Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [of years]; and was gathered to his people.
8. gave up the ghost ] Cf. Gen 25:7, Gen 35:29, Gen 49:33 (P): the same word as “die” in Gen 6:17, Gen 7:21 (P).
in a good old age ] This was part of the promised blessing: cf. Gen 15:15.
was gathered to his people ] See note on Gen 17:14. “His people” evidently has no local significance; but means those of his own family already dead, and now in Shel, “the under-world” of departed spirits. Cf. Gen 35:29, Gen 49:29; Gen 49:33 (P). There is no difference, then, between being “gathered to his people,” and “to go to thy fathers” (Gen 15:15), and “to sleep with my fathers” (Gen 47:30; cf. Deu 31:16).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 25:8-10
Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and fall of years; and was gathered to his people
Abrahams departure
Full of years is not a mere synonym for longevity.
The expression is by no means a usual one. It is applied to Isaac at the close of his calm, contemplative life, to David at the end of his stormy and adventurous career, to the high priest Jehoiada, and to the patriarch Job. We shall understand its meaning better if, instead of full of years, we read satisfied with years. The words point to a calm close, with all desires granted, with hot wishes stilled, and a willingness to let life go, because all which it could give had been attained. We have two main things to consider.
1. The tranquil close of life.
(1) It is possible, at the close of life, to feel that it has satisfied our wishes. Abraham had had a richly varied life. It had brought him all he wished. Satisfied, yet not sickened, keenly appreciating all the good and pleasantness of life, and yet quite willing to let it go, Abraham died.
(2) It is possible at the end of life to feel that it is complete, because the days have accomplished for us the highest purpose of life.
(3) It is possible, at the end of life, to be willing to go as satisfied.
2. Consider the glimpse of the joyful society beyond, which is given us in that other remarkable expression of the text, He was gathered to his people. The words contain a dim intimation of something beyond this present life:
(1) Dimly, vaguely, but unmistakably, there is here expressed a premonition and feeling after the thought of an immortal self in Abraham, which was not in the cave at Machpelah, but was somewhere else, and was for ever.
(2) Abraham had been an exile all his life; but now his true social life is begun. He dwells with his own tribe; he is at home: he is in the city.
(3) The expression suggests that in the future men shall be associated according to affinity and character. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The death and burial of Abraham
I. HIS DEATH.
1. The peaceful close of a long life.
2. The close of a satisfied life.
3. An introduction to a new and better life.
II. HIS BURIAL.
1. An honourable one.
2. An occasion for peace among the members of his family.
3. The occasion of further blessing to the living (Gen 25:11). (T. H.Leale.)
Abrahams death
I. ABRAHAM DIED.
1. The best of men die.
2. The conquest pilgrimage ends.
3. Abraham was brought down to the grave in honour and peace.
4. He being dead, yet speaketh.
II. MARK HIS FAITH (See Heb 11:13, &c.).
1. His faith related to his posterity and the land of promise. Hence his interment in this particular cave. The field of his sepulchre was his own possession.
2. It related to himself. Though losing the earthly Canaan, he was sure of the heavenly Canaan. He was confident of a future life; and knew that his faith and piety would not go unrecognized or unrewarded in the world to come. So when we die, let it be in faith. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
Abrahams death in old age
The inscription on his tomb, if I may so call it, was He died in a good old age. On this I have two remarks to offer–
(1) It was according to promise. Upwards of four-score years before this, the Lord told Abraham in vision, saying, Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace: thou shalt be buried in a good old age. In everything, even in death, the promises are fulfilled to Abraham.
(2) It is language that is never used of wicked men, and not very commonly of good men. It is used of Gideon, and of David; and I know not whether of any other. The idea answers to what is spoken by the Psalmist, They shall bring forth fruit in old age; or that in Job, Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season. (A. Fuller.)
Lessons
1. God records the time of His saints lives to set out the continuance of their faith and patient waiting for God and His promise (Gen 25:7).
2. Saints give up spirits to God; they are not snatched away.
3. It is good dying in an age full of goodness.
4. Saints, as Abraham, depart full and satisfied with life below.
5. Saints are gathered to their own people in their death (Gen 25:8).
6. Honourable burial is due to saints deceased by their surviving seed, or friends.
7. God was as good as His word to Abraham in his death (Gen 25:9). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Signs of age
We are as immortal as the angels until our work is done, and, that finished, the best thing that can happen to us is to be called home to rest at once rather than to be here, weak and worthless, in our tents waiting on the plains of Moab. When Dr. Bees preached last in North Wales a friend said to him–one of those who are always reminding people that they are getting old–You are whitening fast, Dr. Bees. The old gentleman did not say anything then; but when he got to the pulpit he referred to it, and said, There is a wee white flower that comes up through the earth at this season of the year–sometimes it comes up through the snow and frost; but we are all glad to see the snowdrop, because it proclaims that the winter is over and that the summer is at baud. A friend reminded me last night that I was whitening fast. But heed not that, brother; it is to me a proof that my winter will soon be over, that I shall have done presently with the cold and east winds and the frosts of earth, and that my summer–my eternal summer–is at hand. (Heber Evans.)
What men reap in age
A young man came to a man of ninety years of age and said to him, How have you made out to live so long and be so well? The old man took the youngster to an orchard, and, pointing to some large trees full of apples, said, I planted these trees when I was a boy, and do you wonder that now I am permitted to gather the fruit of them? We gather in old age what we plant in our youth. Sow to the wind and we reap the whirlwind. Plant in early life the right kind of a Christian character, and you will eat luscious fruit in old age, and gather these harvest apples in eternity. (Dr. Talmage.)
