Genesis 23:1

We have here, 1. Sarah's age, Gen 23:1. Almost forty years before, she had called herself old, Gen 18:12. Old people will die never the sooner, but may die the better, for reckoning themselves old. 2. Her death, Gen 23:2. 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.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

- The Death of Sarah

2. ארבע קרית qı̂ryat-'arba‛, “Qirjath-arba‘, city of Arba.” ארבע 'arba‛, “Arba‘, four.”

8. עפרון ‛eprôn, “‘Ephron, of the dust, or resembling a calf.” צחר tshochar, “Tsochar, whiteness.”

9. מכפלה makpêlâh, “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 Abraham’s 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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 weep—that 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 Sarah’s 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 woman’s 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 Sarai—my princess. So he delighted affectionately to honour her. To the Church at large, the vast multitude of Abraham’s believing children, she is Sarah—the princess—to 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 spirit—an 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 death—we have separation. Abraham and Sarah had lived together for long, but they were parted at last. The shock was broken in Abraham’s 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 weep—it 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 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, I’d 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 one’s 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 sinning—that he may indulge his grief without offence—is an unspeakable consolation. The fact that Abraham “came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her”—still more the fact that “Jesus wept”—is as oil poured into the wounds of the heart’s lacerated and torn affections. But still more complete is the adaptation of the Gospel to man’s nature and man’s 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 Sarah’s 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.)

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 mother’s death.

It is interesting that Sarah is the only woman, whose age is mentioned in the Bible.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23:1-20 When Sarah . . . died, Abraham acquired a parcel of land for a burial place. This transaction was the first sign that a permanent transition had taken place, as people were normally buried in their ancestral homeland (cp. 49:29–50:13). In burying Sarah, Abraham detached from his just-mentioned ancestral home (where his relatives still lived, 22:20-24); his future would be in Canaan, where his descendants would realize the promise.

23:1-2 Sarah was 127 years old: Isaac was 37 at this time (cp. 17:17). • Hebron: See study note on 13:18.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Hebrew, the years of the life of Sarah.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old 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. 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.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

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 Isaac’s birth, he would now be thirty-seven years of age.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Sara. She is the only woman whose age the Scripture specifies; a distinction which her exalted dignity and faith deserved. (Galatians iv. 23; Hebrews xi. 11.) She was a figure of the Christian Church. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

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.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Death of Sarah and Purchase of the Buryingplace of Machpelah by Abraham

This section is from the Priestly source and dwells on the legal transaction.

2. Came] rather, 'went in,' perhaps from his own tent to that of Sarah.

3. Stood up from before his dead] To sit upon the ground was the posture of mourning: cp. Job_2:13. Sons of Heth] i.e. the Hittites: see on Gen_10:15.

6. After true Eastern custom, there was excessive courtesy in the transaction, but a large sum was in the end required. 'In Damascus, when a purchaser makes a lower offer than can be accepted, he is answered, “What, is it a matter of money between us? Take it for nothing, friend, it is a present from me”' (Delitzsch).

9. The cave of Machpelah] This spot, over which now stands the great Mohammedan mosque at Hebron, is generally admitted to be the original buryingplace of the Jewish patriarchs, and the spot where their remains still rest. It is most religiously guarded by the Mohammedans (who regard Abraham as the founder of their race through Ishmael) from all intrusion. The cave is a double one, and visitors are permitted entrance only to the upper storey, where there is little to see except counterfeit tombs. 'Only one European, Pierotti, an Italian architect in the service of the Sultan, has succeeded, at the risk of his life, in entering the lower cavern. He noticed there sarcophagi of white stone, the true tombs of the illustrious dead, in striking corroboration of the statement of Josephus, that these were of fair marble, exquisitely wrought' (Geikie). Machpelah] is not the name of the cave, but the name of the locality in which the piece of land containing the cave was situated: cp. Gen_23:17, Gen_23:19.

9. For a possession, etc.] RV 'in the midst of you for a possession of a buryingplace.' Abraham wished that the Hittites should be present as witnesses of the purchase.

10. And Ephron dwelt] RV 'Now Ephron was sitting.'

12. Bowed] in thanks for granting his request.

13. In the audience of the people] The Hittites were thus witnesses to the agreement.

15. Four hundred shekels of silver] Reckoning the shekel at half-a-crown, this would be about £50, but the purchasing power of silver was much greater in those days.

16. Current money] Note that the word 'money' is not in the original. The word 'shekel' means 'weight,' and it is believed that, in these early days, rings of silver of a marked weight were used, and not coins bearing a definite value. Abraham probably weighed them to show they were of full value. 'Coined money was not known to the Hebrews before the Captivity, when first Persian and then Greek or Syriac currency was employed, till Simon the Maccabee (about 140 b.c.) struck Jewish coins, especially shekels and half shekels, specimens of which have been preserved to us' (Kalisch).

19. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, were all buried here.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old (literally, and the lives of Sarah were a 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 Sarah an emphatic repetition designed to impress the Israelitish mind with the importance of remembering the age of their ancestress.

