Sunday, November 4, 2018

Genesis 23 "Lessons from the Death of Sarah"


About 17 years have passed between Chapters 22 and 23, the sacrifice of Isaac and the death of his mother, Sarah. In Genesis 22, Abraham reached the pinnacle of faith and obedience as he takes Isaac to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him there. Now in Genesis 23, Abraham descends into the depths as we watch him  grieving, saying goodbye to his wife, Sarah. 
Chapter 23 is about the death of Sarah, the wife of Abraham, but it contains much more than the death of Sarah. Here we learn lessons about grieving, about  true values.  We learn about our ultimate home.  

23:1 The death of Sarah. Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. Sarah is the only woman in the Bible whose age at death is recorded. Another interesting   fact is that nowhere in the Bible are we told to look to Mary the mother of Jesus as an example of a godly woman (and doubtless she was), but  twice we are  told to look to Sarah as such an example (Isa. 51:1-2 ; 1 Pet. 3:3-6).

23:2 Abraham grieves over Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Sarah was 127 years old when she died. Isaac, her son Isaac would now be thirty-seven. She died before she would see her son Isaac married, but   God was gracious to allow her to see her son to be a man.

Abraham mourned and wept over Sarah. What a hard day it is when a man must bury his wife- his best friend!  Grief is a good and proper, God given emotion to man. Every emotion in proper proportion  and  measure   (e.g. joy, sorrow and even anger) is good. At the grave of Lazarus Jesus wept (Jn. 11:35) and it was commented upon by the Jews, ‘See how he loved him’ (Jn. 11:36).

But Christians ought never to be overtaken by   their grief to the point in which they become emotionally crippled and hopeless, unable to function.  There is a distinction between grief and despair. Grief is proper and good according to the Scriptures. It is important to grieve and to shed tears. There is, after all a real sense of loss. The death of Sarah is a very hard experience for Abraham. But that sense of loss must not lead to despair. Despair is grief without hope.   Paul, in writing to the Thessalonians makes this point,   But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). The death  of a loved one can be a very soul- crippling  experience  and it can be  a distracting factor to our  living,   and some  people never properly  recover from grieving. They grieve without hope. Abraham does not. In Chapter 25 we shall see that Abraham will remarry, and Keturah his second wife will bear him 6 more sons (25:2).  Remarriage was no betrayal of Sarah. Sarah would always have a special place in Abraham’s heart.

So then, as was customary in those days, and being nomadic people, the body of Sarah was placed in a tent, and Abraham is with her and it is here that we find him weeping. The memories that flood his mind are many.  He probably remembers when they were first married, when they were first called by God to leave their family in Ur and go to an unknown land- the land of promise. Sarah had shared everything with him - his uncertainty, his hardships, the unsettled life and the sinful decisions. He remembers how Sarah cried bitter tears over her barrenness. In her desperation to give him a son, she even offered her servant girl Hagar to him and Ishmael was born. He remembered too, how finally Isaac, the son of promise was born. And now she is dead. We can scarcely imagine the impact of Sarah's death upon Abraham. They had had been married, perhaps, for well more than a 100 years. And now Abraham must carry on this life without her.

23: 3-9 Abraham buys land for Sarah’s burial from the Hittites. I am a foreigner and a foreigner among you”.  Abraham was a foreigner among these Hittites, but that was not what made him feel as a foreigner. Hebrews 11:8-10 helps us to understand.  He wasn’t ultimately looking for a piece of earthly real estate. “He was look for that city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”  He recognized his real home and abiding was not here on earth.  David knew this truth (1 Chron. 29:14 and   Ps. 39:12).  And that is one of the great reasons why Abraham did not despair when Sarah died, and why David did not despair when his little son died (2 Sam. 12:15-23). Their hearts were not in the hands of death and grief. Their hearts were in God’s hands.  

The commentator Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse  illustrates this  in a moving story.[1]  He told of a young woman whose husband had been killed in action during the war. When the telegram came, she read it and then said to her mother. "Mother, I am going up to my room and please don't disturb me." Her mother called the father at work and told him what had happened. He came home and immediately went up to the room. He opened the door quietly.  He saw her kneeling beside her bed. The telegram was spread open on the bed before her as she was bowed over it. And as he stood there,he heard her say, "Oh, my heavenly Father, Oh, my Father, my heavenly Father." Without a word the man turned around and went back down the stairs and said to his wife, "She is in better hands than mine."

And now Abraham asks for a place to bury her. “Give me property for a burial place among you” (23:4). He had a particular place in mind – the cave of Machpelah.  It was situated on the land owned by Ephron the son of Zohar. Abraham had earlier lived in this area and here he had built an altar to God (Gen. 13:18).

23: 10-16 Abraham negotiates with Ephron the Hittite for the land of Sarah’s tomb. This is one of few places in the land of Palestine that has been authenticated today. One can visit the cave of Machpelah- the cave of the Patriarchs.[2] This is also where Isaac and Ishmael would bury Abraham (Gen 25:9). Isaac and Rebekah were both buried here (Gen. 49:31). Jacob buried Leah here (Gen.49:31); Joseph buried Jacob here (Gen. 50:13). Joseph did not want to be buried in Egypt. He wanted his bones brought back to the land of Canaan and buried with the patriarchs (Gen. 50:25). It is located in the old city of Hebron. A  mosque has been built above it.

