CHAPTER 23

23:1-7 And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. 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. 3 And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, 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. 5 And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, 6 Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. 7 And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. (Verse 7) MEANING OF THE WORD ADORE. — “Abraham, rising, adored the people of this land.”  We may ask how it is written, “you will worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve only him (Deut. 6:13);” if Abraham showed reverence to a Gentile people to the point of worshiping?  But it must be noted: it is not said in this commandment: Thou shall worship only the Lord thy God, as it is said: Thou shall serve “only him,” a word that in Greek corresponds to . For such servitude should only be given to God. That is why the idolaters are condemned, i.e. those who give idols the kind of servitude that is owed to God. And it should not cause us trouble the fact that in another passage of Scripture an angel forbids a man to adore him and warns him that it is the Lord to whom one must worship (Cf. Rev. 19:10). Indeed, the angel had manifested himself in such a way that he could be worshipped as a god, and that is why the worshipper had to be admonished. [Questions on Genesis, 61]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. (Gen. 23:3) Et surrexit Abraham a mortuo suo (Abraham stopped crying the death of his wife); It did not say, a mortua sua. The holy patriarch again says of Sara: Et sepeliam mortuum meum (And that I can bury the person I just lost); it is not the neutral kind that is used here, as if to read corpus mortuum, but the masculine gender.

BASIL OF CAESAREA. (Verse 4) I am a traveler and a stranger among you. A traveler is a transitory dwelling. It indicates a life not settled, but passing, in hope of our removal to the better things.  It is the part of a saint to pass through this world, and to hasten to another life.  In this sense David says of himself, ‘I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.’ (Ps. 39:12)    Abraham was a sojourner, who did not possess even so much land as to set his foot on, and when he needed a tomb, bought one for money. The word teaches us that so long as he lives in the flesh he is a sojourner, and, when he removes from this life, rests in his own home.  In this life he sojourns with strangers, but the land which he bought in the tomb to receive his body is his own.  And truly blessed is it, not to rot with things of earth as though they were one’s own, nor cling to all that is about us here as through here were our natural fatherland, but to be conscious of the fall from nobler things, and of our passing our time in heaviness because of the punishment that is laid upon us, just like exiles who for some crimes’ sake have been banished by the magistrates into regions far from the land that gave them birth.  Hard it is to find a man who will not heed present things as though they were his own; who knows that he has the use of wealth but for a season; who reckons on the brief duration of his health; who remembers that the bloom of human glory fades away. [Com. on Ps. 14 Prol. s.2 v.8]

JEROME OF STRIDON. 23:2 SARA DIED IN THE CITY OF ARBOC, WHICH IS IN A VALLEY; THIS CITY IS THE SAME AS CHEBRON, ON THE LAND OF CHANAAN. We do not find these words: "Who is in the valley," in the authentic collections. The name itself of the city of Arboc has been gradually defigured by readers and copyists. We must not believe that the Septuagint could have denatured themselves and corrupted a Hebrew city name. Arboc does not make sense. It was called ARBEE, that is, four, because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were buried there after Adam, the first father of the human race, which is clearly proved by the book of Joshua.

22:6 LISTEN TO US, LORD, YOU ARE OUR KING BY THE WILL OF GOD, BURY YOUR DEAD IN OUR CHOSEN SEPULCHER. For king, the Hebrew carries prince or chief, since NASI does not answer to king, but to leader. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The sons of Chet answered Abraham, and said to him. You are among us a king who comes from God; bury in our most beautiful sepulchres the person who died you. (Gen. 23:5-6) Yesterday you saw, my beloved, the courage of the patriarch; you have seen this soul stronger than the diamond; you have seen how he refused nothing of what depended on him, how he did himself, by his ardent love for God, the priest of his son; of intent. he blew his hand, and offered the sacrifice; but, by the ineffable mercy of God, he has brought his son back safe and full of life; he has deserved, by the excellence of his will, to be a subject of praise; he has surrounded his forehead with a brilliant crown; in all that he did, he manifested the piety of his soul. Let us see, today, all the affection of this just for his child. After this strange, incredible sacrifice, the patriarch had to suffer the pain of losing Sara; he asked the sons of Chet for a burial; he bought the land, laid the body there, and it was there, for the patriarch, his first possession in the country. He owed it to Sara's loss. Divine Scripture, wishing to show us the virtue of the just man, wanting to let us know that he has always been a traveler, a stranger, also wanted to let us know that this man who enjoyed so gloriously the help from above, whose name is so famous, who became the father of so great a people, did not possess a proper ground; and this is not what we see today so rich, who buy fields, estates; who are eager to possess, to possess forever and ever to infinity. As he had enough of the riches of the soul he did not desire others. Listen to all of you, who in a moment take all that others have, who drape you in the remains of others, who spread everywhere, so to speak, the concupiscence of your avarice. Imitate this patriarch, who did not even have a piece of land to deposit the remains of Sara; but then, driven by necessity, bought a field, a cave, from the sons of Chet. [Homilies on Genesis]

23:8-20 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, 9 That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a buryingplace amongst you. 10 And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, 11 Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. 12 And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. 13 And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. 14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, 15 My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. 16 And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. 17 And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, 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 18 Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. 19 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan. 20 And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.

(Verses 8-20) Ephron the son of Saar. Commentators have struggled reconciling this passage with the account given by St. Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles 7:15-16.

