Genesis 23

Sarah’s Death and Burial

Sarah dies at Hebron. Abraham, who has lived on the promise of the land for more than sixty years and owns none of it, asks the people of the town for a grave, refuses it as a gift, and pays four hundred shekels of silver before witnesses at the city gate for the cave of Machpelah.

Genesis chaptersChapter 23 of 50

After the offering of Isaac, when Sarah was 127, Abraham 137, and Isaac 37 (Gen. 17:17; Gen. 21:5). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis 23 follows the offering of Isaac. Abraham had been living at Beer-sheba (Gen. 22:19); Sarah dies at Hebron, by Mamre, where he had pitched his tent and built an altar long…

Genesis 23 follows the offering of Isaac. Abraham had been living at Beer-sheba (Gen. 22:19); Sarah dies at Hebron, by Mamre, where he had pitched his tent and built an altar long before (Gen. 13:18). Abraham’s “last trials were the offering of his son, Isaac, and the death of his beloved Sarah.”

Abraham had come into Canaan at seventy-five on the strength of God’s promise, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Gen. 12:4–7). More than sixty years later he owns none of it. To bury his wife he has to ask the people of Hebron, “the sons of Heth,” for a grave, and the whole chapter is that one negotiation, told with the care of a legal record: who spoke, before whom, at what price, and exactly what changed hands.

The cave he buys becomes the family tomb, and Jacob, dying in Egypt, has his sons carry him back to it (Gen. 49:29–32; Gen. 50:13). Hebrews reads the patriarchs’ life of tents and graves as faith in a promise they did not live to receive (Heb. 11:13–16).

The chapter has three parts: Sarah’s death (verses 1–2), the purchase (3–16), and the field made sure and Sarah buried (17–20).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 23 turns on two words from God’s promise. In Gen. 17:8 God had said, “I will give unto thee… the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an…

Genesis 23 turns on two words from God’s promise. In Gen. 17:8 God had said, “I will give unto thee… the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.” In verse 4 Abraham uses both words of himself: he is “a stranger” (ger) and asks for “a possession” (’achuzzah) of a burying place. The promise was the whole land. What Abraham gets in his lifetime is a field with a cave in it, paid for in full and witnessed at the city gate, “the only parcel of the promised land that Abraham legally owned through purchase.”

The chapter says twice that the field “was made sure” to him (verses 17, 20). The Hebrew verb is qum, “arise, stand,” and it is the verb used of Abraham himself, who “stood up from before his dead” (verse 3) and “stood up, and bowed himself” to the people of the land (verse 7). Abraham rises from beside Sarah’s body, and at the end of the chapter a piece of the promised land “stands” as his. It is only a grave, but it is held in law, and the family will keep coming back to it.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–2

Sarah dies at Hebron

In plain words

Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. She died at Kirjath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for her and weep over her.

1 And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.

Related Scriptures #

Sarah, a mother of the covenant people

Later scripture remembers Sarah as a mother of the covenant people in her own right, not only as Abraham’s wife.

Later scripture remembers Sarah as a mother of the covenant people in her own right, not only as Abraham’s wife. Genesis gives her age at death, and in one reading she is “the only woman whose age is mentioned in the Scriptures, because as the mother of the promised seed she became the mother of all believers.” Her name means “princess,” and God gave it to her with a promise of her own: “I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations” (Gen. 17:15–16).

The prophets and apostles take up that promise. Isaiah calls discouraged Israel to “look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you” (Isa. 51:2). Hebrews counts her among the faithful: “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed… because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11). Peter tells the believing women of his day that they are Sarah’s “daughters… as long as ye do well” (1 Pet. 3:6). As the righteous are called the seed of Abraham (D&C 84:34), so “righteous women can be called the daughters of Sarah.” She “stood by his side throughout his life, not often in the limelight, but always as a great example of womanhood, faith, and righteousness.”

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. “Sarah or Sarai”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 18–23: Abraham—A Model of Faith and Righteousness, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).

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.