Ephron says to Abraham, I give you the field and the cave”.  He did not mean it literally. This was apparently  a typical way of negotiating  in ancient cultures.  First, the seller offered to give the item free of charge – confident that the buyer would refuse the ceremonial offer. When the buyer refused ‘the gift’, the seller would suggest a price, which in our case he claimed was modest but was really very high. Abraham paid 400 shekels (23:15). By comparison, Jeremiah paid 17 shekels for a field (Jer. 32:9) and  David paid only 50 shekels to buy a site on which the temple  in  Jerusalem  was built. (2 Sam 24:24). This was a rip off!

23:17-20 Abraham buys the field and buries Sarah. The text emphasizes that this property was Abraham’s land by title deed.  It was the only piece of land Abraham ever owned, in the land promised to him. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a famous Russian writer of short stories and novels. He wrote a short story entitled, “How much land does a man need?” 

The central character of this story is a man called Pahom, a greedy man. He complains that he does not own enough land. He says: "if I had plenty of land, I shouldn't fear the devil himself". Unbeknown to him, Satan is sitting behind the stove and listening. Satan accepts his challenge and also tells him that he would give Pahom more land, and then to snatch everything from him.   I will omit a lot of detail of Pahom’s greedy pursuit of land, but at the end of the story he is introduced to a family, the Bashkirs, who own a huge amount of land.  Their offer is very unusual.  For a sum of one thousand roubles, Pahom can walk around as large an area as he wants. He starts early in the morning, marking his route with a spade along the way. If he reaches his starting point by sunset that day, the entire area of the land which he has marked will be his, but if he does not reach his starting point as the sun goes down, he will lose his money and receive no land. He is delighted as he believes that he has hit upon the bargain of a lifetime. The day comes. He stays out as late as possible, marking out land until just before the sun sets. Towards the end of the day, he realizes that he is far from the starting point and runs back as fast as he can to the waiting land owners, the Bashkirs. He finally arrives at the starting point just as the sun sets, but he has utterly exhausted himself from the run, and as he arrives Pahom drops dead.
His servant buries him in an ordinary grave only six feet long and three feet wide. This answers the question posed in the title of the story, “How much land does a man need?”  

From Abraham’s perspective this was the only land that he needed on this earth to bury the mortal remains of his loved ones. The heavenly city was waiting. When you die the only piece of property you will own will be a plot in a cemetery. Everything else will belong to someone else.
There is a lesson  to be learned about the  request for a burial place.  Sarah’s soul is gone, but her body is here, and it is precious to the Lord and to Abraham.  The body- the remains ought to be precious to us too. When Mary discovered that the tomb in which Jesus was laid is empty, she doesn’t say, “They have taken away Jesus’ body and I don’t know where it is.” Her Lord had been taken away. Where was he? Abraham was conscious that this was the body of Sarah and it needed to be shown respect and love. This body must have a proper resting place, and a loving burial.   Burial plans ought to matter to us. Where his dear wife was to be buried was more than a matter of sentiment. Burying his wife was also a statement of faith. Have you considered what is going to happen to your body after your death? Where are you going to be buried? Have you drawn up a will? Do your loved ones know of your wishes? Have you thought of what you want said or sung at your funeral service? Who do you want to take that service?

CONCLUSION:
The big point behind  this story is that  Sarah dies in the land of Canaan, the land of promise, a reminder of the ultimate promise as found in Hebrews 11:13,  All these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” This chapter is about persevering to the end, trusting in God and his promises,  trusting in  Him  even when our dreams  do not materialize in this world. 

Sarah died. There is escape from death.   In fact, the whole world is a hospital and every person in it is a terminal patient.  The question is ' how will you die?' Sarah  died in  hope and in faith,  even  though  she never   never saw her son’s bride; she never saw her offspring in this life; she never saw her grandchildren . She  never saw  her ultimate offspring – the Messiah in this life.

But  this we know, that when she died, when she left this body, her faith turned to sight, and whatever was unclear  for her on earth is now clear in heaven, as she has become a  citizen of  the eternal city.  

From that perspective you and I stand exactly where Sarah and Abraham stood 4000 years ago. We have not yet received the fulfillment of all God has promised. But we have the down payment, the inner assurance of the Holy Spirit, based upon  the promises in the Word. 
We will die, but the promises of God  continue  and await  the  fulfillment when we get to our heavenly Canaan. He who has been with us so far will not leave us when we depart from this world.
Thank God then  for these lessons  and encouragement from the life of Sarah. 



[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs The Cave of the Patriarchs, also called the Cave of Machpelah (Hebrew: מערת המכפלה,  About this sound Me'arat ha-Makhpela  trans. "cave of the double tombs") and known by Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham or the Ibrahimi Mosque , located in the heart of the old city of Hebron (Al-Khalil) in the Hebron Hills.[Gen. 23:17-19][Gen. 50:13]  The site of the Cave of the Patriarchs is located beneath a Saladin-era mosque, which had been converted from a large rectangular Herodian-era Judean structure.

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