Age and Christ
A distinguished Oneida chief, named Skenandon, having yielded to the instructions of the Bey. Mr. Kirkland, and lived a reformed man for fifty years, said just before he died, in his hundred and twentieth year, I am an aged hemlock; the winds of one hundred years have whistled through my branches; I am dead at the top (he was blind); why I yet live the great good Spirit only knows. Pray to my Jesus that I may wait with patience my appointed time to die; and when I die, lay me by the side of my minister and father, that I may go up with him at the great resurrection.
Weakness of age
To an acquaintance who inquired about his welfare, he gave this account: I am but weak; but it is delightful to find ones self weak in everlasting arms; oh, how much do I owe my Lord! What a mercy, that once within the covenant, there is no getting out of it again; now I find my faculties much impaired. His relations answering that it was only his memory which seemed to be effected with his disease:–Well, said he, oh, how marvellous that God hath continued my judgment, considering how much I have abused it; and continued my hope of eternal life, though I have misimproved it!. . . Speaking on the same topic afterwards he said very beautifully, Were I once in heaven, a look of Christ would cure my failing memory, and all my other weaknesses. There I shall not need wine nor spirits to recruit me; no, nor shall I think of them, but as Christ was through them kind to me. (Life of the Rev. John Brown of Haddington.)
Gathered to his people
Dimly, vaguely, veiledly, but unmistakably, as it seems to me, is here expressed at least a premonition and feeling after the thought of an immortal self in Abraham that was not there in what his son Isaac Ishmael laid in the cave at Macpelah, but was somewhere else and was for ever. That is the first thing hinted at here–the continuance of the personal being after death. Is there anything more? I think there is. Now, remember, Abrahams whole life was shaped by that commandment, Get thee out from thy fathers house, and from thy kindred, and from thy country. He never dwelt with his kindred; all his days he was a pilgrim and sojourner, a stranger in a strange land. But now he is gathered to his people. The life of isolation is over, the true social life is begun. He is no longer separated from those around him, or flung amidst those that are uncongenial to him. He is gathered to his people; he dwells with his own tribe; he is at home; he is in the city. Further, the expressions suggest that in the future men shall be associated according to affinity and character. He was gathered to his people, whom he was like and who were like him; the people with whom he had sympathy, the people whose lives were shaped after the fashion of his own. Men will be sorted there. Gravitation will come into play undisturbed; and the pebbles will be ranged according to their weights on the great shore where the sea has cast them up, as they are upon Chesil beach, down there in the English Channel, and many another coast besides; all the big ones together and sized off to the smaller ones, regularly and steadily laid out. Like draws to like. Our spiritual affinities, our religious and moral character, will settle where we shall be and who our companions will be when we get yonder. Some of us would not altogether like to live with the people that are like ourselves, and some of us would not find the result of this sorting to be very delightful. Men in the Dantesque circles were only made more miserable because all around them were of the same sort, and some of them worse than themselves. And an ordered hell, with no company for the liar but liars, and none for the thief but thieves, and none for impure men but the impure, and none for the godless but the godless, would be a hell indeed. He was gathered to his people, and you and I will be gathered likewise. What is the conclusion of the whole matter? Let us follow with our thoughts, and in our lives those who have gone into the light, and cultivate in heart and character those graces and excellences which are congruous with the inheritance of the saints in light. Above all let us give our hearts to Christ, by simple faith in Him, to be shaped and sanctified by Him. Then our country will be where He is, and our people will be the people in whom His love abides, and the tribe to which we belong will be the tribe of which He is Chieftain. So when our turn comes, we may rise thankfully from the table in the wilderness, which He has spread for us, having eaten as much as we desired, and quietly follow the dark-robed messenger whom His love sends to bring us to the happy multitudes that throng the streets of the city. There we shall find our true home, our kindred, our King. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. Then Abraham gave up the ghost] Highly as I value our translation for general accuracy, fidelity, and elegance, I must beg leave to dissent from this version. The original word yigva, from the root gava, signifies to pant for breath, to expire, to cease from breathing, or to breathe one’s last; and here, and wherever the original word is used, the simple term expired would be the proper expression. In our translation this expression occurs Ge 25:8, Ge 25:17; Ge 35:29; Ge 44:33; Job 3:11; Job 10:18; Job 11:20; Job 13:19; Job 14:10; Lam 1:19; in all of which places the original is gava. It occurs also in our translation, Jer 15:9, but there the original is naphecah naphshah, she breathed out her soul; the verb gava not being used. Now as our English word ghost, from the Anglo-Saxon [A.S.] gast, an inmate, inhabitant, guest, (a casual visitant,) also a spirit, is now restricted among us to the latter meaning, always signifying the immortal spirit or soul of man, the guest of the body; and as giving up the spirit, ghost, or soul, is an act not proper to man, though commending it to God, in our last moments, is both an act of faith and piety; and as giving up the ghost, i.e., dismissing his spirit from his body, is attributed to Jesus Christ, to whom alone it is proper, I therefore object against its use in every other case.
