abraham, it had not as yet been made over; hence the necessity for this deliberate purchase with all the stately formalities of the leisured East. Abrahams insistence on buying this grave, and the care with which the negotiations were pursued, show that he realized that his descendants would come again into that land and possess it. It was as though he felt that he and Sarah should lie there awaiting the return of their children and childrens children. See also Gen 49:29-30. So the graves of the martyrs and of missionaries who have fallen at the post of duty are the silent outposts that hold those lands for Christ, as the graves of the saints await the Second Advent.
Gen 23:16
I. On Mount Moriah we find Abraham doing God’s will; here we find him suffering it.
II. Look at Abraham buying a grave; the best man of his age here bargains for burial ground. Ponder well this transaction, and consider that in return for four hundred pieces of silver Abraham gets a burying-place.
III. The behaviour of the children of Heth calls for appreciative notice. They treated Abraham with generous pity and helpfulness.
IV. Man’s final requirement of man is a grave. In the grave there is no repentance; the dead man cannot obliterate the past.
V. Abraham mourned for Sarah. Consecration to God’s purpose does not eradicate our deep human love; say, rather, that it heightens, refines, sanctifies it.
Parker, The Pulpit Analyst, vol. ii., p. 271.
References: Gen 23:19.-J. Baines, Sermons, p. 139. Gen 24-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 401; F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 68; W. H. Burton, Penny Pulpit, No. 834; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 23. Gen 24:1.-G. Woolnough, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 366. Gen 24:12.-C. J. Vaughan, Good Words, 1864, p. 485
CHAPTER 23 The Death of Sarah
1. Sarah dies (Gen 23:1-2)
2. The grave obtained (Gen 23:3-18)
3. The burial of Sarah (Gen 23:19-20)
We call the attention to the typical meaning of the death of Sarah.
She is the type of the nation Israel and her death in this chapter signifies the death of Israel, nationally. This must be brought in connection with the previous chapter. There we learned that Isaac was upon the altar and taken from it. This is typical of the death and resurrection of the true Isaac, the Promised One, the Lord Jesus Christ. Immediately after, Sarah dies, the one from whom Isaac came. And so after the Lord Jesus Christ had died and was raised from the dead, the nation from whom He came, according to the flesh, passes off the scene. Israel, like Sarah, is buried in the midst of the children of Heth, that is the Gentiles. But Israel has the promise of restoration typified by resurrection. God has promised to open the national grave of Israel and bring them back to the land, which He has given to the seed of Abraham forever. This typical application becomes still more striking and irrefutable by what follows in the twenty-fourth chapter. Here we find the call of the bride who is to comfort Isaac, after his mothers death.
It is interesting that Sarah is the only woman, whose age is mentioned in the Bible.
am 2144, bc 1860
Sarah: It is worthy of remark, that Sarah is the only woman whose age, death, and burial are distinctly noted in the Sacred writings.
an: Gen 17:17
Reciprocal: Gen 25:1 – General
Sarah’s Death
Sarah died in Kirjath Arba, which was known to the Jews as Hebron, at the age of one hundred twenty-seven ( Gen 23:1-2 ). Peter considers her to be the mother of all faithful women who submit to their husbands. “For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror” ( 1Pe 3:5-6 ).
Instead of taking Sarah’s body back to Haran or Ur, Abraham chose to purchase a burial place in the land of Canaan. His actions proclaimed to those around that he intended this to be his family’s home. The sons of Heth, who were Hittites, offered him the choice of any of the burial places. However, Abraham wanted to purchase the cave of Machpelah.
Though Ephron, the owner, tried to give him the land, Abraham insisted on paying a fair price. He paid Ephron the four hundred shekels of silver he said the land was worth and buried Sarah in the cave. This cave was near their home in Mamre, or Hebron ( Gen 23:3-20 ).
Gen 23:1. The years of the life of Sarah Of all the women that had lived, it is the peculiar honour of Sarah, the mother of the faithful, 1Pe 3:6, to have the number of the years of her whole life recorded in Scripture.
Gen 23:4. A burying-place. Abraham believed in a future state; therefore he, as well as the other patriarchs, buried his dead. Joseph, actuated by this belief, gave commandment for his bones to be brought out of Egypt. It is the most decent way of disposing of the dead, that the dust may return to its original dust. The practice of burning the dead, and depositing the ashes in an urn, with coins and trinkets, is of great antiquity, and there are few of the ancient nations who did not more or less use this custom. Burrows, containing these urns, abound in this country, in Ireland, and other parts of Europe. Sir Thomas Browne wrote in 1685 his Hydriotaphia, occasioned by the sepulchral urns found in Norfolk; but he has not been able to trace the origin of this custom, which ceased as christianity obtained. The Jews sometimes used it, though a pagan custom. The men of Jabesh, wishing to honour Saul and his sons, burned their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days. 1Sa 31:12-13. Hence they regarded cremation as the highest honour they could pay the bodies of their insulted princes. A passage in Amo 6:10, seems to suggest the idea that the custom originated in burning the hut or tent of a man who had died of some contagious disease.
