And these are the days of the years of Abraham's life which he lived a hundred and seventy-five years.
Genesis 25:7 sums up a whole life in one number. It closes the story of Abraham and leaves the reader with a question: what does a life of faith come to when the years run out?
Abraham died outside the land God promised him. One writer compares him to Moses, who also died before entering it.
He had, we may say, seen the land, but he was not to go over and take it as his own. He was the Moses of an earlier generation. Like Moses, he was a heavenly man — a man of the wilderness and not of the inheritance, a man of the tent, a child of resurrection. He was gathered to his people before the Israel of God entered the land according to promise. In the mirror of God's purpose, and by the light of faith, he sees the land; but he does not go over to take it.
Scripture does not use its usual words for his dying. The phrase it chooses belongs to a very short list.
Abraham died 175 years old, which means he lived until Jacob and Esau were 15 years old. The phrase "gathered to his people" is used only of six persons. Of Abraham (25:8); Ishmael (verse 17); Isaac (35:29); Jacob (49:29-33); Aaron (Num. 20:24); and Moses (Deut. 32:50).
Scripture gives his last years only a few lines, and there is no disaster in them. One writer sets that ending beside Lot's.
The history of Abraham is deeply instructive, and it closes with a short record. He came to a peaceful end at "a good old age," and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah. In striking contrast to poor Lot, Abraham finishes his pilgrim path with the respect and honour due to one who was "the friend of God" and "the father of all who believe."
Nearness to God and distance from the world rarely go together. One writer asks whether anyone in the Old Testament held both as Abraham did.
So peacefully passed away the man who combines two titles more strikingly than anyone else in the Old Testament story: "friend of God" and "stranger and sojourner on the earth." Others did carry on the blessed line of pilgrims who also walked with God — his son, his grandson, and later descendants. Yet, taken as a whole, what saint of old equalled him in these respects? Still less could anyone surpass "the father of all those who believe."
Jacob later summed up his own years as few and hard. The contrast between the two summaries is not accidental — it reflects two different ways of living.
Jacob is a warning to us, but Abraham is an example. It is true that Jacob found the Lord again by His grace. But he did not have the many and blessed experiences Abraham had, and he does not pray for others. The highest point of attainment with him is Abraham's starting point, even the home of his soul. With the exception of a few falls, this was the habitual state of Abraham, the state in which he lived... The experiences of Jacob are the experiences of what the hearts of men are. The experiences of Abraham are the experiences of the heart of God.
Scripture spends few words on the burial itself. What it marks is the grave beside Sarah's — and faith looks past that grave.
Scripture says little about Abraham's funeral, except to mark the link with Sarah's grave... Faith looks onward to the true hope for "the elders" also. It is the resurrection from among the dead, which will be the portion of all the righteous departed. Some have imagined them in gloom, without feeling, or in some other lack. That unbelief has no ground. It is unworthy of the grace of Him who watched in love over their feeble pilgrimage for His name here below.
Abraham held promises. One writer says believers now hold something more.
At the same time, let us not forget this. We have to do, not so much with the promises as he had, but with fulfilment in Christ (Rom. 4). Whatever promises of God there are, in Christ is the yes, and in Christ the amen, for glory to God by us. We are more than Abraham's seed. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3).
- Days counted. The verse totals a life at 175 years. He lived long enough to overlap his grandsons Jacob and Esau, yet he never owned the land God promised him.
- Days lived. Apart from a few falls, Abraham walked with God steadily, and his ending is calm. Jacob is the warning; Abraham is the example.
- Days named. He dies as both "friend of God" and stranger on the earth — near to God, unattached to the world.
- Days gathered. Scripture uses "gathered to his people" of only six men. His burial beside Sarah points to resurrection, not to gloom.
- Days surpassed. He held the promises. Those in Christ hold the fulfilment — every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
And Abraham expired and died in a good old age, old and full [of days]; and was gathered to his peoples.
Genesis 25:8 closes the story of a man who left his country for a promise and never owned the land. Three phrases carry the weight — a good old age, "full of years," and gathered to his people — and commentators read each as a statement about how faith ends.
The verse records no drama. One writer sets Abraham's end against the ruin of his nephew Lot:
The deeply instructive history of Abraham closes with a brief record. He came to a peaceful end at "a good old age," and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah. So, in striking contrast to poor Lot, Abraham finishes his pilgrim path with the respect and honour due to one who was "the friend of God" and "the father of all who believe."