Every man since the fall has not only been liable to death, but has deserved it, as all have forfeited their lives because of sin. Jesus Christ, as born immaculate, and having never sinned, had not forfeited his life, and therefore may be considered as naturally and properly immortal. No man, says he, taketh it – my life, from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again: therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again, Joh 10:17-18. Hence we rightly translate Mt 27:50, , he gave up the ghost; i.e., he dismissed his spirit that he might die for the sin of the world. The Evangelist St. Joh 19:30, makes use of an expression to the same import, which we translate in the same way, , he delivered up his spirit. We translate Mr 15:37, and Lu 23:46, he gave up the ghost, but not correctly, because the word in both these places is very different, , he breathed his last, or expired, though in the latter place (Lu 23:46) there is an equivalent expression, O Father, into thy hands , I commit my spirit, i.e., I place my soul in thy hand; proving that the act was his own, that no man could take his life away from him, that he did not die by the perfidy of his disciple, or the malice of the Jews, but by his own free act. Thus HE LAID DOWN his life for the sheep. Of Ananias and Sapphira, Ac 5:5; Ac 5:10, and of Herod, Ac 12:23, our translation says they gave up the ghost; but the word in both places is , which simply means to breathe out, to expire, or die; but in no case, either by the Septuagint in the Old or any of the sacred writers in the New Testament, is or , he dismissed his spirit or delivered up his spirit, spoken of any person but Christ. Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, c., breathed their last Ananias, Sapphira, and Herod expired; but none, Jesus Christ excepted, gave up the ghost, dismissed, or delivered up his own spirit, and was consequently free among the dead. Of the patriarchs, c., the Septuagint uses the word , failing, or , he ceased or rested.
An old man] Viz., one hundred and seventy-five, the youngest of all the patriarchs and full of years. The word years is not in the text; but as our translators saw that some word was necessary to fill up the text, they added this in italics. It is probable that the true word is yamim, days, as in Ge 35:29; and this reading is found in several of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS., in the Samaritan text, Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Chaldee. On these authorities it might be safely admitted into the text.
Being full of days, or full of years. – To be satiated with days or life, has been in use among different nations to express the termination of life, and especially life ended without reluctance. It seems to be a metaphor taken from a guest regaled by a plentiful banquet, and is thus used by the Roman poets.
Lucretius, lib. iii., ver. 947, ridiculing those who were unreasonably attached to life, and grievously afflicted at the prospect of death, addresses them in the following manner: –
Quid mortem congemis, ac fies? Nam si grata fuit tibi vita anteacta, priorque, Et non omnia pertusum congesta quasi in vas Commoda perfluxere, atque ingrata interiere: Cur non, ut PLENUS VITAE CONVIVA, RECEDIS?
Fond mortal, what’s the matter, thou dost sigh? Why all these fears because thou once must die? For if the race thou hast already run Was pleasant, if with joy thou saw’st the sun, If all thy pleasures did not pass thy mind As through a sieve, but left some sweets behind,
Why dost thou not then, like a THANKFUL GUEST, Rise cheerfully from life’s ABUNDANT FEAST?
CREECH.
Et nec opinanti mors ad caput astitit ante, Quam SATUR, ac PLENUS possis discedere rerum.
Ib. ver. 972.
And unexpected hasty death destroys, Before thy greedy mind is FULL of JOYS. Idem.
Horace makes use of the same figure:-
Inde fit, ut raro, qui se vixisse beatum Dicat, et exacto CONTENTUS tempore vitae Cedat, ut CONVIVA SATUR, reperire queamus.
Sat. l. i. Sat. i. ver. 117.
From hence how few, like SATED GUESTS, depart From life’s FULL BANQUET with a cheerful heart?
FRANCIS.
The same image is expressed with strong ridicule in his last EPISTLE- Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti; Tempus ABIRE tibi est. Epist. l. ii., ver. 216.
Thou hast eaten, drunk, and play’d ENOUGH;
then why So stark reluctant to leave off, and DIE?
The poet Statius uses abire paratum PLENUM vita, “prepared to depart, being FULL of LIFE,” in exactly the same sense: –
Dubio quem non in turbine rerum Deprendet suprema dies; sed abire paratum, Ac PLENUM VITA.
Sylv. l. ii., Villa Surrentina, ver. 128.
The man whose mighty soul is not immersed in dubious whirl of secular concerns, His final hour ne’er takes him by surprise, But, FULL of LIFE, he stands PREPARED to DIE.
It was the opinion of Aristotle that a man should depart from life as he should rise from a banquet. Thus Abraham died FULL of days, and SATISFIED with life, but in a widely different spirit from that recommended by the above writers-HE left life with a hope full of immortality, which they could never boast; for HE saw the day of Christ, and was glad; and his hope was crowned, for here it is expressly said, He was gathered to his fathers; surely not to the bodies of his sleeping ancestors, who were buried in Chaldea and not in Canaan, nor with his fathers in any sense, for he was deposited in the cave where his WIFE alone slept; but he was gathered to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven; Heb 12:23.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
His soul was not required of him, as it was of that fool, Luk 12:20; not forced from him by sharp and violent diseases, but was quietly, easily, and cheerfully yielded up by him into the hands of his merciful God and Father, as the word intimates, in a good old age; good, both graciously, his hoary head being found in the way of righteousness; and naturally, free from the manifold infirmities and calamities of old age. Of which see Ecc 12:1, &c.
