The Death of Sarah

The Cave of Machpelah (Cave of the Patriarchs), the supposed resting place
of Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah. 

Genesis 23

Genesis 23:1-2, NIV Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.

In the last chapter, we learn that Abraham settles in Beersheba after he is tested by God. So why do the husband and wife pair live apart, with Sarah residing in Hebron? It is unclear as to if they ever reunited after Abraham took Isaac away to offer him as a sacrifice. I could definitely see how that action might result in a marital rift.

Ironically, most of this chapter is spent on the bartering that took place between Abraham and the Hittites, rather than any particular grief over Sarah’s death. Abraham negotiates to buy a tomb for her, and the sidebar in my NIV Student Bible describes the scenario aptly:

“This may be the oldest recorded business deal. The elaborate politeness sounds very much like bargaining in the Middle East today. Underneath the smooth words, shrewd negotiating is going on.”

What is interesting to note here, is the reference to Hittites. The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who established a kingdom in what is now Turkey and northern Syria, in the 18^th BCE. This would be long after Abraham is presumed to have lived, if the story is based on a real person. The very first indication of their existence in ancient texts occurs around 1900 BCE. Either the Hittites of the Torah are a different group of people, or it is another contradiction in Genesis of how Biblical stories don’t line up with the historical and archaeological record.

This chapter also contains both the first account of a burial in the Bible, and the first commercial transaction.

Herod the Great is the one to have built the large, rectangular enclosure pictured above over the caves that are presumed to be the final resting place of both Sarah and Abraham, as well as some of their descendants.