Vers. 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 a 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 a 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 object a grave for a possession; its purpose to bury his dead; its plea his wandering and unsettled condition in theland.

(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 (Ver. 12), expresses his desire with greater clearness (Ver. 13), and urgently requests the friendly intercession of the people of the land (Ver. 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.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here is,

I. Abraham a mourner, for the death of Sarah, ver. 1, 2.

II. Abraham a purchaser of a burying place for Sarah. (1.) The purchase proposed by Abraham, ver. 3, 4. (2.) Treated of and agreed, ver. 5-16. (3.) The purchase-money paid, ver. 16. (4.) The premises conveyed and secured to Abraham, ver. 17, 18, 20. (5.) Sarah's funeral, ver. 19.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

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.

C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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. She thus lived to a ripe old age and saw her son Isaac grow up to full manhood, for the latter was now thirty-seven years old. Meanwhile Abraham had moved back to Hebron.

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. It appears from Jos 14:15 and Jdg 1:10 that Hebron, one of the very oldest settlements in Canaan, for a while bore the name of its conqueror, Arba of the Anakims, but the original name was restored by the children of Israel. Here Sarah died. And Abraham came, that is, he went about, he made preparations for the customary period of mourning, the lament for the dead.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

PURCHASE OF MACHPELAH

Genesis 23

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.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

Sarah lived a hundred and twenty-seven years

"Sarah lived 127 years" (See: Numbers)

These were the years of the life of Sarah

Some translations do not include this sentence. (See: Doublet)

Kiriath Arba

This is the name of a city. (See: How to Translate Names)

Abraham mourned and wept for Sarah

"Abraham was very sad and cried because Sarah died"

translationWords

Sarah

year

Hebron

Canaan

Abraham

mourn

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

ויהיו חיי שרה מאה שנה ועשרים שנה ושבע שנים AND THE LIFE OF SARAH WAS 127 YEARS (literally, 100 years, 20 years and 7 years) — The reason the word שנה is written at every term is to tell you that each term must be explained by itself as a complete number: at the age of one hundred she was as a woman of twenty as regards sin — for just as at the age of twenty one may regard her as having never sinned, since she had not then reached the age when she was subject to punishment, so, too, when she was one hundred years old she was sinless — and when she was twenty she was as beautiful as when she was seven (Genesis Rabbah 58:1).

שני חיי שרה THE YEARS OF SARAH’S LIFE — The word years is repeated and without a number to indicate that they were all equally good.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

A HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS Rashi comments: “The reason the word ‘years’ is written at every term is that it informs you that each term must be interpreted by itself. At the age of one hundred she was as a woman of twenty as regards sin [for at the age of twenty she had not sinned since she had not reached the age when she was subject to punishment], and at the age of twenty she was as beautiful as when she was seven.” Rashi wrote similarly on the verse, the years of Abraham’s life. However, this exegesis of his is not correct. In the case of the verse, the years of the life of Ishmael, it is stated exactly as in the verse, the years of Abraham’s life, whereas these years of Ishmael were not all equally good since Ishmael was wicked in his early years, and only in the end did he repent of his evil ways. Furthermore, the repetition of the word “year” at every term would seem to indicate an intent to distinguish between them and, thus, should not be interpreted to imply equality. Rather, the use of the word shanah (year) and shanim (years) in this instance is the customary usage of the Hebrew language, while that which the Rabbis have said in Bereshith Rabbah, “At the age of one hundred she was as a woman of twenty as regards sin,” is an interpretation which they derived only from the redundant expression, the years of the life of Sarah, which includes them all and equates them. The Rabbis would not make a similar interpretation of the verse concerning Abraham [since in his case Scripture does not conclude with a similar comprehensive expression].

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ויהיו חיי שרה מאה שנה ועשרים שנה ושבע שנים.The Torah repeats the word “year” or “years” three times, even though this verse could have been written using the word שנה only once. We encounter a similar “waste” of the word “year” and “years” in Genesis 6,9 in connection with Noach, as well as in connection with בני ישראל, “the Children of Israel” in Numbers 8,19 where that word occurs no fewer than five times We also find such a repetitive use of the word “year” when we are told about Avraham’s death in Genesis 25,7. Even when reporting the death of Ishmael in Genesis 25,17 the word שנה is repeated three times. Some commentators claim that this is a feature of the Holy Tongue, which endeavours to be clear and unambiguous. When a large number of years (unit) is mentioned the word שנה, “year” appears in the singular mode, whereas when less than ten years are mentioned the years appear in the plural mode, i.e. שנים. There is an aggadic approach to these seemingly superfluous words, especially in our verse here (mentioned by Rashi) which sees in the wording an allusion to the fact that Sarah at her death was as pure and beautiful as at 7 or at 20 years respectively. Seeing that the word שנה did not occur at the beginning of the verse, the verse concludes with the summary שני חיי שרה. When reporting the death of Avraham and Ishmael, seeing that the verses commenced with the words ימי שני, these words are not again repeated at the end of the respective verses. It is possible that in all of these instances the word שני at the end is a hint that the persons concerned lived until the completion of that particular year.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.