The plainness of the account is itself the point:
In Genesis 25 we have a few simple details that might have been given about anyone who was not the father of the faithful. He was simply waiting to leave this world. So one sees the servants of God who have served their generation. The Lord seems to say to them, "I know you; I remember your works." But old age has come. Their powers weaken, and the Lord holds them as if in the hollow of His hand. Yet they usually seem to sink out of sight without notice, after a life, it may be, of much service.
Some believers end with a dramatic deathbed scene. Abraham did not, and one writer explains why:
The man whose life was poor and full of ups and downs ends with a striking display of faith on his deathbed. The man who walked habitually with God testified by his life, and needed no such bright display at the finish.
One writer sets Abraham's life beside Jacob's:
Jacob is a warning to us, but Abraham is an example. Jacob has indeed found the Lord again by His grace; but he has not had the many and blessed experiences of the other, and he does not pray for others. The highest point Jacob reaches is Abraham's starting point, the home of his soul. Apart from a few falls, this was Abraham's habitual state, the state in which he lived. But Jacob said his own days had been "few and evil" (Genesis 47:9), and he ended his life in Egypt. The experiences of Jacob are the experiences of what the hearts of men are. The experiences of Abraham are the experiences of the heart of God.
This is not the usual way to record a death and burial. Scripture keeps it for a few men only:
The phrase "gathered to his people" is used only of six persons: of Abraham (25:8); Ishmael (verse 17); Isaac (35:29); Jacob (49:29-33); Aaron (Numbers 20:24); and Moses (Deuteronomy 32:50).
Another writer reads the gathering as proof that these men still live to God:
Consider the announcements that Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron and Moses were gathered to their people (Genesis 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:29, 33; Numbers 20:24, 26; 27:13; 31:2; Deuteronomy 32:50)… Our blessed Lord gave a meaning to the phrase "God of Abraham." He said that "he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him" (Luke 20:38). That lends its full weight to expressions like these.
Abraham died with the promise still unfulfilled. One writer compares him to Moses:
He had, we may say, seen the land, but he was not to go over and take it for his own. He was the Moses of an earlier generation; like him, a heavenly man, a man of the wilderness and not of the inheritance — a man of the tent — a child of resurrection. He was gathered to his people before the Israel of God entered the land according to promise.
Death did not end Abraham's hope. One writer points to what still lies ahead:
Faith looks onward to the true hope for "the elders" also. It is the resurrection from out of the dead, which will be the portion of all the righteous departed. The unbelief that pictured them in gloom, or dullness, or any other lack has no ground. Such thoughts are unworthy of the grace of Him who watched in love over their feeble pilgrimage for His name here below.
- Full, not just long. "Full of years" is not only about length of days. Abraham lived in communion with God, while Jacob called his own days few and evil.
- Full life, quiet exit. Abraham needed no dramatic deathbed scene. His daily walk with God had already given the testimony.
- Full in contrast. Abraham ends honoured as the friend of God; Lot ends in ruin. Two men, one pilgrim path taken, one refused.
- Full, yet still a stranger. He was gathered to his people before Israel ever entered the land — a man of the tent, who saw the promise but never held it.
- Full and still living. "Gathered to his people" is said of only six men. Commentators read it as pointing past the grave to resurrection, since God is God of the living.
And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which was opposite to Mamre --
Abraham is dead, and his two sons stand at the same grave — the son of the promise and the son of the slave woman. The verse also names the burial ground with care: a cave, a field, and the man Abraham bought it from.
Ishmael, the son cast out years before, still stands at his father's grave. Kelly sees a shared loss bringing two very different men side by side.
Here we read that "Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah," in the field Abraham had bought from Ephron, where Sarah already lay. The son of the slave woman was in no way forbidden to honour his parent in this way. He had to be "cast out" in the presence of the child of promise, and he was. Yet the natural family tie still has its place. The son of the free woman does not dispute it; he is gracious. Before God their feelings may have been as far apart as spirit and flesh, the two things that marked them out. But at the grave, at least, they stood together in the sorrow of loss. They shared a loving memory of the man who was gathered to his people, "the friend of God."
Kelly finds the same scene later in the family, and draws a rule from it.
Esau and Jacob came to bury their aged father, just as Isaac and Ishmael had buried theirs. Death has a powerful and subduing voice for the heart of man, even where faith is absent. It was not for believers to keep their close relatives away from the grave. They were to welcome them there instead. Many a self-seeking and proud soul has bowed there under the solemn issues of salvation on the one hand and judgment on the other.
Willis weighs what Ishmael had to swallow to stand at that grave.
