23–1: When a Tomb Becomes a Testament to God’s Promise

Today, we begin Genesis Chapter 23.

For the King James Version, click here. For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here.

As is so characteristic of the Bible, in a matter-of-fact fashion, we are told that Abraham’s beloved wife Sarah passed away at the ripe age of 127 years old.

After mourning Sarah, Abraham enters a tense burial-site negotiation with Ephron and the local people known as the Hittites.

Whether these folks are Hittites who migrated into Canaan or just a loose Hebrew title for non-Semitic Canaanites is not clear.

This chapter offers a glimpse into the era’s culture and mindset while marking the transition from Abraham to Isaac.

This negotiation is worth examining because it is the first record of the death and burial of a Hebrew.

Let’s take a look at verse 4.

“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.”

The words “stranger and sojourner” are legal terms that mean “resident alien."

Abraham is announcing his vulnerable legal status.

This sharply contrasts with God’s promise to give him the very land he stood on.

In fact, at this stage, it would still be another 5–6 centuries before this promise would come to fruition.

Abraham’s use of the words “give me” is also intentionally ambiguous.

He is avoiding direct usage of the term “sell” yet is requesting a “possession of a burying place."

The Hebrew word for possession is “auzah” and it clearly means a permanent legal possession.

It was a standard custom that foreigners could not buy land.

For the people at that time, land was everything.

There was hardly anything more horrible than for a family to lose their land, especially to an outsider.

There were still situations when this did occur.

Given the high tension around a foreigner buying land, Abraham had to choose his words and approach with great care.

It was crucial to publicly demonstrate that the land was acquired in a way all parties deemed valid.

If Abraham had just accepted the land for free as a gift from the people, not only would it have been a big insult, but ownership of the land would have been challenged in later generations.

The same thing could also happen if the land was purchased at too cheap a price.

Notice also that it says the negotiations took place at the “gate of the city."

If you recall what I taught from an earlier lesson, the gate area of a city also served as the town square where many judicial proceedings took place.

So this tense negotiation unfolded publicly before the entire town.

© Richoka