Full of years; in the Hebrew it is only full, or satisfied; but you must understand, with days or years, as the phrase is fully expressed, Gen 35:29; 1Ch 23:1; 29:28; Job 42:17; Jer 6:11. When he had lived as long as he desired, being in some sort weary of life, and desirous to be dissolved; or full of all good, as the Chaldee renders it; satisfied, as it is said of Naphtali, Deu 33:23, with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord upon himself, and upon his children; he
was gathered to his people; to his godly progenitors, the former patriarchs, the congregation of the just in heaven, Heb 12:23; in regard of his soul: for it cannot be meant of his body, which was not joined with them in the place of burial, as the phrase is, Isa 14:20, but buried in a strange land, where only Sarahs body lay. And it is observed, that this phrase is used of none but good men, of which the Jews were so fully persuaded, that from this very expression used concerning Ishmael here below, Gen 25:17, they infer his repentance and salvation. See this phrase, Gen 15:15; 49:29; Num 20:24; 27:13; Jdg 2:10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Then Abraham gave up the ghost,…. Very readily and cheerfully, without any previous sickness or present pain, but through the decay of nature by reason of old age, in a very easy quiet manner:
and died in a good old age, an old man; for quantity, in those times few arriving to a greater; for quality, not attended with those inconveniences and disadvantages with which old age generally is, and therefore called evil:
and full [of years]; in the original it is only, “and full”; the Targum of Jonathan adds, “of all good”; temporal and spiritual, with which he was filled and satisfied; or he had had enough of life, and was willing to depart, and was full of desires after another and better world:
and was gathered to his people; which is to be understood not of his interment, there being only the body of Sarah in the sepulchre in which he was laid; but of the admission of his soul into the heavenly state upon its separation from the body, when it was at once associated with the spirits of just men made perfect. The Arabic writers f say that he died in the month of Nisan, others say Adar, in the year of the world 3563; but, according to Bishop Usher, he died A. M. 2183, and before Christ 1821.
f Elmacinus, p. 34. Patricides, p. 21. Apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. p. 315.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
8. Then Abraham gave up the ghost (20) They are mistaken who suppose that this expression denotes sudden death, as intimating that he had not been worn out by long disease, but expired without pain. Moses rather means to say that the father of the faithful was not exempt from the common lot of men, in order that our minds may not languish when the outward man is perishing; but that, by meditating on that renovation which is laid up as the object of our hope, we may, with tranquil minds, suffer this frail tabernacle to be dissolved. There is therefore no reason why a feeble, emaciated body, failing eyes, tremulous hands, and the lost use of all our members, should so dishearten us, that we should not hasten, after the example of our father, with joy and alacrity to our death. But although Abraham had this in common with the human race, that he grew old and died; yet Moses, shortly afterwards, puts a difference between him and the promiscuous multitude of men as to manner of dying; namely, that he should die in a good old age, and satisfied with life. Unbelievers, indeed, often seem to participate in the same blessing; yea, David complains that they excelled in this kind of privilege; and a similar complaint occurs in the book of Job, namely, that they fill up their time happily, till in a moment they descend into the grave. (21) But what I said before must be remembered, that the chief part of a good old age consists in a good conscience and in a serene and tranquil mind. Whence it follows, that what God promises to Abraham, can only apply to those who truly cultivate righteousness: for Plato says, with equal truth and wisdom, that a good hope is the nutriment of old age; and therefore old men who have a guilty conscience are miserably tormented, and are inwardly racked as by a perpetual torture. But to this we must add, what Plato knew not, that it is godliness which causes a good old age to attend us even to the grave, because faith is the preserver of a tranquil mind. To the same point belongs what is immediately added, he was full of days, so that he did not desire a prolongation of life. We see how many are in bondage to the desire of life; yea, nearly the whole world languishes between a weariness of the present life and an inexplicable desire for its continuance. That satiety of life, therefore, which shall cause us to be ready to leave it, is a singular favor from God.
And was gathered to his people. I gladly embrace the opinion of those who believe the state of our future life to be pointed out in this form of expression; provided we do not restrict it, as these expositors do, to the faithful only; but understand by it that mankind are associated together in death as well as in life. (22) It may seem absurd to profane men, for David to say, that the reprobate are gathered together like sheep into the grave; but if we examine the expression more closely, this gathering together will have no existence if their souls are annihilated. (23) The mention of Abraham’s burial will presently follow. Now he is said to be gathered to his fathers, which would be inconsistent with fact if human life vanished, and men were reduced to annihilation: wherefore the Scripture, in speaking thus, shows that another state of life remains after death, so that a departure out of the world is not the destruction of the whole man.
(20) “ Et obiit Abraham.” And Abraham died. The expression “gave up the ghost” is not a literal rendering of the original. — Ed.
(21) See Psa 73:4. “There are no bands in their death; but their strength is firm;” and Job 21:13, “They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.” — Ed.
(22) Rivetus speaks in similar language on this clause. “This is never said concerning beasts when they die; and, therefore, from this form of speech, it is to be observed, that men by death are not reduced to nothing, nor does the whole of man die…. The Scripture, in speaking thus, points out some other state; so that departure out of the world is not the destruction of the whole man.” — Exercitatio cxiii. p. 553.
(23) See Psa 49:0.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
8. Gave up the ghost Hebrews, breathed out . He seems to have died of old age, and in a good old age, according to the promises of Gen 15:15.
An old man, and full of years Rather, old and full .
His was a well-rounded and completed life.
Gathered to his people Not buried in the ancestral tomb, for this was not the case; nor is the expression equivalent to burial, for that is separately mentioned in the next verse; but gathered where his people were yet living an immortal life. See on Gen 15:15. Abraham’s faith “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God . ” And he died in this faith, “not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off . ” Evidently he desired and sought a heavenly land; not that from which he emigrated . See Heb 11:10-16. And long after, in the days of Moses Jehovah said, “I am the God of Abraham.” Exo 3:6. But “ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Mat 22:32.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 25:8. An old man, and full There is nothing for, of years, in the Hebrew: the word is sabang, full, satiated, satisfied: having completed the business of his life, and being fully satisfied with it. Perhaps the metaphor is taken from an entertainment, where the guests, after they have fared liberally, rise from table fully satisfied, and thankful for the feast. The Greek and Latin poets have thus applied it; and, after them, Mr. Pope, in one of his epitaphs, says,
From nature’s temperate feast rose satisfied, Thank’d Heaven that he had liv’d, and that he died.