Gen 23:9. Machpelah. Simply the name of a place; but some contend that it signifies a double cave; that is, a cave within a cave, or one place for the men, and another for the women.
Gen 23:16. Four hundred shekels of silver, the price no doubt of a large field. Abraham knowing his call, and being assured of the promises, would not bury his dead with the Canaanites. He was judicious and prudent in paying for the field; for had he received it as a gift, the possession might have been disputed by the next heir.Of the shekel see on Exo 30:13.
REFLECTIONS.
In the conversations of these respectable men, we see much politeness and generosity. What a lamentable consideration that persons acquainted with the principles of religion and morality, and with the literature of their age, should be so grossly carried away with wickedness. The seven nations whom God destroyed and cast out were not unacquainted with the covenant of Noah, nor did they want the finest examples in Melchizedek and others. Their depravity therefore must have proceeded from the unrestrained overflowing of original sin, and from a wilful neglect of the true religion. Those who despise the light and the blessings of the covenant, shall in like manner be despised of the Lord.
How highly favoured was Sarah, the wife of faithful Abraham. Her age, her honours, her death, are all recorded in sacred history among the princely patriarchs. St. Paul has paid her still greater honour, in making her a figure of the true church, Jerusalem above, which is free, and the mother of us all. Her conception by the special favour of God, at so advanced an age, made both her and her only son the more illustrious, as figures of the assumption, when the divinity became united to our nature, of the substance of the blessed virgin. Let us learn of Sarah and of her husband to wait in faith and patience the sure accomplishment of all the promises.
Genesis 23
This little section of inspiration furnishes much sweet and profitable instruction to the soul. In it the Holy Spirit sets before us a beautiful exhibition of the mode in which the man of faith should carry himself toward those that are without. While it is true, divinely true, that faith makes a man independent of the men of the world, it is no less true that faith will ever teach him to walk honestly toward them. We are told to “walk honestly toward them that are without;” (1 Thess. 4: 12) “to provide things honest in the sight of all;” (2 Cor. 8: 21) “to owe no man anything.” (Rom. 13: 8) These are weighty precepts – precepts which, even before their distinct enunciation, were duly observed in all ages by the faithful servants of Christ, but which, in modern times, alas! have not been sufficiently attended to.
The 23rd of Genesis, therefore, is worthy of special notice. It opens with the death of Sarah, and introduces Abraham in a new character, viz., that of a mourner. “Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” The child of God must meet such things; but he must not meet them as others. The great fact of resurrection comes in to his relief, and imparts a character to his sorrow quite peculiar. (1 Thess. 4: 13, 14) The man of faith can stand at the grave of a brother or sister, in the happy consciousness that it shall not long hold its captive,” for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” The redemption of the soul secures the redemption of the body; the former we have, the latter we wait for. (Rom. 8: 23)
Now, I believe that in purchasing Machpelah for a burying-place, Abraham gave expression to his faith in resurrection. “He stood up from before his dead.” Faith cannot long keep death in view; it has a higher object, blessed be the “living God” who has given it. Resurrection is that which ever fills the vision of faith; and, in the power thereof, it can rise up from before the dead. There is much conveyed in this action of Abraham. We want to understand its meaning much more fully, because we are much too prone to be occupied with death and its consequences. Death is the boundary of Satan’s power; but where Satan ends, God begins. Abraham understood this when he rose up and purchased the cave of Machpelah as a sleeping place for Sarah. This was the expression of Abraham’s thought in reference to the future. He knew that in the ages to come, God’s promise about the land of Canaan would be fulfilled, and he was able to lay the body of Sarah in the tomb, “in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection.”
The sons of Heth knew nothing about this. The thoughts which were filling the patriarch’s soul were entirely foreign to the uncircumcised children of Heth. To them it seemed a small matter where he buried his dead, but it was by no means a small matter to him. “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” It might, and manifestly did, appear strange to them to make so much ado about a grave; but, “beloved, the world knoweth us not, even as it knew him not.” The finest traits and characteristics of faith are those which are most incomprehensible to the natural man. The Canaanites had no idea of the expectations which were giving character to Abraham’s actings on this occasion. They had no ides that he was looking forward to the possession of the land, while he was merely looking for a spot in which, as a dead man, he might wait for God’s time, and God’s manner, viz., the MORNING OF RESURRECTION. He felt he had no controversy with the children of Heth, and hence he was quite prepared to lay his head in the grave, and allow God to act for him, and with him, and by him.