The Venerable Bede (Com. on Acts), repeated by Rabanus Maurus, argues that Stephen, instead of giving the factual historical details as they are, chose to give details based upon what the popular opinion and tradition that was among his hearers, for the sake of being received by them. It was not an error by Stephen who was filled with the Holy Spirit, but he was speaking in terms that would make his hearers receptive to the sole purpose of his message instead of being distracted by details, in order to proclaim that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law.

JEROME OF STRIDON. Luke the evangelist and companion of apostles describes Christ’s first martyr Stephen as relating what follows in a Jewish assembly. “With threescore and fifteen souls Jacob went down into Egypt, and died himself, and our fathers were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor  the father of Sychem.” (Acts 7:15-16) In Genesis this passage is quite differently given, for it is Abraham that buys of Ephron the Hittite, the son of Saar, near Hebron, for four hundred shekels of silver, a double cave, and the field that is about it, and that buries in it Sarah his wife. And in the same book we read that, after his return from Mesopotamia with his wives and his sons, Jacob pitched his tent before Salem, a city of Shechem which is in the land of Canaan, and that he dwelt there and “bought a parcel of a field where he had spread his tent at the hand of Hamor, the father of Sychem, for an hundred lambs,”  and that “he erected there an altar and called there upon the God of Israel.”  Abraham does not buy the cave from Hamor the father of Sychem, but from Ephron the son of Saar, and he is not buried in Sychem but in Hebron which is corruptly called Arboch. Whereas the twelve patriarchs are not buried in Arboch but in Sychem, in the field purchased not by Abraham but by Jacob. I postpone the solution of this delicate problem to enable those who cavil at me to search and see that in dealing with the Scriptures it is the sense we have to look to and not the words. [Ep. 57 NFNP s.2 v.6]

JEROME OF STRIDON. 23:16 ABRAHAM LISTENED TO EPHRON, AND ABRAHAM GAVE EPHRON THE SILVER WEIGHT THAT HAD BEEN SPOKEN TO THE SONS OF HETH. In Hebrew, the first name is written Erunon and the second EPIIAN. After he had been conquered by greed, to the point of selling the sepulcher for money, though Ahraham urged him to accept, the letter van, which among the Hebrews reads for O, was removed from his name, which became EPRHON, the Scripture wanting to show that this man was not of an irreproachable and perfect virtue, and that he was able to sell the monuments of the dead. Let those who trade in sepulchres, and, far from being in a hurry to receive the price, extort it from forced buyers, know well that their name is changed, and that they lose all merit if they have, since this Ephron, who had received money in spite of himself, is secretly punished by his remorse. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Do you need proof that he was considered of the Chananeans, listen to what the sons of Chet tell him: You are among us a king who comes from God; bury in our most beautiful sepulchres the person who died you. None of us will be able to prevent you from putting in your grave the person who died you. See also the very conduct of the righteous, which is for these people the teaching of true wisdom. He does not accept the monument without counting the right price. Permit you, he tells them, to show me your kindness; but I will not accept it without first paying you the price you owe. (Gen. 23:13) It is on these conditions that I receive the burial; he then counted the money, says the text, and took possession of the monument. Abraham buried his wife Sara in the double cave of the field looking at Mamre. (Gen. 23:19) And this illustrious man, honored by all, who enjoyed so much favor with God, who was with the inhabitants of this country, in so great an honor that the sons of Chet named him a king, did not even possess what he needed land to put his foot on it. That is why Blessed Paul, celebrating the virtues of this righteous person, wrote: It was by faith that Abraham remained in the land that had been promised to him, as in a foreign land, living in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, who were to be heirs with him from that promise. (Heb. 11:9) Then, to teach us how it was by faith that he remained a stranger, Paul adds: For he was waiting for this city, built on a solid foundation, of which God himself is the founder and the founder. 'architect. It is, he says, through the hope of future goods, that he despised present things; in (expectation of more, considerable goods, he disdained those of the present life, and this, before the law, before grace.) What will be our excuse, answer me, I beg you, who, after so many promises to guarantee us, to assure us of ineffable goods, remain amazed, admiring only the present, and who buy domains, and who want, above all and everywhere, to shine, and who amass by avarice and by force of rapines? This is what inspired the blessed prophet with this lamentable cry: Woe to you, who join house to house, and add to the ground, to strip the neighbor (Isa. 5:8). This is not what our works do, do we not see every day, that the widows are plundered, that the orphans are plundered, that the weakest are trampled under the feet of the strongest? did not do so, wishing to buy a burial, and seeing the good will of those to whom he asked for it, he did not accept it until he had paid the right price. Therefore, my beloved, keeping these thoughts in our minds, we who live under grace, let us imitate him who lived before the law; Let us not, burning with the desire to possess, fanning a flame much more devouring still, the unquenchable flame, the flame that can not bear. for we shall hear ourselves say, if we persist in this rapine, in this avarice, the words which were said to the old rich man: Fool, this very night, we will ask you again, your soul; what you have amassed, for whom will it be? (Luke 12:20) Why, answer me, do you sweat? in order to amass what soon, when you are torn out of here, you will leave it; which, not only is perfectly useless, but only aggravates; the weight of the sins that load your shoulders, and that will not lighten a useless repentance? The treasures gathered by your ruin, you will often see them fall into enemy hands, and yet you will have to give account for these treasures and suffer your punishment. What is the delirium of working for others and preparing for you only torture? [Homilies on Genesis]