The death of Abraham is mentioned here a little out of time, in order to finish his history without interruption; for Esau and Jacob were born fifteen years before his death. Isaac was born when his father Abraham was a hundred years old, ch. Gen 21:5. and he married when his father was one hundred and forty. It was twenty years before his wife bare him any children, Gen 21:26. Abraham died at the age of one hundred and seventy-five, Gen 21:7 so that he lived fifteen years after Esau and Jacob were born.
And was gathered to his people The same is said of Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, &c. and in other places of Scripture the faithful are said to be gathered to their fathers, Jdg 2:10. Act 13:36. Gen 15:15 expressions which must refer to the soul, not to the body. Jameson has very justly observed, that the phrase here used cannot refer to Abraham’s body, for that was deposited among strangers in Canaan, and not in Chaldea among his ancestors. It must therefore belong to the soul, which by this expression is plainly intimated to be immortal, and to subsist in a separate state, after its union with the body is dissolved. Accordingly, by Abraham’s being gathered to his people, it is reasonable to understand, his being joined to the spirits of just men made perfect, those kindred souls, whose tempers and manners he imitated while on earth. So it is explained by some of the fathers, particularly Theodoret. Neither does it make any thing against this explication, that the phrase is applied promiscuously to good and bad men; for each may be gathered to his own people, and yet these two sorts of people, or societies, to which they are joined, be extremely different.
Le Clerc thinks the expression might take its original from a prevailing opinion, that the souls of the dead were joined to the souls of their ancestors, or to those of their own nation and family. This, I doubt not, is true in respect to the faithful: and the Scripture condescends to the common modes of expression, as far as the truth will allow. To the above mentioned opinion, Le Clerc thinks that Ezekiel alludes, ch. Gen 32:22. where, speaking of the world of spirits, he says, Ashur is there, and all her company. To shew the general opinion even of the heathens on this subject, he quotes Lucian, who, in his vision of the Acherusian plains, says, there we found the demi-gods and heroines, and all the classes of departed spirits, distributed according to their nations and tribes. And indeed the desire of meeting again in the other world with our friends and those whom we highly loved and esteemed on earth, is perhaps almost as natural to mankind as the desire of immortality itself. Hence it is, that Cicero is so transported with the view of death, and breaks forth into that beautiful exclamation at the end of his book de Senectute (on old age); “O glorious day, when I shall be joined to that divine assembly and congregation of souls, when I shall leave this impure promiscuous throng, and be ranked not only with those brave men I now mentioned, but with my Cato, &c.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gen 25:8 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [of years]; and was gathered to his people.
Ver. 8. Gave up the ghost. ] Deficit; leniter, expiravit. Describit Moses placidam et optatam, quasi, ; which in Abraham, God’s friend, is no wonder. But how could that apostate, Julian, say, in truth, Vitam reposcenti naturae, tanquam debitor bonae fidei, rediturus, exulto? Sure it was but a copy of his countenance, but not of his dying countenance; for no wicked man alive can look death in the face with blood in his cheeks.
Died in a good old age.
An old man, and full of years.
“ Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis? ”
said the heathen poet: and they feign that when Tithonus might have been made immortal, he would not, because of the miseries of life. This made Plotinus the Platonist account mortality a mercy, a and Cato protest, that if any god would grant him, of old to be made young again, he would seriously refuse it. b As for me, said Queen Elizabeth, in a certain speech, I see no such great cause why I should be fond to live, or afraid to die. c And again, while I call to mind things past, behold things present, and expect things to come, I hold him happiest that goeth hence soonest.
a Aug., De Civ. Dei., lib. iv. cap. 10.
b Siquis Deus mihi largiatur, ut ex hac aetate repuerascam, et in cunis vagiam, valde recusem. – Cato ap. Cic., De Senect.
c Card. Elisabeth, fol. 325.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Genesis
THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM
Gen 25:8
‘Full of years’ does not seem to me to be a mere synonym for longevity. That would be an intolerable tautology, for we should then have the same thing said three times over-’an old man,’ ‘in a good old age,’ ‘full of years.’ There must be some other idea than that in the words. If you notice that the expression is by no means a usual one, that it is only applied to one or two of the Old Testament characters, and those selected characters, I think you will see that there must be some other significance in it than merely to point to length of days.
It may be well to note the instances. In addition to our text, we find it employed, first, in reference to Isaac, in Gen 35:29 , where the words are repeated almost verbatim . That calm, contemplative life, so unlike the active, varied career of his father, also attained to this blessing at its close. Then we find that the stormy and adventurous course of the great king David, with its wonderful alternations both of moral character and of fortune, is represented as being closed at last with this tranquil evening glory: ‘He died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour.’ Once more we read of the great high priest Jehoiada, whose history had been crowded with peril, change, brave resistance, and strenuous effort, that with all the storms behind him he died at last, ‘full of days.’ The only other instance of the occurrence of the phrase is at the close of the book of Job, the typical record of the good man suffering, and of the abundant compensations given by a loving God. The fair picture of returning prosperity and family joy, like the calm morning sunshine after a night of storm and wreck, with which that wonderful book ends, has this for its last touch, evidently intended to deepen the impression of peace which is breathed over it all: ‘So Job died, being old and full of days.’ These are all the instances of the occurrence of this phrase, and I think we may fairly say that in all it is meant to suggest not merely length of days, but some characteristic of the long life over and above its mere length. We shall, I think, understand its meaning a little better if we make a very slight and entirely warranted change, and instead of reading ‘ full of years,’ read ‘ satisfied with years.’ The men were satisfied with life; having exhausted its possibilities, having drunk a full draught, having nothing more left to wish for. The words point to a calm close, with all desires gratified, with hot wishes stilled, with no desperate clinging to life, but a willingness to let it go, because all which it could give had been attained.