“These all died in (or according to) faith, (kata pistin,) not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” (Heb. 11: 13) This is a truly exquisite feature in the divine life. Those “witnesses,” of whom the apostle is speaking in Heb. 11 not merely lived by faith, but even when they arrived at the close of their career, they proved that the promises of God were as real and satisfying to their souls as when they first started. Now, I believe this purchase of a burying place in the land was an exhibition of the power of faith, not only to live, but to die. Why was Abraham so particular about this purchase? Why was he so anxious to make good his claim to the field and cave of Ephron on righteous principles? Why so determined to weigh out the full price “current with the merchant” Faith is the answer. He did it all by faith. He knew the lend was his in prospect, and that in glory his seed should yet possess it, and until then he would be no debtor to those who were yet to be dispossessed.
Thus we may view this beautiful chapter in a twofold light; first, as setting before us a plain, practical principle, as to our dealings with the men of this world; and secondly, as presenting the blessed hope which should ever animate the man of faith. Putting both these points together, we have an example of what the child of God should ever be. The hope set before us in the gospel is a glorious immortality; and this, while it lifts the heart above every influence of nature and the world, furnishes a high and holy principle with which to govern all our intercourse with those who are without. “We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This is our hope. What is the moral effect of this? “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” (1 John 3: 2, 3) If I am to be like Christ by and by, I shall seek to be as like Him now as I can. Hence, the Christian should ever seek to walk in purity, integrity and moral grace in the view of all round.
Thus it was with Abraham, in reference to the sons of Heth. His whole deportment and conduct, as set forth in our chapter, would seem to have been marked with very pure elevation and disinterestedness. He was “a mighty prince among them,” and they would fain have done him a favour; but Abraham had learnt to take his favours only from the God of resurrection, and while he would pay them for Machpelah he would look to Him for Canaan The sons of Heth knew well the value of “current money with the merchant,” and Abraham knew the value of the cave of Machpelah. It was worth much more to him than it was to them. “The land was worth to them “four hundred shekels of silver,” but to him it was priceless, as the earnest of an everlasting inheritance, which, because it was an everlasting inheritance, could only be possessed in the power of resurrection. Faith conducts the soul onward into God’s future; it looks at things as He looks at them, and estimates them according to the judgement of the sanctuary. Therefore, in the intelligence of faith, Abraham stood up from before his dead, and purchased a burying-place, which significantly set forth his hope of resurrection, and of an inheritance founded thereon.
Gen 12:1 to Gen 25:18. The Story of Abraham.In this section the three main sources, J. E, P are present. Gunkel has given strong reasons for holding that J is here made up of two main sources, one connecting Abraham with Hebron, the other with Beersheba and the Negeb. The former associates Abraham with Lot. (For details, see ICC.) On the interpretation to be placed on the figures of Abraham and the patriarchs, see the Introduction. The interest, which has hitherto been diffused over the fortunes of mankind in general, is now concentrated on Abraham and his posterity, the principle of election narrowing it down to Isaac, Ishmael being left aside, and then to Jacob, Esau being excluded.
THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF SARAH
The time arrives for Sarah’s death at the age of 127 years. This illustrates another lesson as regards the aftermath of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. Sarah is typical of the elect remnant of faith in the nation Israel, the godly, who virtually gave birth to the Lord Jesus. But after the cross, Israel practically withered away and died so far as any godliness was concerned, and since that time has not been revived to take any place of godly devotion to their Creator. The godly in Israel were cast out by their brethren, and were made to realize they were no longer part of Israel at all, but found that God had given them a place in the Church of God as members of the one body of Christ, of which Gentile believers also are members (Eph 3:6).
However, Sarah died in Hebron (v.2) meaning “communion,” which has sweet significance for any believer. Such a death has beautiful promise of resurrection. Abraham mourned for her, as God also sorrows for the demise of godliness in the nation Israel. Then he speaks to the natives of the land, the children of Heth. Heth means “fear,” reminding us of those who, “through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:15). He asks, as a stranger among them, for only “a possession of a burying place” (v.4). He was not one of them, for he was not afflicted in any way by the fear of death, as he proved in chapter 22. He had no inheritance among them, and desired of them nothing but a burying place.
They were fully willing to give this to him without charge, for they recognized his dignity as “a mighty prince” (v.6). However, Abraham is firm and decided that he will pay the full value of the place in money. In this history it is lovely to see the respect they showed to each other. Abraham asks that he might buy a field with a cave belonging to Ephron, whose name means “he of dust,” another reminder of death (dust returning to dust). The name of the cave is Machpelah, meaning “doubling.” Does this not suggest the thought of resurrection, a doubling back from the direction one had come?