Context #

Kirjath-arba, which is Hebron

Kirjath-arba is an older name for Hebron, the town by Mamre (see the note on Gen. 13:18).

Kirjath-arba is an older name for Hebron, the town by Mamre (see the note on Gen. 13:18). Kiryat means “town, city.” Joshua, telling how the town went to Caleb, explains the rest of the name from a man: “Arba was a great man among the Anakims” (Josh. 14:13–15). The words could also mean “fourfold city.”

Abraham “came to mourn for Sarah.” He had last been living at Beer-sheba (Gen. 22:19). The text does not say where he came from, but probably after the offering of Isaac “Abraham returned to Hebron,” and there Sarah died. The verb for his mourning, saphad, means to “wail, lament.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Hebron”, Bible Dictionary. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

Verses 3–16

The purchase of the cave

In plain words

Then Abraham rose from beside his dead and spoke to the sons of Heth: “I am a foreigner living among you. Grant me land of my own here for a grave, so that I can bury my dead.” They answered, “Listen to us, my lord. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the best of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb.”

Abraham rose and bowed to the people of the land, the sons of Heth, and said, “If you are willing for me to bury my dead, then listen to me and speak for me to Ephron son of Zohar. Ask him to give me the cave of Machpelah, which is his, at the end of his field. Let him sell it to me for its full price, here among you, as my own burial ground.”

Ephron was sitting there among the sons of Heth, and he answered Abraham so that everyone who came in at the gate of his city could hear: “No, my lord, listen to me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave in it. Before my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” Abraham bowed again before the people of the land and said to Ephron in their hearing, “If only you will listen to me: I will pay the price of the field. Take it from me, and I will bury my dead there.” Ephron answered, “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.” Abraham agreed. He weighed out for Ephron the silver he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver at the standard the merchants accepted.

3 And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying,

Context #

Who were the sons of Heth?

The sons of Heth were the people who held Hebron and its land when Sarah died.

The sons of Heth were the people who held Hebron and its land when Sarah died. Genesis counts Heth among the sons of Canaan (Gen. 10:15), and he is the “father of the Hittites,” so Ephron is called “the Hittite” (verse 10). Elsewhere in the Old Testament “Hittites” can mean the nations “north of Palestine,” strong enough to “contend on equal terms with the kings of Egypt and Assyria”; but the sons of Heth here are a local people who “lived at Mamre (Hebron).” Abraham probably lived among a mixed population there: an administrative document from Hebron has “a mixture of Amorite and Hurrian names,” and Abraham’s allies there included Mamre the Amorite (Gen. 14:13).

The family meets the sons of Heth again. Esau marries two Hittite women, who “were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah” (Gen. 26:34–35), and Rebekah fears that Jacob will “take a wife of the daughters of Heth” (Gen. 27:46).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Heth”, Bible Dictionary. “Hittites”, Bible Dictionary. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

4 I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

Language #

Stranger and sojourner

Abraham describes his legal standing in two Hebrew words. A ger is a “sojourner, temporary dweller, new-comer (no inherited rights)”; a toshav is also a sojourner, of “a more…

Abraham describes his legal standing in two Hebrew words. A ger is a “sojourner, temporary dweller, new-comer (no inherited rights)”; a toshav is also a sojourner, of “a more temporary and dependent” kind. However rich he was, Abraham had no inherited right to land at Hebron. God had spoken of him and his family in the same terms: his seed would be a ger, “a stranger in a land that is not theirs” (Gen. 15:13), and the land was promised to him as “the land wherein thou art a stranger” (Gen. 17:8).

The pair of words later became Israel’s confession before God. The law explains why land in Israel could never be sold for ever: “for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev. 25:23). David, giving his treasure for the temple, prays, “we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers” (1 Chr. 29:15), and a psalm says the same (Ps. 39:12). Hebrews says it of the patriarchs: they “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb. 11:13).

Language #

A possession, and only a grave

“Possession” is ’achuzzah, “landed property” held as one’s own, and it is the word of the promise.

