SERIES A --- YHVH’S PIONEERS -- LESSON 18

SARAH’S DEATH

SARAH DIES AND IS BURIED

From Genesis 23

Sarah died at the age of a hundred and twenty-seven at Kiriath-arba, known also as Hebron; and Abraham mourned and wept for her there. Then he stood up from his mourning to speak with the sons of Heth. [I am a stranger here, but I would like to bury my dead in this place,] he told them. [I would like to buy a burial place from you.] [You are one of YHVH’s princes, living here among us,] they answered. [Choose the best of our sepulchres and not one of us will refuse to let you have it.] Abraham bowed low before the Hittites, the people of that land, and said to them, [If you will let me bury my dead among you, ask Ephron, Zohar’s son, to sell me the cave of Machpelah at the end of his field. I will pay the full price for it so that I may have it for my family cemetery.] Ephron was sitting there with his neighbours so he answered Abraham in the presence of the other Hittites gathered at the city gate. [Let me give you the field, my lord, and the cave that is in it,] he said. [In the presence of all my people, I give it to you. Go and bury your dead.] Abraham bowed before the people of the land. [Listen to me,] he said. [I will give you the full price for the field. Accept it so that I may bury my dead.] [My lord,] Ephron replied. [The land is worth four hundred pieces of silver. But what is that between me and you?] In the presence of the other Hittites, Abraham weighed out the amount Ephron had stated in the money used by the merchants. So, Abraham legally bought the field with the cave, and all the trees in the field to its boundaries. The sale was witnessed by the Hittites who gathered at the city gate, and the land became Abraham’s. Then Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field at Machpelah, near Mature at Hebron, in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave in it were deeded by the sons of Heth to Abraham for a burial site, a permanent family cemetery.

COMMENTARY

OLD AGE

Sarah lived to see her son Isaac become a man. When she died, Abraham bargained for a choice burial place. The people with whom he bargained, the Hittites, and the very location, the cave at Machpelah, are both well known today. Abraham weighed out the purchase price on scales. Sorrowing, he laid his wife to rest. One generation had passed. The story of YHVH’s people would now continue in Abraham and Sarah’s son. Commercials and advertisements everywhere in today’s civilized world loudly proclaim their products’ ability to turn back the hands of time. They promise the buyer a new and years-younger appearance with powders, creams, dyes, clothes, makeup and even perfume. The ancient Israelites would have been amused at this modern quest for eternal youth. In Bible times old age was considered a blessing from YHVH and grey hair was a badge of honour. Every man desired a long life and the respect from others that came with it. Young people looked to the old for wisdom and guidance. Positions of leadership were entrusted to the aged. In the early chapters of Genesis, the people of ancient times lived to a great old age. A single lifetime might span almost a thousand years in the days before the Great Flood. Methuselah, the oldest man in the Bible, is described as having lived to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old. After Noah, the human life span gradually declined. By the time of Abraham, two hundred years had become the limit of a long life. Isaac, the oldest of the patriarchs, lived to be one hundred and eighty years old, but his grandson, Joseph, died at the age of one hundred and ten. Because they lived longer, Bible-time men and women married late in life. Many people today marry in their late teens or early twenties, but some of these men married anywhere from forty to ninety. Esau took his Hittite wives at the age of forty and his twin brother Jacob was over eighty before he married Rachel and Leah. In ancient times the wife was often much younger than her husband. A man wanted to marry a young woman so that she could bear him many sons. But the strain and dangers of childbirth cut short the life span of many Old Testament women. Rachel, Jacob’s favourite wife, died after the birth of Benjamin. For the man or woman who survived the years, old age brought the respect of their juniors. But the passing of time then, as now, also meant the decline of physical strength. The writer of Ecclesiastes mourned the weakening eyesight and the loss of vigour that accompany old age. Human disabilities like these plagued even the great personalities of the Old Testament. Isaac and Jacob were hindered by blindness and King David suffered from poor circulation in his last years. With the lack of proper medicine and health care, it is somewhat amazing that anyone lived to old age. No wonder they were honoured so much by the young!