Ephron personally expressed his willingness to give Abraham the place without charge (vs.10-11), but Abraham in response insisted that he should pay the full value of the land (v.13). We may be sure that this is intended to be compared to Mat 13:44, where we are told of a man finding a treasure hid in a field, then going and selling all that he had in order to buy the field. The field is the world, and the Lord Jesus has sacrificed everything in order to buy it, just for the sake of the treasure. Though Satan was a usurper who had no proper right to be “the god of this world,” yet man has allowed him to take possession, and the Lord Jesus would not simply demand it back, nor would He accept it on any other terms but paying the full price for it. Of course Abraham’s treasure was Sarah, whom he would hide in the field. The treasure therefore is the godly in Israel; the field is the world. The eventual revival of Israel will be virtually “life from the dead” (Rom 11:15). Eze 37:1-14 confirms this in its parable of the valley of dry bones.
Abraham therefore paid the current proper price of four hundred shekels of silver for the property, with witnesses being present. Four is well known as the world number, the world having four directions. The book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Bible, is the book of Israel’s testing as they pass through a wilderness world. This payment however reminds us of the infinitely greater payment of the Lord Jesus in the sacrifice of Himself at Calvary, by which He has purchased the whole world. Purchase is not the same as redemption, however. The Lord has bought the whole world, but has redeemed only those who have received Him as Savior. His buying the world gives Him title to do with it as He pleases. But He is pleased to redeem every true believer today, that is, He has set them free from the bondage of sin by means of the price He has paid. The nation Israel will be redeemed only when they recognize the Lord Jesus as their Messiah, bowing in faith to His gracious rule. But Abraham buried Sarah in the calm confidence that she would rise again.
Sarah is the only woman whose age at death the Scriptures record (Gen 23:1). She is also the only woman whose name God changed (Gen 17:15). This notation of her age illustrates her importance. Isaac was 37 years old when his mother died. Abraham died at the age of 175 (Gen 25:8), 38 years after Sarah.
Abraham and Sarah had moved back near Hebron after having lived at Beersheba for some time (Gen 23:2; cf. Gen 22:19).
"It should be stressed here that the world of the patriarchs was that of a developed and organized society and not what is usually regarded as a simple pastoral-bedouin existence. Throughout Genesis 12-50 there are connections to Mesopotamia and to Egypt as well as negotiations with local political centers (Shechem, Salem and Hebron) as well as Gerar in the Western Negev on a branch of the Coastal Highway.
"Much of the theological relevance of the patriarchs is based upon the fact that there were other more attractive lifestyles available to these early Biblical figures. The option they chose gave them few of the advantages they could have enjoyed elsewhere, especially in Mesopotamia where their family was established. In light of this fact and the great promises made to Abraham during his lifetime, his remark to the leaders of Hebron after the death of his wife, Sarah, takes on new meaning." [Note: Monson, pp. 153-54.]
PURCHASE OF MACHPELAH
Gen 23:1-20
IT may be supposed to be a needless observation that our life is greatly influenced by the fact that it speedily and certainly ends in death. But it might be interesting, and it would certainly be surprising, to trace out the various ways in which this fact influences life. Plainly every human affair would be altered if we lived on here for ever, supposing that were possible. What the world would be had we no predecessors, no wisdom but what our own past experience and the genius of one generation of men could produce, we can scarcely imagine. We can scarcely imagine what life would be or what the world would be did not one generation succeed and oust another and were we contemporary with the whole process of history. It is the grand irreversible and universal law that we give place and make room for others. The individual passes away, but the history of the race proceeds. Here on earth in the meantime, and not elsewhere, the history of the race is being played out, and each having done his part, however small or however great, passes away. Whether an individual, even the most gifted and powerful, could continue to be helpful to the race for thousands of years, supposing his life were continued, it is needless to inquire. Perhaps as steam has force only at a certain pressure, so human force requires the condensation of a brief life to give it elastic energy. But these are idle speculations. They show us, however, that our life beyond death will be not so much a prolongation of life as we now know it as an entire change in the form of our existence; and they show us also that our little piece of the worlds work must be quickly done if it is to be done at all, and that it will not be done at all unless we take our life seriously and own the responsibilities we have to ourselves, to our fellows, to our God.
