So the field of Ephron, which was at Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all its borders round about,
Genesis 23:17 records a legal sale: Ephron's field at Machpelah, the cave in it, and every tree inside its borders pass to Abraham before the people of the city. It reads like a title deed — but why buy a corner of land God had already promised him?
Abraham was grieving, yet he handled the burial like a piece of formal business:
Even in the presence of death he would keep the place of pilgrim and stranger among them. He would pay in full for a possession — not of a mansion or an estate, but of a grave. Ephron, in Eastern fashion, set his price very high for those days. Abraham weighed it out in front of everyone. That was the accepted way to make a lawful and secure transfer — a curious foreshadowing of modern exactness.
This plot was the sum of Abraham's real estate in the land God had promised him.
In these noble, simple manners and feelings of the early fathers we have a great truth. Abraham held the heir and all the promises, yet he had nothing here below. He had to buy a grave to bury his dead out of his sight. That is all he ever had as a present possession on the earth.
Far from weakening God's promise, the sale proves it still stands:
For who that owned this land, or any land, would think of buying his own possession? There he lays his dead in ground that is clearly not his own. He has to buy it for that purpose. The sale is the pledge to faith that he will have the land another day.
The sons of Heth offered the burial ground free of charge. Abraham refused, and the refusal was deliberate.
The kindness of the world would press a burial place on Abraham as a gift. True to his pilgrim character, he refuses to take the place of a prince who receives gifts. He is content to be the stranger who pays for what he needs. He refused to use the praise of the world to lift himself up. He will not let the kindness of the world move him off the stranger's path. As he had earlier refused the gifts of the king of Sodom, so now he declines the gifts of the children of Heth.
The purchase was more than a funeral arrangement. Commentators read it as an act of confidence, not defeat:
I believe Abraham showed his faith in resurrection when he bought Machpelah as a burial place... Faith cannot keep death in view for long; it has a higher object. Resurrection is what always fills the sight of faith, and in its power faith can rise up from before the dead... Death is the boundary of Satan's power; but where Satan ends, God begins.
The trees named in the deed carry the same hope, and one writer extends it to Israel:
How good it is to remember that the grave has been bought. It is far from being only a scene of desolation. The trees flourish around it with their blossoms and fruit — the blessed hopes and assurances of immortality and a glorious resurrection. So too for Israel, buried for the present: the trees of promise still grow all around the field of her burial. They declare that the Lord will yet visit His people, bring them up out of their graves of national scattering, and restore them in blessing to the land.
One writer compares Abraham's buying of a whole field for one grave to a parable Jesus told:
Ephron himself offered to give Abraham the place without charge, but Abraham insisted on paying the full value of the land. We should surely compare this with Matthew 13:44. There a man finds treasure hidden in a field, then sells all he has to buy the field. The field is the world, and the Lord Jesus has sacrificed everything to buy it, just for the sake of the treasure. Abraham's treasure, of course, was Sarah, whom he would hide in the field. So the treasure stands for the godly in Israel, and the field is the world.
- Bought, not begged. Abraham turned down free land from the Hittites, just as he had turned down the king of Sodom's goods. He paid full price and stayed a stranger.
- Bought, not owned. A man does not buy what is already his. The sale proves the land was still to come, and it pledged that he would have it one day.
- Bought, and witnessed. He weighed out the silver in front of witnesses. Even in grief he was exact in business.
- Bought in hope. The grave was bought in hope, not defeat. The trees named in the deed stand around it like a promise of resurrection.
- Bought for a treasure. Abraham bought a whole field for the one he laid in it. In the same way, commentators suggest, Christ paid for the world for the sake of the treasure in it.
were assured to Abraham for a possession before the eyes of the sons of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city.
Here the sale is complete. The field, the cave, and every tree in it become Abraham's own property. The Hittites at the city gate all watched it happen. It is the only piece of Canaan he ever owned — and he bought it to bury his wife in.
This verse reads like a property deed. One writer notes what the public weighing of the silver meant:
Even in the presence of death he would keep the place of pilgrim and stranger among them. He would pay in full for a possession — not of a mansion or an estate, but of a grave. Ephron, in Eastern fashion, set his price high for those days. Abraham weighed it out in front of them all. That was the way of lawful and sure conveyance back then, and it strangely anticipates modern exactness.
Some treat faith as a reason to leave the details to other people.
Faith was never meant to encourage a careless spirit. Abraham's conduct in this business shows it, at a moment when anyone else would sooner have taken another's help. Whatever the circumstances, faith makes the believer superior to them all.
The Hittites first offered him the ground for nothing. One writer explains what Abraham was protecting when he refused:
The kindness of the world would press a burying place on Abraham as a gift. True to his pilgrim character, he refuses to take the place of a prince who receives gifts. He is content to be the stranger who pays for what he needs. He will not let the kindness of the world move him out of the path of the stranger.
Why pay four hundred shekels for ground God had already promised him? One writer points to what Abraham refused to become:
Why was Abraham so particular about this purchase? Why was he so anxious to make good his claim to the field and cave of Ephron on righteous principles? Why so determined to weigh out the full price, current with the merchant? Faith is the answer. He knew the land was his in prospect. He knew that in glory his descendants would yet own it. Until then he would owe nothing to those who would one day be driven out of it.
