Genesis 23

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:33utc

Sarah died when one hundred twenty-seven years old. The Pulpit Commentary points out that she is the only woman in the Bible whose age at death is mentioned. The KJV renders the Hebrew repetition which the NIV omits, by saying: "And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah." I am not convinced that the mention of her age has the significance that the commentary attaches to it. The implication is that, if Sarah was ninety when Isaac was born, she saw her son grow into manhood. He was thirty-seven years old when his mother died. This has some bearing on the story in the following chapter.

We are further told that she died at Hebron. At the end of the previous chapter we find Abraham living in Beersheba, which is about forty miles away. It is not clear whether Abraham had moved in the meantime, or whether he was moving around the country because of his flocks. We read that Abraham went to mourn for her. The KJV says: "and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her," which may mean that Abraham was at Beersheba when his wife died, but this is not necessarily so.

Abraham observed certain ceremonies of mourning, that must have been customary to his time. We find similar ceremonies still being carried out in New Testament times. They are still being observed among some of the tribes in Irian Jaya. Among the latter there seems to be little emotional sorrow for the separation from a loved one. It seems to pertain more to the animistic notion that the spirit of the deceased could come back to the living and do harm and therefore it should be appeased by weeping and sometimes physical mutilation of one's own body, such as cutting off of fingers or ears. How much of this philosophy was present in Abraham's mourning, we do not know. We do not get the impression that it was only an expression of grief. It seems to have involved certain ceremonies, which are not described.

At the basis of such ceremonies lies the lack of understanding of life after death. There did not seem to be any rejoicing in the fact that a person, who had lived with God, had passed into glory. There should, of course, at every death be a healthy spontaneous outlet for emotions of grief because of the separation, but none, or very little of this seems to be present in the grieving ceremonies. Mourning ceremonies start at a pre-determined moment and they end when the time if up, not when there are no more tears left. The Apostle Paul says that the grieving of those who have no hope is based on ignorance. He says: "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope."[ 1 ]

I have been trying to imagine what it would be like to lose a spouse in your old age. That seems to me the time when you need each other more than at any other moment. I have been praying that unless that Lord would decide to take us at the same time, He would take my wife first. I do not want her to go through the agony of separation. I trust that God's grace, the sweet assurance of His presence and the realization of glory into which the beloved has gone ahead, will sustain me and keep me from falling apart.

The rest of this chapter, from verse 3 through 20, gives us a very interesting sample of the custom of those days. Abraham decides that he wants to own a place where he can bury Sarah. Sarah's death emphasizes the reality of his condition. There is no square foot of ground in the whole land of land Canaan that Abraham can call his own. He has been able to buy the water in a well from Abimelech but nothing more. The surrounding area does not even belong to him.

It is amazing how death makes us more realistic than life. It is when Sarah is dead that the fact stares Abraham in the face that he is an alien and stranger in the land in which he has lived most of his life. It makes one realize the truth of Ecclesiastes: "A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure."[ 2 ] The sarcasm of Solomon tells us that life has a tendency to distract us from the reality in which we live. Better would it be to say that sin in life has a dulling effect upon us. Death makes us think more clearly.

Abraham must have looked around before he faced the Hittites. He knew what he wanted to buy, and he probably knew how much he should pay for it. We learn that business in the olden days was different from our time. It was a ritual and part of a social event. Abraham does not just go in and pay. Being familiar with the customs of his time, he probably did not expect anything else.

So Abraham makes a deal with the Hittites, particularly with Ephron, the son of Zofar for a cave which is called Machpelah, meaning "Double." It has been debated among scholars whether this means a cave within a cave, or a cave with two entrances, or a cave for two bodies. It must not have been a simple hole in the wall.

The Hittites address Abraham as "a mighty prince." "Nesi Elohim" literally means "a prince of God," according to Adam Clarke. It is not clear whether they would have looked at Abraham the same way as Abimelech did in chapter 20 and 21. Obviously, they do not display the same fear of him since they sell the cave and the surrounding field to Abraham for a good price. This, in spite of the show of generosity.

Abraham read between the lines without any difficulty. As Westerners we have a hard time negotiating with people who do not say way they mean. This is due to the fact that we do not know what they are supposed to mean. Abraham knew that he was not supposed to accept anything free of charge. And since Abraham was a very wealthy man, money was not problem in the deal.

So the negotiations go back and forth. There is a middle man, which would not necessarily mean that Abraham did not know Ephron, as most commentators suppose. The use of a third party was probably part of the Eastern ritual of politeness. Abraham is more direct in his request, but of the selling party nobody says what he actually means. Finally, Abraham is made to understand that he can only have the cave if he buys the field also; the price for both being four hundred shekels of silver. There is no way of ascertaining how much this sum would amount to in modern day currency. We do get the impression, however, that it is not cheap. The Hittites must have realized that they had Abraham over a barrel and they took full advantage of it. We also get the impression that Abraham did not care how much he would pay. He had more important things on his mind than silver.

Stephen appears to make reference to this transaction in Acts where, when talking about Jacob's sons, he says: "Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money."[ 3 ] There seems to be some confusion in Stephen's speech between the deal Abraham made with Ephron and the purchase of a piece of ground by Jacob from Hamor. In Gen 33:19 we read: "For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent." A possible solution, which I find mentioned nowhere, would be that Sukkoth and Machpelah were the same place and that the Hittites of the area had simply reclaimed what they had sold so that Jacob had to buy it again. According to the Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, the Sukkoth of Jacob would be East of the Jordan river, which is a different place than Mahpelah, which is South of Jerusalem.

We learn two things from this story: First, that the only piece of land Abraham ever possessed was a grave. This reminder of death accentuated the character of his pilgrimage as a stranger in the land. Abraham was rich in heavenly promises, but poor in earthly fulfillment's.

This is richly illustrated in Heb.11:9,10 and 13-16, where we read: "By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country; a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

The second lesson is about politeness. The politeness in this story is obviously a veneer and not an inner value. Politeness has value if it is an expression of inner respect and love. Without an inner basis politeness becomes nothing more than a slick way of taking advantage of another person. We owe people respect because man is made in the image of God. If we love God we will love the people He made and we will be polite to them. As the Apostle John says in I John 4:20 - "If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." God is polite to us, so we should be polite to one another.

[ 1 ] I Thes.4:13

[ 2 ] Eccl.7:1-4

[ 3 ] Acts 7:16