“Possession” is ’achuzzah, “landed property” held as one’s own, and it is the word of the promise. God had promised Abraham “all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession” (la’achuzzat ‘olam, Gen. 17:8). Here Abraham asks for an ’achuzzah of a grave, and the chapter ends on the same word: the field and the cave “were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace” (verse 20).

It was a small part of the promise. Abraham “had to bargain for a burial place,” and that “demonstrates that the promise was not fulfilled with Abraham” (see the note on Gen. 17:8 for how latter-day prophets read it). Yet the grave was a real piece of the land, held in law, and the family used it that way. In Middle Bronze Age Canaan, the likely setting of Abraham’s life, families buried “several generations of deceased family members together” in one cave, and “the continued use of the burial cave would have been seen as the family’s staking a claim on the property and renewing their rights of ownership.” Jacob, dying in Egypt, still called it the field Abraham bought “for a possession of a buryingplace” (Gen. 49:30).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Monte S. Nyman, “The Covenant of Abraham”, In The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 155–70. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92.

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.

Language #

A prince of God

The sons of Heth answer Abraham’s “I am a stranger” with “thou art a mighty prince among us.”

The sons of Heth answer Abraham’s “I am a stranger” with “thou art a mighty prince among us.” The Hebrew is nesi Elohim, “a prince of God.” Nasi means “one lifted up, i.e. a chief prince”; Genesis uses it of Abraham here and of the “twelve princes” Ishmael would father (Gen. 17:20). In one reading, “of God” here is a Hebrew way of saying very great, as a “sleep of Jehovah” is a deep sleep and the “mountains of God” in Ps. 36:6 are, in the KJV, “the great mountains.” Read that way, “a mighty prince” is a fair translation. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, took it literally: “a king from God.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

7 And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.

8 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat 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.

Related Scriptures #

A gift Abraham would not take

Ephron offers the field and the cave as a gift, and Abraham declines. The offer was courtesy, not a contract: the dialogue “began with the polite rhetoric of offering Abraham the…

Ephron offers the field and the cave as a gift, and Abraham declines. The offer was courtesy, not a contract: the dialogue “began with the polite rhetoric of offering Abraham the cave freely, which Abraham knew to refuse, and then ended with Abraham weighing out the four hundred shekels of silver.” From the start Abraham had asked to buy it “for as much money as it is worth” (verse 9), literally “for full silver” (bekesef male). A purchase made before the whole town could be proved, and in Abraham’s world “legal documents were needed to prove ownership, otherwise squatters could just claim land.”

The same exchange happens again at a place that would matter even more. When David wanted the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite for an altar, he asked for it “for the full price,” the same Hebrew phrase. Ornan offered it as a gift, oxen and all: “I give it all.” And David refused: “I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost” (1 Chr. 21:22–24). That threshing floor became the site of Solomon’s temple “in mount Moriah” (2 Chr. 3:1; see the note on Gen. 22:2).

Sources: George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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.

Context #

Four hundred shekels, by weight

Abraham paid in silver by weight, not in coins. The Hebrews “appear to have been ignorant of coinage until the Persian period”; before then “payments were made by weight.”

Abraham paid in silver by weight, not in coins. The Hebrews “appear to have been ignorant of coinage until the Persian period”; before then “payments were made by weight.” So Abraham “weighed” (vayyishqol) the silver, and the price is counted in shekels (sheqel), a unit of weight. “Current money with the merchant” (‘over lassocher) means silver that would “pass along (from hand to hand)” in trade, weighed “according to the merchant standards of the day.” The word money is in italics in the KJV: the translators supplied it.

Four hundred shekels seems to have been a high price. Ephron names the price lightly, “what is that betwixt me and thee?” (verse 15), but other land sales from about Abraham’s time were for 9, 10, 11⅚, 26, and 200 shekels, and 200 was the most common price, “half the price that Abraham paid.” At four hundred, “the price seems very high.” Abraham paid it without a word of bargaining. Centuries later Jeremiah bought a family field for “seventeen shekels of silver,” and he too “took witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances” (Jer. 32:9–10).