So much for one of the remarkable expressions in this verse. There is another, ‘He was gathered to his people,’ of which we shall have more to say presently. Enough for the present to note the peculiarity, and to suggest that it seems to contain some dim hint of a future life, and some glimmer of some of the profoundest thoughts about it.
We have two main things to consider.
1. The tranquil close of a life.
Possibly, that is not the way in which most of us look at life. That is not the way in which a great many of us seem to think that it is an eminent part of Christian and religious character to look at life. But it is the way in which the highest type of devotion and the truest goodness always look at it. There are people, old and young, who, whenever they look back, whether it be over a long tract of years or over a short one, have nothing to say about it except: ‘Vanity of vanities! all is vanity and vexation of spirit’; a retrospect of weary disappointments and thwarted plans.
How different with some of us the forward and the backward look! Are there not some listening to me, whose past is so dark that it flings black shadows over their future, and who can only cherish hopes for to-morrow, by giving the lie to and forgetting the whole of their yesterdays? It is hard to paint the regions before us like ‘the Garden of the Lord,’ when we know that the locusts of our own godless desires have made all the land behind us desolate. If your past has been a selfish past, a godless past, in which passion, inclination, whim, anything but conscience and Christ have ruled, your remembrances can scarcely be tranquil; nor your hopes bright. If you have only ‘prospects drear,’ when you ‘backward cast your eye,’ it is not wonderful if ‘forwards though you cannot see,’ you will ‘guess and fear.’ Such lives, when they come towards an end, are wont to be full of querulous discontent and bitterness. We have all seen godless old men cynical and sour, pleased with nothing, grumbling, or feebly complaining, about everything, dissatisfied with all which life has thus far yielded them, and yet clinging desperately to it, and afraid to go.
Put by the side of such an end this calm picture of the old man going down into his grave, and looking back over all those long days since he came away from his father’s house, and became a pilgrim and a stranger. How all the hot anxieties, desires, occupations, of youth have quieted themselves down! How far away now seem the warlike days when he fought the invading kings! How far away the heaviness of heart when he journeyed to Mount Moriah with his boy, and whetted the knife to slay his son! His love had all been buried in Sarah’s grave. He has been a lonely man for many years; and yet he looks back, as God looked back over His creative week, and feels that all has been good. ‘It was all for the best; the great procession of my life has been ordered from the beginning to its end, by the Hand that shapes beauty everywhere, and has made all things blessed and sweet. I have drunk a full draught; I have had enough; I bless the Giver of the feast, and push my chair back; and get up and go away.’ He died an old man, and satisfied with his life.
Ay! And what a contrast that makes, dear friends, to another set of people. There is nothing more miserable than to see a man, as his years go by, gripping harder and tighter at this poor, fleeting world that is slipping away from him; nothing sadder than to see how, as opportunities and capacities for the enjoyment of life dwindle, and dwindle, and dwindle, people become almost fierce in the desire to keep it. Why, you can see on the face of many an old man and woman a hungry discontent, that has not come from the mere wrinkles of old age or care; an eager acquisitiveness looking out of the dim old eyes, tragical and awful. It is sad to see a man, as the world goes from him, grasping at its skirts as a beggar does at the retreating passer-by that refuses him an alms. Are there not some of us who feel that this is our case, that the less we have before us of life here on earth, the more eagerly we grasp at the little which still remains; trying to get some last drops out of the broken cistern which we know can hold no water? How different this blessed acquiescence in the fleeting away of the fleeting; and this contented satisfaction with the portion that has been given him, which this man had who died willingly, being satisfied with life!
Sometimes, too, there is satiety-weariness of life which is not satisfaction, though it looks like it. Its language is: ‘Man delights me not; nor woman neither. I am tired of it all.’ Those who feel thus sit at the table without an appetite. They think that they have seen to the bottom of everything, and they have found everything a cheat. They expect nothing new under the sun; that which is to be hath already been, and it is all vanity and striving after the wind. They are at once satiated and dissatisfied. Nothing keeps the power to charm.
How different from all this is the temper expressed in this text, rightly understood! Abraham had had a richly varied life. It had brought him all he wished. He has drunk a full draught, and needs no more. He is satisfied, but that does not mean loss of interest in present duties, occupations, or enjoyments. It is possible to keep ourselves fully alive to all these till the end, and to preserve something of the keen edge of youth even in old age, by the magic of communion with God, purity of conduct, and a habitual contemplation of all events as sent by our Father. When Paul felt himself very near his end, he yet had interest enough in common things to tell Timothy all about their mutual friends’ occupations, and to wish to have his books and parchments.
So, calmly, satisfied and yet not sickened, keenly appreciating all the good and pleasantness of life, and yet quite willing to let it go, Abraham died. So may it be with us too, if we will, no matter what the duration or the externals of our life. If we too are his children by faith, we shall be ‘blessed with faithful Abraham.’ And I beseech you to ask yourselves whether the course of your life is such as that, if at this moment God’s great knife were to come down and cut it in two, you would be able to say, ‘Well! I have had enough, and now contentedly I go.’