Ishmael was very likely jealous of the little boy who, instead of him, had become "heir of all things"; it would have been almost unnatural if he had not been. Remembering this, it is a real pleasure to find Ishmael with Isaac burying his father (Gen. 25:9). Surely we may see that God was working in his heart.
The verse names the man Abraham bought the field from. Kelly says that purchase settles what Abraham owned in Canaan.
God's gift is absolute and still future. Buying a burial place from the Hittite confirms this; it does not weaken it or cut into it. For who would think of buying land he already owned? There Abraham lays his dead in land so clearly not his own that he has to buy it. The purchase is the pledge to faith that he will have the land one day… "By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise" (Heb. 11:9).
Burial in Canaan looked forward, not only back.
Abraham was buried with Sarah in the cave he had bought from Ephron (Gen. 23:19-20). The circumstances then pointed to the promise of Sarah's future resurrection. It was the same with Abraham. He believed with all his heart that God was able to raise the dead (Rom. 4:17-21).
His family did the same after him.
In the faith of God's promise he was careful to lay Sarah's body to rest in the Promised Land… Later, in the same faith, the sons of Isaac bury their father at Hebron, in the land of Canaan (Gen. 35:27-29). Jacob dies in Egypt, yet in due time his sons too bury him in faith in the land of Canaan, in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 50:13).
With the burial, one chapter of the account closes and another opens.
Then the great holder of all promise passes off the scene, however that promise was to be worked out and developed. The account closes as to both flesh and spirit — Isaac and Ishmael bury him. We begin again quite fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, walking the path of faith or unbelief (as Abraham did) under that principle. Isaac now takes up the place of blessing and the subject of testimony.
- Grave — One death brings both sons back to the same spot. Deep differences before God did not stop shared sorrow for a father.
- Gathering — Do not shut unbelieving relatives out of a funeral. Death speaks to hard hearts, and Ishmael's coming suggests God was at work in his.
- Ground — Abraham had to buy the field, so he did not yet own the land. That purchase is a pledge that God's gift is still ahead.
- Guarantee — Burial in Canaan was faith speaking. Abraham believed God could raise the dead. Isaac's sons and Jacob's sons buried their fathers there for the same reason.
- Going on — With Abraham buried, the account starts fresh with Isaac. He now carries the blessing and the testimony.
the field that Abraham had purchased of the sons of Heth there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
Genesis 25:10 closes Abraham's life with the one patch of earth he ever owned — a burial plot he bought from a Hittite neighbour. Why does Scripture record the sale so carefully, and why did Abraham care so much where his body lay?
Abraham lived in Canaan as a guest. The only ground he ever owned there became his grave.
When he reached this land of promise, what did he find there? Nothing he could touch, nothing he owned himself. He did not have so much as a foot of land he could call his own. It is very telling that the only part he ever owned was a tomb, a burial place. It reminded him that in life he had nothing. It also looked forward to a resurrection. His faith laid hold of the God of resurrection, and held that his descendants would have the very land he stood in. He would leave his bones there as the witness that he claimed it for his descendants.
Choosing a family grave can be pure sentiment. Kelly says Abraham's choice was not.
Burial in the land began with Sarah. In Abraham it was no mere feeling or fancy, sentiment or superstition, but a fruit of faith. He expected to receive from God's hand the land where he laid her body. The gift of Canaan was far surer than owning a burial place in the meantime.
Buying the cave said something about how Abraham saw death.
I believe that in buying Machpelah as a burial place, Abraham was expressing his faith in resurrection. "He stood up from before his dead." Faith cannot keep death in view for long. It has a higher object — blessed be the "living God" who has given it. Resurrection is what always fills the sight of faith. 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.
What was true when Abraham buried Sarah held when his sons buried him beside her.
Abraham was buried with Sarah in the cave he had bought from Ephron. The circumstances then pointed to the promise of Sarah's future resurrection. It was the same with Abraham, who fully believed that God was able to raise the dead.
The verse stresses that Abraham bought the field. The people of the land had offered it as a gift, and he refused.
The kindness of the world would press upon Abraham a burying place 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 exalt himself, and he will not let the kindness of the world move him off the path of a stranger. As he had refused the gifts of the king of Sodom before, so now he declines the gifts of the Hittites.
Isaac and Ishmael — the son of promise and the son sent away — stood together at the grave.
The son of the slave woman was in no way forbidden to honour his parent in this way. He had to be cast out, and he was cast out, in the presence of the child of promise. Yet family ties have their place. The son of the free woman does not dispute this, but is gracious. Before God the feelings of the two may have been as different as spirit and flesh, the two things that marked them out. But there at least, around the grave, they were together in the sorrow of loss, and in loving memory of him who was gathered to his people, "the friend of God."