Sources: “Money”, Bible Dictionary. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 17–20

The field made sure, and Sarah buried

In plain words

So Ephron’s field at Machpelah, facing Mamre, with the cave in it and all the trees anywhere within its borders, became Abraham’s property, confirmed in the presence of the sons of Heth and everyone who came in at the gate of his city. After this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah facing Mamre, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave were made over to Abraham by the sons of Heth as his own burial ground.

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

Context #

A sale on the record

“Made sure” means legally confirmed: the verb qum, “stand, rise,” here means “be established, confirmed,” and is used of a purchase.

“Made sure” means legally confirmed: the verb qum, “stand, rise,” here means “be established, confirmed,” and is used of a purchase. Verses 17–18 read like a deed. They say whose field it was, where it lay (“before Mamre”), what went with it (“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”), and who saw it done (“in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city”). The city gate was a place for such public business (Gen. 34:20); there Boaz bought Naomi’s land, and “all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses” (Ruth 4:9–11).

Genesis mentions no written deed, but “parallels from Mari and Emar in Syria suggest that Abraham received a tablet with the details of the transaction that was witnessed by both parties.” The space Genesis gives to a land sale may itself be a clue: one reading is that the account “is derived from legal documents that Abraham had, and his family had preserved.” That is an argument from the shape of the story, not a document anyone has found.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.

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.

Context #

The cave of Machpelah

Machpelah means “doubling,” and the Septuagint simply calls it “the Double Cave.”

Machpelah means “doubling,” and the Septuagint simply calls it “the Double Cave.” The name may describe the cave itself: it “may have originally had two caverns suited for the burial of successive family generations.” Excavators at Hebron found burial caves, one of them in use “from the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age I,” a span that “corresponds well with the use of the Cave of Machpelah as a burial place for the ancestors of Israel.”

Sarah was the first to be buried there. Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham beside her (Gen. 25:9–10); then came Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah; and Jacob charged his sons from Egypt, “bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite” (Gen. 49:29–31; Gen. 50:13).

The place is still pointed out. King Herod put up a building at Hebron “over the traditional site of the cave of Machpelah,” now one of the best-known in the Holy Land, and the site “is now occupied by a mosque.”

Sources: “Machpelah”, Bible Dictionary. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Tombs of the Patriarchs”, Bible Photographs, no. 5 (study helps, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

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.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 23

Genesis 23 ends with Sarah buried in a land her family does not yet hold, and scripture reads that grave as faith in what lies beyond it. Hebrews says of the patriarchs and their wives that they “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,” and that they sought “a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:13–16). Latter-day revelation says the same of “all holy men” who sought the city of Enoch: they “confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” but “obtained a promise that they should find it and see it in their flesh” (D&C 45:12–14).

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all three buried in this cave, are the men Jesus named when He was asked about the resurrection of the dead: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:31–32). The Lord who promised Abraham the land is Jehovah, the premortal Jesus Christ, who rose from His own tomb; and latter-day revelation says that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises” (D&C 132:37).

Worth exploring next

The patriarchs’ faith in Hebrews. Heb. 11:8–22, including Joseph’s charge about his bones (Gen. 50:24–25).
The holy men who sought the city. D&C 45:11–14; Moses 7:62–64.
Hebron in Abraham’s day. “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC,” in From Creation to Sinai (BYU Religious Studies Center), describes the town, its walls, and its tombs.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
“Sarah or Sarai”, Bible Dictionary.
“Hebron”, Bible Dictionary.
“Heth”, Bible Dictionary.
“Hittites”, Bible Dictionary.
“Money”, Bible Dictionary.
“Machpelah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 18–23: Abraham—A Model of Faith and Righteousness, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
“Tombs of the Patriarchs”, Bible Photographs, no. 5 (study helps, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.
George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92.
Monte S. Nyman, “The Covenant of Abraham”, In The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 155–70.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.

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