Again, it is possible at the end of life to feel that it is complete, because the days have accomplished for us the highest purpose of life. Scaffoldings are for buildings, and the moments and days and years of our earthly lives are scaffolding. What are you building inside the scaffolding, brother? What kind of a structure will be disclosed when the scaffolding is knocked away? What is the end for which days and years are given? That they may give us what eternity cannot take away-a character built upon the love of God in Christ, and moulded into His likeness. ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.’ Has your life helped you to do that? If it has, though you be but a child, you are full of years; if it has not, though your hair be whitened with the snows of the nineties, you are yet incomplete and immature. The great end of life is to make us like Christ, and pleasing to Christ. If life has done that for us, we have got the best out of it, and our life is completed, whatever may be the number of the days. Quality, not quantity, is the thing that determines the perfectness of a life. And like as in northern lands, where there is only a week or two from the melting of the snow to the cutting of the hay, the whole harvest of a life may be gathered in a very little space, and all be done which is needed to make the life complete. Has your life this completeness? Can you be ‘satisfied’ with it, because the river of the flowing hours has borne down some grains of gold amidst the mass of mud, and, notwithstanding many sins and failures, you have thus far fulfilled the end of your being, that you are in some measure trusting and serving the Lord Jesus Christ?
Again, it is possible, at the end of life, to be willing to go as satisfied.
Most men cling to life in grim desperation, like a climber to a cliff giving way, or a drowning man clutching at any straw. How beautiful the contrast of the placid, tranquil acquiescence expressed in that phrase of our text! No doubt there will always be the shrinking of the bodily nature from death. But that may be overcome. There is no passion so weak but in some case it has ‘mated and mastered the fear of death,’ and it is possible for us all to come to that temper in which we shall be ready for either fortune, to live and serve Him here, or to die and enjoy Him yonder. Or, to return to an earlier illustration, it is possible to be like a man sitting at table, who has had his meal, and is quite contented to stay on there, restful and cheerful, but is not unwilling to put back his chair, to get up and to go away, thanking the Giver for what he has received.
Ah! that is the way to face the end, dear brethren, and how is it to be done? Such a temper need not be the exclusive possession of the old. It may belong to us at all stages of life. How is it won? By a life of devout communion with God. The secret of it lies in obeying the commandment and realising the truth which Abraham realised and obeyed: ‘I am the Almighty God, walk before Me, and be thou perfect.’ ‘Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thine exceeding great reward.’ That is to say, a simple communion with God, realising His presence and feeling that He is near, will sweeten disappointment, will draw from it its hidden blessedness, will make us victors over its pains and its woes. Such a faith will make it possible to look back and see only blessing; to look forward and see a great light of hope burning in the darkness. Such a faith will check weariness, avert satiety, promote satisfaction, and will help us to feel that life and the great hereafter are but the outer and inner mansions of the Father’s house, and death the short though dark corridor between. So we shall be ready for life or for death.
2. Now I must turn to consider more briefly the glimpse of the joyful society beyond, which is given us in that other remarkable expression of our text: ‘He was gathered to his people’
‘He was gathered to his people’ is not the same thing as ‘He died,’ for, in the earlier part of the verse, we read, ‘ Abraham gave up the ghost and died . . . and was gathered to his people.’ It is not the same thing as being buried. For we read in the following verse: ‘ And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre.’ It is then the equivalent neither of death nor of burial. It conveys dimly and veiledly that Abraham was buried, and yet that was not all that happened to him. He was buried, but also ‘he was gathered to his people.’ Why! his own ‘people’ were buried in Mesopotamia, and his grave was far away from theirs. What is the meaning of the expression? Who were the people he was gathered to? In death or in burial, ‘the dust returns to the earth as it was.’ What was it that was gathered to his people?
Dimly, vaguely, veiledly, but unmistakably, as it seems to me, is here expressed at least a premonition and feeling after the thought of an immortal self in Abraham that was not there in what ‘his sons Isaac and Ishmael laid in the cave at Machpelah,’ but was somewhere else and was for ever. That is the first thing hinted at here-the continuance of the personal being after death.
Is there anything more? I think there is. Now, remember, Abraham’s whole life was shaped by that commandment, ‘Get thee out from thy father’s house, and from thy kindred, and from thy country.’ He never dwelt with his kindred; all his days he was a pilgrim and a sojourner, a stranger in a strange land. And though he was living in the midst of a civilisation which possessed great cities whose walls reached to heaven, he pitched his tent beneath the terebinth tree at Mamre, and would have nothing to do with the order of things around him, but remained an exotic, a waif, an outcast in the midst of Canaan all his life. Why? Because he ‘looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ And now he has gone to it, he is gathered to his people. The life of isolation is over, the true social life is begun. He is no longer separated from those around him, or flung amidst those that are uncongenial to him. ‘He is gathered to his people’; he dwells with his own tribe; he is at home; he is in the city.
And so, brethren, life for every Christian man must be lonely. After all communion we dwell as upon islands dotted over a great archipelago, each upon his little rock, with the sea dashing between us; but the time comes when, if our hearts are set upon that great Lord, whose presence makes us one, there shall be no more sea, and all the isolated rocks shall be parts of a great continent. Death sets the solitary in families. We are here like travellers plodding lonely through the night and the storm, but soon to cross the threshold into the lighted hall, full of friends.
If we cultivate that sense of detachment from the present, and of having our true affinities in the unseen, if we dwell here as strangers because our citizenship is in heaven, then death will not drag us away from our associates, nor hunt us into a lonely land, but will bring us where closer bonds shall knit the ‘sweet societies’ together, and the sheep shall couch close by one another, because all are gathered round the one shepherd. Then many a broken tie shall be rewoven, and the solitary wanderer meet again the dear ones whom he had ‘loved long since, and lost awhile.’