Abraham's hope held to one field. Kelly contrasts the Christian hope, which needs no resting place on earth.
The hope of Christ's coming forms a very different feeling in the Christian. A special resting-place here below vanishes from a mind shaped and fed in this way. We do not look for death, though we may fall asleep in the meantime. We look for Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. He will change us, whether we are awake or asleep, into His glorious image.
- Stranger. Abraham never owned a foot of Canaan while he lived. A tomb was his only holding, and it proved he had nothing here.
- Bought. He turned down the field as a gift and paid for it. Not even his grave left him in debt to the people around him.
- Promise. Burying in that land was no sentiment but faith's claim on ground God had already given by word.
- Resurrection. Faith does not stay bent over the dead. The bought grave expected the God who raises the dead to give the land yet.
- Reunion. Two estranged sons met at that graveside, and the man laid there is remembered as the friend of God.
And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac. And Isaac dwelt at Beer-lahai-roi.
Abraham is dead, and the promise now rests on his son Isaac. Scripture records only two things here: the blessing he receives, and the place he chooses to live.
Abraham's death is not a break in God's purpose but a handover:
Then the great holder of all promise passes off the scene, whatever its fulfilment and development. It closes as to both flesh and spirit — Isaac and Ishmael bury him. We begin again quite fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, and the path of faith or unbelief (as it was with Abraham) under that principle. Isaac now takes up the place of blessing and the subject of testimony.
Abraham had other descendants. Isaac's blessing is of a different kind:
Isaac is now the only one left of those who shared the same promise before him. He has this marked distinction — God blessing him. That is a precious reality in a world under curse through sin. And this is not the general form of blessing extended to those who sprang from Abraham. It is his as the heir.
The place where Isaac settles already had a history, and its name records it:
This means "well of the living and seeing one." A well situated between Kadesh and Bered, "in the way to Shur," so in the south. Hagar fled from Sarai, and here the angel of the Lord met her. Her cry then, "You are a God of seeing," gave the well its name.
Hagar was a servant who had run away. The heir of the promise settles at the very spot where God met her.
How different the path that awaited Ishmael and Isaac! Here the Lord heard Hagar's distress; here God blessed Isaac, already blessed on a still higher plane and with better blessings in hope.
Isaac's home was a tent beside a well. That pairing carries a lesson:
A well was a natural and fitting companion for the tent of a pilgrim. Water is the first necessity for keeping life going. So for us is the "living water" — the Spirit acting through the Word.
The same writer will not let the Word and the Spirit come apart:
Where do you find the Spirit without the water, without the Word? Nowhere! The Word is the direct instrument of the Spirit… The Spirit without the Word is mere fanaticism. In fact there is no such thing. The Word without the Spirit is mere rationalism. It is as empty and useless as it can be. The living water is God's thought for us — the living water, such as we find in the well here.
The name of the well points to what refreshed Isaac:
Isaac takes the place of Abraham as a vessel of God's testimony, and God blesses him. He lives by Beer Lahai Roi, "the well of Him who sees me." There is true spiritual refreshment (the well) in being conscious that we live under the eye of God.
Where Isaac lived also marked what he had turned his back on:
"See to it that you do not take my son back there," was Abraham's chief instruction to his servant. Isaac must not return to the country his father had been called out of. So at his father's death we find him living by the well Lahai-roi. It is the well of Him who lives and sees me — the secret of the presence of God.
This chapter says two plain things about Isaac, and one writer traces both to Christ:
In the beginning of Genesis 25 we read, "Abraham gave all he had to Isaac," and "God blessed Isaac his son." These are very simple statements. But how important they are as pictures, and how far-reaching in their spiritual meaning! They suggest that all blessing and every promise is made good in Him who is the true Isaac. He is the One now out of death. He waits for the Spirit's mission to be finished — the forming of the bride, according to the Father's counsels.
- Death, then blessing. Abraham passes off the scene. The account begins fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, who takes up the place of blessing and testimony.
- Blessed as heir. Abraham had other descendants. Isaac receives God's blessing itself — not the general form, but the heir's portion in a world under curse.
- A well with a name. Beer-lahai-roi means the well of the living and seeing One, named by Hagar when God met her in her distress.
- A well to live by. Water keeps a pilgrim alive. For us the living water is the Spirit acting through the Word. The Spirit without the Word is fanaticism; the Word without the Spirit is rationalism.
- The true Isaac. Isaac never goes back to the old country; he stays under the eye of God. And all he pictures is made good in Christ, the true Isaac, who is now out of death.