What is the significance of the cave of Machpelah?

Now, I believe that in purchasing Machpelah for a burying-place, Abraham gave expression to his faith in resurrection. "He stood up from before his dead." Faith cannot long keep death in view; it has a higher object, blessed be the "living God" who has given it. Resurrection is that which ever fills the vision of faith; and, in the power thereof, it can rise up from before the dead. There is much conveyed in this action of Abraham. We want to understand its meaning much more fully, because we are much too prone to be occupied with death and its consequences. Death is the boundary of Satan's power; but where Satan ends, God begins. Abraham understood this when he rose up and purchased the cave of Machpelah as a sleeping place for Sarah. This was the expression of Abraham's thought in reference to the future. He knew that in the ages to come, God's promise about the land of Canaan would be fulfilled, and he was able to lay the body of Sarah in the tomb, "in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection."

The sons of Heth knew nothing about this. The thoughts which were filling the patriarch's soul were entirely foreign to the uncircumcised children of Heth. To them it seemed a small matter where he buried his dead, but it was by no means a small matter to him. "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." It might, and manifestly did, appear strange to them to make so much ado about a grave; but, "beloved, the world knows us not, even as it knew him not." The finest traits and characteristics of faith are those which are most incomprehensible to the natural man. The Canaanites had no idea of the expectations which were giving character to Abraham's actings on this occasion. They had no idea that he was looking forward to the possession of the land, while he was merely looking for a spot in which, as a dead man, he might wait for God's time, and God's manner, viz., the MORNING OF RESURRECTION. He felt he had no controversy with the children of Heth, and hence he was quite prepared to lay his head in the grave, and allow God to act for him, and with him, and by him.

"These all died in (or according to) faith, (kata pistin,) not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Heb. 11:13) This is a truly exquisite feature in the divine life. Those "witnesses," of whom the apostle is speaking in Heb. 11 not merely lived by faith, but even when they arrived at the close of their career, they proved that the promises of God were as real and satisfying to their souls as when they first started. Now, I believe this purchase of a burying place in the land was an exhibition of the power of faith, not only to live, but to die. 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 did it all by faith. He knew the land was his in prospect, and that in glory his seed should yet possess it, and until then he would be no debtor to those who were yet to be dispossessed.

This is the way of faith, when Isaac was demanded.* And the same overcoming faith we trace in the very next scene, the burial of Sarah. This was the same faith, the faith of a dead and risen man, the faith which had already received Isaac and offered Isaac, now buries Sarah. Abraham believed in resurrection, and in God as the God of resurrection, the God who quickens the dead, and calls those things that be not as though they were. The cave of Machpelah tells us this. "Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, in sure and certain hope," was the language of Abraham's heart there. His purchase of that place, with all his care to make it his own, to have it as his possession, while beyond it he cared not for a single acre of the whole land, tells us of his faith in resurrection. His treaty for it with the children of Heth is like his words to his servants at the foot of mount Moriah, "Abide ye here with the ass, while I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." Each of these things bespoke beforehand what he knew about his Isaac and his Sarah. He committed each of them into the hands of Him who, as he knew, quickens the dead. The corn of wheat dying, as he knew, was to live again. The handful of sacred dust, as he knew, was to be gathered again. Death itself was eyed in like victory of faith, as had already been eyed the fire, and the wood, and the beloved victim on the altar. Gen. 23.

Abraham's faith had received Isaac at the word of the Lord, when his own body was as good as dead. His faith had offered up Isaac, at the word of the Lord, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. Now, in like faith, he buries Sarah in the sure and certain hope of resurrection. In faith he had ascended Mount Moriah to offer up his son. In like faith he now faces the cave of Machpelah to bury his wife. The moment has come when he has to bury his "dead out of sight," but his faith knows that his loved one will come again and have her part in that better, and heavenly, country to which his faith was looking on.