Death comes sadly to the survivor, even when there is as little untimeliness as in the case of Sarah; and as Abraham moved towards the familiar tent the most intimate of his household would stand aloof and respect his grief. The stillness that struck upon him, instead of the usual greeting, as he lifted the tent-door; the dead order of all inside; the one object that lay stark before him and drew him again and again to look on what grieved him most to see; the chill which ran through him as his lips touched the cold, stony forehead and gave him sensible evidence how gone was the spirit from the clay-these are shocks to the human heart not peculiar to Abraham. But few have been so strangely bound together as these two were, or have been so manifestly given to one another by God, or have been forced to so close a mutual dependence. Not only had they grown up in the same family, and been together separated from their kindred, and passed through unusual and difficult circumstances together, but they were made co-heirs of Gods promise in such a manner that neither could enjoy it without the other. They were knit together, not merely by natural liking and familiarity of intercourse, but by Gods choosing them as the instrument of His work and the fountain of His salvation. So that in Sarahs death Abraham doubtless read an intimation that his own work was done, and that his generation is now out of date and ready to be supplanted.
Abrahams grief is interrupted by the sad but wholesome necessity which forces us from the blank desolation of watching by the dead to the active duties that follow. She whose beauty had captivated two princes must now be buried out of sight. So Abraham stands up from before his dead. Such a moment requires the resolute fortitude and manly self-control which that expression seems intended to suggest. There is something within us which rebels against the ordinary ongoing of the world side by side with our great woe; we feel as if either the whole world must mourn with us, or we must go aside from the world and have our grief out in private. The bustle of life seems so meaningless and incongruous to one whom grief has emptied of all relish for it. We seem to wrong the dead by every return of interest we show in the things of life which no longer interest him. Yet he speaks truly who says:
“When sorrow all our heart would ask,
We need not shun our daily task,
And hide ourselves for calm;
The herbs we seek to heal our woe,
Familiar by our pathway grow,
Our common air is balm.”
We must resume our duties, not as if nothing had happened, not proudly forgetting death and putting grief aside as if this life did not need the chastening influence of such realities as we have been engaged with, or as if its business could not be pursued in an affectionate and softened spirit, but acknowledging death as real and as humbling and sobering.
Abraham then goes forth to seek a grave for Sarah, having already with a common predilection fixed on the spot where he himself would prefer to be laid. He goes accordingly to the usual meeting-place or exchange of these times, the city-gate, where bargains were made, and where witnesses for their ratification could always be had. Men who are familiar with Eastern customs rather spoil for us the scene described in this chapter by assuring us that all these courtesies and large offers are merely the ordinary forms preliminary to a bargain, and were as tittle meant to be literally understood as we mean to be literally understood when we sign ourselves “your most obedient servant.” Abraham asks the Hittite chiefs to approach Ephron on the subject, because all bargains of the kind are negotiated through mediators. Ephrons offer of the cave and field is merely a form. Abraham quite understood that Ephron only indicated his willingness to deal, and so he urges him to state his price, which Ephron is not slow to do; and apparently his price was a handsome one, such as he could not have asked from a poorer man, for he adds, “What are four hundred shekels between wealthy men like you and me? Without more words let the bargain be closed-bury thy dead.”
The first landed property, then, of the patriarchs is a grave. In this tomb were laid Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah; here, too, Jacob buried Leah, and here Jacob himself desired to be laid after his death, his last words being, “Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.” This grave, therefore, becomes the centre of the land. Where the dust of our fathers is, there is our country; and as you may often hear aged persons, who are content to die and have little else to pray for, still express a wish that they may rest in the old well-remembered churchyard where their kindred lie, and may thus in the weakness of death find some comfort, and in its solitariness some companionship from the presence of those who tenderly sheltered the helplessness of their childhood; so does this place of the dead become henceforth the centre of attraction for all Abrahams seed to which still from Egypt their longings and hopes turn, as to the one magnetic point which, having once been fixed there, binds them ever to the land. It is this grave which binds them to the land. This laying of Sarah in the tomb is the real occupation of the land.
During the lapse of ages, all around this spot has been changed again and again; but at some remote period, possibly as early as the time of David, the reverence of the Jews built these tombs round with masonry so substantial that it still endures. Within the spate thus enclosed there stood for long a Christian church, but since the Mohammedan domination was established, a mosque has covered the spot. This mosque has been guarded against Christian intrusion with a jealousy almost as rigid as that which excludes all unbelievers from approaching Mecca. And though the Prince of Wales was a few years ago allowed to enter the mosque, he was not permitted to make any examination of the vaults beneath, where the original tomb must be.
