Sun, 22 January, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.

Genesis 23

¹ Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. ² And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. ³ And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, ⁴ “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” ⁵ The Hittites answered Abraham, ⁶ “Hear us, my lord; you are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead.” ⁷ Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. ⁸ And he said to them, “If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, ⁹ that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.”

¹⁰ Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city, ¹¹ “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” ¹² Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. ¹³ And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” ¹⁴ Ephron answered Abraham, ¹⁵ “My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.” ¹⁶ Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants.

¹⁷ So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, was made over ¹⁸ to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, before all who went in at the gate of his city. ¹⁹ After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah east of Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. ²⁰ The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites.

We see here that in Abraham’s moment of great sorrow at the death of his beloved wife, God makes a small down payment on His promise of granting the land to Abraham’s descendants.

(Trivia note: Sarah is the only woman in scripture whose age is mentioned. We see her age mentioned a few times, and here we are told how old she was at her death. We don’t know any age information about any other Biblical woman.)

What do we learn from this?

God made several promise to Abraham. He has promised to make him into a great nation, to give the land to his descendants, and to give him a child by Sarah. Abraham has seen the fulfillment of the third promise in Isaac. But here God grants a small picture of the future fulfillment of giving the land to Abraham’s descendants as Abraham purchases a plot of land to bury Sarah. What a comfort to Abraham as he begins mourning the death of his wife: He sees God’s hand working to bring about the fulfillment of His promises.

Abraham is a sojourner in the land that God promises will belong to his children. He wanders around from place to place without being able to claim any of this land that will someday belong to his descendants. But now, for the first time, he actually owns some of the land. It is his land. It is just a tiny plot, yet the details of the transaction are recorded for us so that we realize this land is now legally Abraham’s, and no one can dispute it. It is Abraham’s land and God is working to fulfill His promises.

God will always fulfill His promises. We can to trust God as shown by this lesson from Abraham’s life.

Where is Christ in this passage?

As Sarah dies, Abraham purchases a cave in the promised land for her burial. He wants her to be interred in the land of God’s promise. Maybe it is reading too much into this, but in essence, Abraham is linking Sarah to the promise of God. He establishes her grave as the first claim in the promised land.

Don’t we do something similar as we bury our loved ones who are in Christ? We seek comfort in the promises of God that we will be united with our bodies at the resurrection and will spend eternity in God’s presence in our resurrection bodies. This is the promise we have as we have faith in Jesus Christ. We are comforted by God’s great promise of heaven and a resurrection body for those who have come to Him through faith in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.