Genesis 23:7

_AND ABRAHAM STOOD UP, AND BOWED HIMSELF TO THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND, EVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF HETH._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

7._And Abraham stood up_. He declines the favor offered by the Hittites, as, some suppose, with this design, that he might not lay himself under obligation to them in so small a matter. But he rather wished to show, in this way, that he would receive no gratuitous possession from those inhabitants who were to be ejected by the hand of Gods in order that he might succeed in their place: for he always kept all his thoughts fixed on God, so that he far preferred His bare promise, to present dominion over the land. Moses also commends the modesty of the holy man, when he says that he ‘rose up to do reverence to the people of the land.’ (454) As to the use of the word signifying ‘to adore,’ it is simply taken for the reverence, which any one declares, either by bowing the knee, or any other gesture of the body. This may be paid to men, as well as to God, but for a different end; men mutually...

1-13 The longest life must shortly come to a close. Blessed be God that there is a world where sin, death, vanity, and vexation cannot enter. Blessed be his name, that even death cannot part believers from union with Christ. Those whom we most love, yea, even our own bodies, which we so care for, must soon become loathsome lumps of clays, and be buried out of sight. How loose then should we be to all earthly attachments and adornments! Let us seek rather that our souls be adorned with heavenly graces. Abraham rendered honour and respect to the princes of Heth, although of the ungodly Canaanites. The religion of the Bible enjoins to pay due respect to all in authority, without flattering their persons, or countenancing their crimes if they are unworthy characters. And the noble generosity of these Canaanites shames and condemns the closeness, selfishness, and ill-humour of many that call...

- The Death of Sarah 2. ארבע קרית _qı̂ryat_-_'arba‛_, “Qirjath-arba‘, city of Arba.” ארבע _'arba‛_, “Arba‘, four.” 8. עפרון _‛__eprôn_, “‘Ephron, of the dust, or resembling a calf.” צחר _tshochar_, “Tsochar, whiteness.” 9. מכפלה _makpêlâh_, “Makpelah, doubled.” The death and burial of Sarah are here recorded. This occasions the purchase of the field of Makpelah, in the cave of which is her sepulchre. Genesis 23:1 Sarah is the only woman whose age is reco

EXPOSITION GENESIS 23:1 AND SARAH WAS AN HUNDRED AND SEVEN AND TWENTY YEARS OLD (literally, and _the lives of Sarah were an hundred and twenty and seven years_);_ _so that Isaac must have been thirty-seven, having been born in his mother's ninetieth year. Sarah, as the wife of Abraham and the mother of believers (Isaiah 51:2; 1 Peter 3:6), is the only woman whose age is mentioned in Scripture. THESE WERE THE YEARS OF THE LIFE OF SARAH—an emphatic repetition designed to impress the Israelitish mind with the importance of remembering the age of their ancestress....

AND ABRAHAM STOOD UP,.... For, having made his speech to the children of Heth, he sat down waiting for an answer; or rather perhaps they obliged him to sit down, out of reverence to so great a personage; and when they had done speaking, he rose up: AND BOWED HIMSELF TO THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND; the principal of them, in token of the grateful sense he had of the honour they had done him, and of the great civility with which they had used him: [EVEN] TO THE CHILDREN OF HETH; this seems to be added to distinguish them from the common people, and as an explanation of the preceding clause; Genesis 23:3....

CHAPTER 23 THE DEATH OF SARAH _ 1. Sarah dies (Genesis 23:1)_ 2. The grave obtained (Genesis 23:3) 3. The burial of Sarah (Genesis 23:19) We call the attention to the typical meaning of the death of Sarah. She is the type of the nation Israel and her death in this chapter signifies the death of Israel, nationally. This must be brought in connection with the previous chapter. There we learned that Isaac was upon the altar and taken from it. This is typical of the death and resurrection of the true Isaac, the Promised One, the Lord Jesus Christ. Immediately after, Sarah dies, the one from whom Isaac came. And so after the Lord Jesus Christ had died and was raised from the dead, the n

GENESIS 23. ABRAHAM PURCHASES THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH AS A BURYING-PLACE OF SARAH. This chapter belongs to P, as is shown by its legal precision and the wordiness of its style, by numerous characteristic expressions, and by the later references in P (Genesis 25:9 f., Genesis 49:29; Genesis 50:13). It shows how Abraham acquired property by purchase in Canaan, an earnest of ultimate _possession of_ the whole, and perhaps inculcates by his example the duty of acquiring a family grave, to which importance was attached. Gunkel thinks that the story is old, and its original form was designed to emphasize that the sanctuary at Machpeiah belonged, not to the Canaanites who claimed it, but to Israel, since Abraham had purchas

_bowed himself_ Abraham's humble demeanour towards the people of the land doubtless conforms to the elaborate usages of Oriental bargaining. But it is also probably here emphatically recorded as indicating Abraham's loneliness among the people of the land, and, therefore, in ironical contrast with the time when his descendants would conquer the Canaanites and possess their country. _the people of the land_ Cf. Genesis 42:6 (P). This is the phrase, _"am ha-âreṣ_, so common in post-exilic literature for "the heathen": compare "peoples of the land," Ezra 10:2; Ezra 10:11; Nehemiah 10:28;...

PART THIRTY-FIVE THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: HIS PROVISIONS FOR POSTERITY Genesis 23:1 to Genesis 25:18 1. _Provision of a Burial Place_ (Genesis 23:1-20) 1 And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years: these were the years of the life of Sarah. 2 And Sarah died in Kiriatharba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. 3 And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spake unto the children of Heth, saying, 4 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. 5 And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, 6 Hear us, my lord