It is evident that this narrative of the purchase of Machpelah and the burial of Sarah was preserved, not so much on account of the personal interest which Abraham had in these matters, as on account of the manifest significance they had in connection with the history of his faith. He had recently heard from his own kindred in Mesopotamia, and it might very naturally have occurred to him that the proper place to bury Sarah was in his fatherland. The desire to lie among ones people is a very strong Eastern sentiment. Even tribes which have no dislike to emigration make provision that at death their bodies shall be restored to their own country. The Chinese notoriously do so. Abraham, therefore, could hardly have expressed his faith in a stronger form than by purchasing a burying-ground for himself in Canaan. It was equivalent to saying in the most emphatic form that he believed this country would remain in perpetuity the country of his children and people. He had as yet given no such pledge as this was, that he had irrevocably abandoned his fatherland. He had bought no other landed property; he had built no house. He shifted his encampment from place to place as convenience dictated, and there was nothing to hinder him from returning at any time to his old country. But now he fixed himself down; he said, as plainly as acts can say, that his mind was made up that this was to be in all time coming his land; this was no mere right of pasture rented for the season, no mere waste land he might occupy with his tents till its owner wished to reclaim it; it was no estate he could put into the market whenever trade should become dull and he might wish to realise or to leave the country; but it was a kind of property which he could not sell and could not abandon.
Again, his determination to hold it in perpetuity is evident not only from the nature of the property, but also from the formal purchase and conveyance of it-the complete and precise terms in which the transaction is completed. The narrative is careful to remind us again and again that the whole transaction was negotiated in the audience of the people of the land, of all those who went in at the gate, that the sale was thoroughly approved and witnessed by competent authorities. The precise subjects made over to Abraham are also detailed with all the accuracy of a legal document- “the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mature, the field and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of this city.” Abraham had no doubt of the friendliness of such men as Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, his ancient allies, but he was also aware that the best way to maintain friendly relations was to leave no loophole by which difference of opinion or disagreement might enter. Let the thing be in black and white, so that there may be no misunderstanding as to terms, no expectations doomed to be unfulfilled, no encroachments which must cause resentment, if not retaliation. Law probably does more to prevent quarrels than to heal them. As statesmen and historians tell us that the best way to secure peace is to be prepared for war, so legal documents seem no doubt harsh and unfriendly, but really are more effective in maintaining peace and friendliness than vague promises and benevolent intentions. In arranging affairs and engagements one is always tempted to say, Never mind about the money, see how the thing turns out and we can settle that by-and-bye; or, in looking at a will, one is tempted to ask, of what strength is Christian feeling-not to say family affection-if all these hard-and-fast lines need to be drawn round the little bit of property which each is to have? But experience shows that this is false delicacy, and that kindliness and charity may be as fully and far more safely expressed in definite and legal terms than in loose promises or mere understandings.
Again, Abrahams idea in purchasing this sepulchre is brought out by the circumstance that he would not accept the offer of the children of Heth to use one of their sepulchres. This was not pride of blood or any feeling of that sort, but the right feeling that what God had promised as His own peculiar gift must not seem to be given by men. Possibly no great harm might have come of it if Abraham had accepted the gift of a mere cave, or a shelf in some other mans burying-ground; but Abraham could not bear to think that any captious person should ever be able to say that the inheritance promised by God was really the gift of a Hittite.
Similar captiousness appears not only in the experience of the individual Christian, but also in the treatment religion gets from the world. It is quite apparent, that is to say, that the world counts itself the real proprietor here, and Christianity a stranger fortunately or unfortunately thrown upon its shores and upon its mercy. One cannot miss noticing the patronising way of the world towards the Church and all that is connected with it, as if it alone could give it those things needful for its prosperity-and especially willing is it to come forward in the Hittite fashion and offer to the sojourner a sepulchre where it may be decently buried, and as a dead thing lie out of the way.
But thoughts of a still wider reach were no doubt suggested to Abraham by this purchase. Often must he have brooded on the sacrifice of Isaac, seeking to exhaust its meaning. Many a talk in the dusk must his son and he have had about that most strange experience. And no doubt the one thing that seemed always certain about it was, that it is through death a man truly becomes the heir of God; and here again in this purchase of a tomb for Sarah it is the same fact that stares him in the face. He becomes a proprietor when death enters his family; he himself, he feels, is likely to have no more than this burial-acre of possession of his land; it is only by dying he enters on actual possession. Till then he is but a tenant, not a proprietor; as he says to the children of Heth, he is but a stranger and a sojourner among them, but at death he will take up his permanent dwelling in their midst. Was this not to suggest to him that there might be a deeper meaning underlying this, and that possibly it was only by death he could enter fully into all that God intended he should receive? No doubt in the first instance it was a severe trial to his faith to find that even at his Wifes death he had acquired no firmer foothold in the land. No doubt it was the very triumph of his faith that though he himself had never had a settled, permanent residence in the land, but had dwelt in tents, moving about from place to place, just as he had done the first year of his entrance upon it, yet he died in the unalterable persuasion that the land was his, and that it would one day be filled with his descendants. It was the triumph of his faith that he believed in the performance of the promise as he had originally understood it; that he believed in the gift of the actual visible land. But it is difficult to believe that he did not come to the persuasion that Gods friendship was more than any single thing He promised; difficult to suppose he did not feel something of what our Lord expressed in the words that God is the God of the living, not of the dead; that those who are His enter by death into some deeper and richer experience of His love.