Further, the expressions suggest that in the future men shall be associated according to affinity and character. ‘He was gathered to his people,’ whom he was like and who were like him; the people with whom he had sympathy, the people whose lives were shaped after the fashion of his own.
Men will be sorted there. Gravitation will come into play undisturbed; and the pebbles will be ranged according to their weights on the great shore where the sea has cast them up, as they are upon Chesil beach, down there in the English Channel, and many another coast besides; all the big ones together and sized off to the smaller ones, regularly and steadily laid out. Like draws to like. Our spiritual affinities, our religious and moral character, will settle where we shall be, and who our companions will be when we get yonder. Some of us would not altogether like to live with the people that are like ourselves, and some of us would not find the result of this sorting to be very delightful. Men in the Dantesque circles were only made more miserable because all around them were of the same sort as, and some of them worse than, themselves. And an ordered hell, with no company for the liar but liars, and none for the thief but thieves, and none for impure men but the impure, and none for the godless but the godless, would be a hell indeed.
‘He was gathered to his people,’ and you and I will be gathered likewise. What is the conclusion of the whole matter? Let us follow with our thoughts, and in our lives, those who have gone into the light, and cultivate in heart and character those graces and excellences which are congruous with the inheritance of the saints in light. Above all, let us give our hearts to Christ, by simple faith in Him, to be shaped and sanctified by Him. Then our country will be where He is, and our people will be the people in whom His love abides, and the tribe to which we belong will be the tribe of which He is Chieftain. So when our turn comes, we may rise thankfully from the table in the wilderness, which He has spread for us, having eaten as much as we desired, and quietly follow the dark-robed messenger whom His love sends to bring us to the happy multitudes that throng the streets of the city. There we shall find our true home, our kindred, our King. ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
full of. Hebrew “satisfied with”. Supply “days” (not “years”), with Samaritan Pentateuch, Targum of Onkelos, The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, Septuagint, and Syriac.
gathered to his people, an idiomatic Euphemism (App-6) for death and burial. Abraham’s “people” were idolaters (Jos 24:2). See note on 2Sa 12:23.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
gave: Gen 25:17, Gen 35:18, Gen 49:33, Act 5:5, Act 5:10, Act 12:23
good: Gen 15:15, Gen 35:28, Gen 35:29, Gen 47:8, Gen 47:9, Gen 49:29, Jdg 8:32, 1Ch 29:28, Job 5:26, Job 42:17, Pro 20:29, Jer 6:11
gathered: Gen 25:7, Gen 35:29, Gen 49:33, Num 20:24, Num 27:13, Jdg 2:10, Act 13:36
Reciprocal: Exo 23:26 – the number Num 31:2 – gathered Deu 31:16 – thou shalt Deu 32:50 – be gathered Jos 23:1 – waxed old 2Ki 22:20 – I will gather 1Ch 23:1 – old 2Ch 24:15 – and was full of days Job 41:32 – hoary Psa 91:16 – With long life Ecc 3:20 – go Heb 11:13 – all died
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
A GOOD OLD AGE
Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.
Gen 25:8
Full of years is not a mere synonym for longevity. The expression is by no means a usual one. It is applied to Isaac at the close of his calm, contemplative life, to David at the end of his stormy and adventurous career, to the high priest Jehoiada, and to the patriarch Job. We shall understand its meaning better if, instead of full of years, we read satisfied with years. The words point to a calm close, with all desires granted, with hot wishes stilled, and a willingness to let life go, because all which it could give had been attained.
We have two main things to consider. I. The tranquil close of a life. (1) It is possible, at the close of life, to feel that it has satisfied our wishes. Abraham had had a richly varied life. It had brought him all he wished. Satisfied, yet not sickened, keenly appreciating all the good and pleasantness of life, and yet quite willing to let it go, Abraham died. (2) It is possible at the end of life to feel that it is complete, because the days have accomplished for us the highest purpose of life. (3) It is possible, at the end of life, to be willing to go as satisfied.
II. Consider the glimpse of the joyful society beyond, which is given us in that other remarkable expression of the text, He was gathered to his people. The words contain a dim intimation of something beyond this present life: (1) Dimly, vaguely, but unmistakably, there is here expressed a premonition and feeling after the thought of an immortal self in Abraham, which was not in the cave at Machpelah, but was somewhere else, and was for ever. (2) Abraham had been an exile all his life; but now his true social life is begun. He dwells with his own tribe; he is at home; he is in the city. (3) The expression suggests that in the future men shall be associated according to affinity and character.
Illustration
(1) The prospect of old age is dreary and comfortless, if it be not a Christian prospect. Where the aged person is a Christian, the weaknesses of old age and its troubles and humiliations, are all triumphed over. Dreary may be the present, comfortless the past: but the future is bright, because Christ is my hope!
(2) The expression is remarkable, an old man and full. The words of years in italics are not in the original: and leaving them out the Hebrew stands in its rugged strengththat Abraham died an old man and full. Could this epitaph be written on our gravestones? Are we satisfied with our portion of life?
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Gen 25:8. He died in a good old age As God had promised him; good, through grace, his hoary head being found in the way of righteousness; and naturally good, he being free, it seems, from many of the infirmities and calamities of old age. Full of years Of years, is not in the Hebrew, it is only, an old man, and full, or satisfied. He had fulfilled the divine will, and served his generation, and was fully satisfied with life. A good man, though he should not die old, dies full of days; satisfied with living here, and longing to live in a better world. And was gathered to his people His body was gathered to the congregation of the dead, and his soul to the congregation of the blessed. Death gathers us to our people, to those that are our people while we live, whether the people of God, or the children of this world. Reader, to whom, at death shalt thou be gathered?