Some have argued from this deed that God did give Abraham a holding in Canaan after all. One writer answers that the purchase proves the opposite:
It is wrong to say that God did afterwards give him a possession in Canaan — meaning the piece of land he bought from Ephron as a burial place. The gift of God is absolute and future. Buying a burial place from the Hittite confirms that; it does not weaken it. For who that owned this land, or any other, would think of buying what was already his? There he lays his dead in land so clearly not his own that he has to buy it. That buying is the pledge to faith that he will have it another day.
The sale included every tree around the field. One writer finds hope in that detail:
How good it is to remember that the grave was bought. It is no mere scene of desolation. All around it the trees flourish with their blossoms and fruit — the blessed hopes and assurances of immortality and a glorious resurrection. So too for Israel, buried for now. The trees of promise are still growing all around the field of her burial. They declare that the Lord will yet visit His people, bring them up out of their graves of national dispersion, and restore them in blessing to the land.
Abraham now held legal title to a plot in Canaan. He had paid the full price for it, and he still lived there as a stranger.
How strange a thing to do for "the heir of the world"! Where those title deeds were kept for safekeeping, one is unable to say. But we may be sure that the God of Abraham will see to it. He who was descended from David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God in power, will come to take up His earthly rights with His ancient people.
- Bought, not begged. Abraham refused a free tomb. He weighed out the full price in public and kept the place of a stranger who owes the world nothing.
- Bought, not banked. A man who buys land is admitting he does not own it; the deed is proof he was still a stranger in the country promised to him.
- Bought, not bargained. Grief did not make him careless; faith made him exact, so the claim rested on righteous ground in front of witnesses.
- Bought for the future. He paid for a grave because he expected the land in glory, and would not be in debt to people who were one day to lose it.
- Bought and kept. The title stands secure, waiting for the day Christ comes to take up His earthly rights with His ancient people.
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field at Machpelah, opposite to Mamre that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.
Genesis 23 ends with a funeral and a purchase. Abraham buries Sarah in a cave he has just bought from the people who already hold the land God had promised him.
Commentators read his careful purchase of a grave as a statement about the future.
I believe that in buying Machpelah for a burying-place, Abraham gave expression to his faith in resurrection. "He stood up from before his dead." Faith cannot keep death in view for long. Resurrection is what always fills the vision of faith, and in its power faith can rise up from before the dead. Death is the boundary of Satan's power; but where Satan ends, God begins.
This was not new ground for Abraham. He had already trusted God with Isaac.
This was the same faith. The faith of a dead and risen man, the faith that had already received Isaac and offered Isaac, now buries Sarah. Abraham believed in resurrection. He believed in God as the God of resurrection — the God who gives life to the dead, and calls things that do not exist as though they did. The cave of Machpelah tells us this.
The last phrase of the verse is not just geography. Abraham chose that ground on purpose.
God had revealed Himself to Abraham as the Almighty and as the God of resurrection. He had assured him that the land where he lived as a stranger — all the land of Canaan — was his for an everlasting possession (Genesis 17:8). It was all his by promise, though not yet in his possession. Trusting God's promise, he was careful to lay Sarah's body to rest in the promised land. In the land of Canaan she had lived with Abraham as a stranger and a pilgrim. "In the land of Canaan" she had died, and "in the land of Canaan" she was buried.
Owning a grave was as close as Abraham ever came to owning Canaan.
Hebrews 11 tells us plainly that these all — Sarah included — died, not in possession, but in faith. This passage is the most striking witness of it. Until Sarah's burial Abraham owned not so much as a place to set his foot. He remains a pilgrim and a stranger to the last. He has to buy even a burying-place. He would have Canaan only under the glory of the Lord, and in the day of resurrection. He is content to wait until then.
Start with the name of the cave.
The name "Machpelah" means a "doubling," or a turning back on itself — a hint, it would seem, of resurrection.
The terms of the sale also speak of what death now means for those who belong to Christ.
Abraham bought it from the sons of Heth (fear) with the silver money (of atonement). So it becomes the portion of faith — a tomb, yes, but with a fruitful field attached, and right opposite Hebron. It stands in view of "participation" with Christ. For Christ has been in death. Through death He destroyed the one who had the power of death, so that He might free those who lived their whole lives as slaves to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). Death then becomes simply being made like Him in His death.
Around this bought grave, writers see hope growing — for Sarah, and for Israel too.
How good it is to remember that the grave was bought and paid for. It is far from being only a scene of desolation. The trees with their blossoms and fruit — the blessed hopes and assurances of immortality and a glorious resurrection — flourish around it. So too for Israel, buried for the present. The trees of promise still grow around the field of her burial. They declare that the Lord will yet visit His people, bring them up out of their graves of national dispersion and restore them in blessing to the land.
Genesis never says what kept Abraham content with so little.
We have to travel on to Hebrews 11:9-16 to get light on that point. There we discover that he had expectations tied to a scene lying not only outside the land of promise but outside the earth altogether. He went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land. He did that because he was "looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." We further read that he desired "a better country, that is, a heavenly one."
- Death. Sarah dies in the land God promised. Abraham must bury her, and the promise is still unfulfilled.
- Faith. He rises from before his dead. The same faith that offered Isaac now buries his wife, trusting the God who gives life to the dead.
- Purchase. He buys the plot with silver from the sons of Heth, whose name means fear, so the grave is truly his own.
- Promise. A tomb is the only ground he ever owns. He stays a stranger, content to wait for Canaan until the day of resurrection.
- Resurrection. Machpelah means "a doubling." It is a grave with a fruitful field around it — a burial made in the hope of a heavenly country and a people raised again.