Such is the interpretation put upon Abrahams attitude of mind by the writer, who of all others saw most deeply into the moving principles of the Old Testament dispensation and the connection between old things and new-I mean the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He says that persons who act as Abraham did declare plainly that they seek a country; and if on finding they did not get the country in which they sojourned they thought the promise had failed, they might, he says, have found opportunity to return to the country whence they came at first. And why did they not do so? Because they sought a better, that is, a heavenly country. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city; as if He said, God would have been ashamed of Abraham if he had been content with less, and had not aspired to something more than he received in the land of Canaan.
Now how else could Abrahams mind have been so effectually lifted to this exalted hope as by the disappointment of his original and much tamer hope? Had he gained possession of the land in the ordinary way of purchase or conquest, and had he been able to make full use of it for the purposes of life: had he acquired meadows where his cattle might graze, towns where his followers might establish themselves, would he not almost certainly have fallen into the belief that in these pastures and by his worldly wealth and quiet and prosperity he was already exhausting Gods promise regarding the land? But buying the land for his dead he is forced to enter upon it from the right side, with the idea that not by present enjoyment of its fertility is Gods promise to him exhausted. Both in the getting of his heir and in the acquisition of his land his mind is led to contemplate things beyond the range of earthly vision and earthly success. He is led to the thought that God having become his God, this means blessing eternal as God Himself. In short Abraham came to believe in a life beyond the grave on very much the same grounds as many people still rely on. They feel that this life has an unaccountable poverty and meagreness in it. They feel that they themselves are much larger than the life here allotted to them. They are out of proportion. It may be said that this is their own fault; they should make life a larger, richer thing. But that is only apparently true; the very brevity of life, which no skill of theirs can alter, is itself a limiting and disappointing condition. Moreover, it seems unworthy of God as well as of man. As soon as a worthy conception of God possesses the soul, the idea of immortality forthwith follows it. We instinctively feel that God can do far more for us than is done in this life. Our knowledge of Him here is most rudimentary; our connection with Him obscure and perplexed, and wanting in fulness of result; we seem scarcely to know whose we are, and scarcely to be reconciled to the essential conditions of life, or even to God; -we are, in short, in a very different kind of life from that which we can conceive and desire. Besides, a serious belief in God, in a personal Spirit, removes at a touch all difficulties arising from materialism. If God lives and yet has no senses or bodily appearance, we also may so live; and if His is the higher state and the more enjoyable state, we need not dread to experience life as disembodied spirits.
It is certainly a most acceptable lesson that is read to us here-viz., that Gods promises do not shrivel but grow solid and expand as we grasp them. Abraham went out to enter on possession of a few fields a little richer than his own, and he found an eternal inheritance. Naturally we think quite the opposite of Gods promises; we fancy they are grandiloquent and magnify things, and that the actual fulfilment will prove unworthy of the language describing it. But as the woman who came to touch the hem of Christs garment, with some dubious hope that thus her body might be healed, found herself thereby linked to Christ for evermore, so always, if we meet God at any one point and honestly trust Him for even the smallest gift, He makes that the means of introducing Himself to us and getting us to understand the value of His better gifts. And indeed, if this life were all, might not God well be ashamed to call Himself our God? When He calls Himself our God He bids us expect to find in Him inexhaustible resources to protect and satisfy and enrich us. He bids us cherish boldly all innocent and natural desires. believing that we have in Him one who can gratify every such desire. But if this life be all, who can say existence has been perfectly satisfactory-if there be no reversal of what has here gone wrong, no restoration of what has here been lost, if there be no life in which conscience and ideas and hopes find their fulfilment and satisfaction, who can say he is content and could ask no more of God? Who can say he does not see what more God could do for him than has here been done? Doubtless there are many happy lives, doubtless there are lives which carry in them a worthiness and a sacredness which manifest Gods presence, but even such lives only more powerfully suggest a state in which all lives shall be holy and happy, and in which, freed from inward uneasiness and shame and sorrow, we shall live unimpeded the highest life, life as we feel it ought to be. The very joys men have here experienced suggest to them the desirableness of continued life; the love they have known can only intensify their yearning for this perpetual enjoyment; their whole experience of this life has served to reveal to them the endless possibilities of growth and of activity that are bound up in human nature; and if death is to end all this, what more has life been to any of us than a seed-time without a harvest, an education without any sphere of employment, a vision of good that can never be ours, a striving after the unattainable? If this is all that God can give us we must indeed be disappointed in Him.