Before the call of Rebekah is recorded, Sarah passes away. How simple and lofty is the whole scene connected with the burial of this holy woman! Abraham, in all the dignity of his bereavement, would secure even in death that separation from the world which their life had maintained. He would not bury his dead in the choicest sepulchre of the men of the land, for faith looks onward to resurrection and the obtaining of an abiding inheritance. The tomb must be purchased, suggestively with the money later on used as a type of redemption. How good it is to remember that the grave is purchased, and so far from being a mere scene of desolation, the trees with their blossoms and fruits, the blessed hopes and assurances of immortality and a glorious resurrection, flourish around it. So too for Israel, for the present buried, there are still the trees of promise growing all around the field of her burial, declaring 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.

In Sarah's death it is not hard to read the passing away of the nation of whom after the flesh Christ came (Rom. 9:5), and their committal to a stranger's tomb, though in the faith of resurrection. Thus Israel makes way for the Church, the bride of the true Isaac.

Although unable to see fully the individual application here, yet Machpelah seems a beautiful testimony. Purchased out of the hands of the sons of Heth (fear) with the silver money (of atonement), it becomes the portion of faith, — a sepulchre, indeed, but with a fruitful field attached, and right opposite Hebron; in view, that is, of "participation" (with Christ). For Christ has been in death, and through death annulled him who had the power of it, that He might deliver those who all their lifetime through fear of death were subject to bondage. (Heb. 2:14-15.) Death thus becomes but conformity to His death. No wonder Jacob should desire to be buried in Machpelah!

The name "Machpelah" means a "doubling," or turning back upon itself, — a hint, as it would seem, of resurrection.

God had revealed Himself to Abraham as the Almighty, and as the God of resurrection, and had assured him that the land wherein he was a stranger — all the land of Canaan — was given to him for an everlasting possession (Gen. 17:8). All was his by promise, though not yet in possession. In the faith of God's promise he was careful to lay the body of Sarah 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 (vv. 2, 19). In the same faith, at a later date, the sons of Isaac bury their father at Hebron, in the land of Canaan (Gen. 35:27-29). So, too, in due time, Jacob, though he dies in Egypt, is buried in faith by his sons in the land of Canaan, in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 50:13). In the like fine faith, Joseph when he came to die, takes an oath of the children of Israel that they shall carry his bones from Egypt to the land of Canaan (Gen. 50:25-26; Ex. 13:19).

The closing command of Jacob to his sons now comes before us, and still we hear the accents of faith. It is worthy of note that his thoughts turned to the original spot that had been bought by Abraham near Mamre. As Rachel had been so special an object of his affection we might have expected that he would have desired to be buried by her side. But no! there was this spot that had been purchased in the land, to faith a kind of pledge that one day God would fulfil His promise and all the land would be theirs. There had been laid Abraham Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Leah and there would he be buried.

First, Jacob dies, and is buried. Again we find him charging, this time all his sons, to bury him with his fathers in Machpelah. Do we not need the impressive reiteration that the promise of life is all untouched by death? The living man sends his dead body in to take possession in hope of his inheritance.

Jacob, maintaining full possession of his senses to the end, calmly gives instruction to his sons to bury him with his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, in the cave of Machpelah that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite (ch.23:16-20). Jacob was thus indicating that he had the same faith as his fathers in the resurrection power of God. He mentions that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and Leah had been buried there. Also, he reminds his sons that the purchase of the cave and the field had been made from the children of Heth, which means "fear." Those unsaved are the children of fear, who, through fear of death, are all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb.2:15).

Certain it is that Abraham's wife is the only woman whose years are carefully noted. To her death and the account of the purchase of a burying place the whole chapter is devoted. "And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. 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" (vers. 1, 2). Faith does not enfeeble affection; it heightens our sense of the havoc sin has wrought. But we sorrow not as others who have no hope, looking for His coming who is the Resurrection and the Life.

Again, we are expressly told in Hebrews 11 that these all (Sarah included) died, not in possession, but in faith. Of this the scripture before us is the most striking witness. Till the burial of Sarah Abraham possessed not so much as to set his foot on. He abides the pilgrim and stranger to the last. He has to buy even for 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 till then. The time of faith is the time of Christ. While He is hidden, believers are hidden also; when He appears, then shall they also appear along with Him in glory.