But He is disappointed in us if we do not aspire to more than this. In this sense also He is ashamed to be called our God. He is ashamed to be known as the God of men who never aspire to higher blessings than earthly comfort and present prosperity. He is ashamed to be known as connected with those who think so lightly of His power that they look for nothing beyond what every man calculates on getting in this world. God means all present blessings and all blessings of a lower kind to lure us on to trust Him and seek more and more from Him. In these early promises of His He says nothing expressly and distinctly of things eternal. He appeals to the immediate wants and present longings of men-just as our Lord while on earth drew men to Himself by healing their diseases. Take, then, any one promise of God, and, however small it seems at first, it will grow in your hand; you will find always that you get more than you bargained for, that you cannot take even a little without going further and receiving all.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
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Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
3. It avails not for the race to be hasty, the race is not always to the swift. Nahor precedes Abraham with his twelve sons, as Ishmael does Isaac. In the line of Abraham, the twelve sons appear first in the third generation.
4. The message from Nahors house, the sign of a relationship and love, sanctified through a reference to higher ends.
5. Love excites the thoughts of the loved ones in the distance, forms the greeting, and devises also the messages in primitive times. Between the earliest messengers, the angels of God, and the latest form of human communication, the telegraph, there is every possible form of communication and kind of messengers; but they all ought to serve, and all shall, in accordance with their idea, serve the purposes of love and the kingdom of God.The importance of the newspaper.A pious man remarks: I have only two moulding books, the one is the Bible, the other the newspaper.We should view all the events of the times in the light of God.
6. Nahor, the brother of Abraham, stands still in a spiritual relationship with him; both his message, and the piety and nobleness of his grandchild Rebekah, prove this. But he is clearly less refined than Abraham. Abraham suffers the espousal of Hagar to be pressed upon him, because he had no children; but Nahor, who had already eight children by Milcah, took in addition to her a concubine, Reumah.Contrasts of this kind teach us to estimate the higher direction of the partriarchal life, as e.g. also the history of Lot, will be estimated in the mirror of the history of Sodom.
4. Our history is a living portraiture of the courtliness and urbanity general in the remote antiquity and in the East.
5. The traffic and purchase of Abraham, throughout, a testimony of Israelitish prudence and foresight, but free from all Jewish meanness and covetousness.
6. The gradual development of money, or of the measures in value of earthly things, proceeding from the rating of the nobler metals, especially of silver, according to its weight. The importance of the Phnicians in this respect.
7. A precious gain, the gain of a burial possession for her descendants, is connected with the death of Sarah. The first real-estate property of the patriarchs was a grave. This is the only good which they buy from the world, the only enduring thing they find here below, etc. In that sepulchre Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, were laid, there Jacob laid Leah, and there Jacob himself would rest after his death, even in death itself a confessor of his faith in the promise. This place of the dead becomes the punctum saliens of the possession of the promised land. It was designedly thus minutely described, as the glorious acquisition of the ancestors of Israel. It was indeed the bond which ever bound the descendants of Abraham in Egypt to the land of promise, drew with magnetic power their desires thither, and, collected in Canaan, they should know where the ashes of their fathers rested, and that they are called to inherit the promise, for which their fathers were here laid in the grave. Delitzsch.The cave Machpelah became for the Israelites the sacred grave of the old covenant, which they won again with the conquest of Canaan, just as the Christians in the crusades reconquered the sacred grave of the new covenant, and with it Palestine. And the Christians also, like the Jews, have lost again their sacred grave and their holy land, because they have not inwardly adhered sufficiently to the faith of the fathers, who beyond the sacred grave looked for the eternal city of God: because they have sought too much the living among the dead. Even now the last desire of the orthodox Jews is for a grave at Jerusalem, in Canaan. [The transaction in securing this burial-place was, not as some have thought, to secure a title to the land of promise, that was perfect and secure in the sovereign promise of God: but it was: 1. A declaration of the faith of Abraham in the promise; 2. a pledge and memorial to his descendants, when in captivity, of their interest in the land.A. G.]
9. Hebron, the first royal city of David, is situated five hours southerly from Bethlehem, his native city. How deeply the present spiritual relations of Hebron lie under the splendor of the royal city of David! Its inhabitants cultivate the vine, cotton, have glassworks, and live in constant feuds with the Bethlehemites. V. Raumer.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
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Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
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