THE DEATH OF SARAH Sarah, as a wife, represents the flesh in relation to the soul. She as a companion to her man in his spiritual strife, does not represent a burden that would hinder his growth, but a helper to support him all the days of his life; setting forth with him from ‘Ur’ of the Chaldeans to live the life of a stranger; sharing with him hospitality to guests, listening and responding to him; she rather represents the flesh, that being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, does not hinder the soul in its setting forth toward heaven, but supports it through living practices, from prayer, to fasting, to worshipping, etc. Now Sarah is dead, to be buried by her man Abraham in the hope of resurrection. 1- The death of Sarah 1-2. 2- Purchasing the cave of Machpelah 3-20. 1- THE DEATH OF SARAH Abraham returned together with Isaac, alive and as though risen from the dead. Abraham believing in God, capable of raising from the dead, got, in his son, the confirmation of the divine promise, with an oath, that his descendants would be like the stars of heaven. Yet, death had to come to that blessed family, to snatch the body of Sarah, leaving Abraham’s heart and descendants attached to God, who is capable of raising the soul together with the body. It is worth noting that the Scripture cared to mention the age of Sarah when she died, and the details of purchasing a property for a burial place, to have her buried in the land of Canaan, saying: “Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. So Sarah died in Kirjath Arba (that is Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her” (Gen. 23:1-2). Sarah lived 127 fruitful years, although in her first 90 years, she was barren, but by faith, she was called the “mother of believers” (Isaiah 51:2); sharing with her man Abraham, the “father of believers” all the years of his strife, carrying with him the hardships and receiving with him the divine promises. She walked with the spirit of obedience, so that the apostle Peter asked the women believers to follow her example, saying: “As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and not afraid with any terror” (1 Peter 3:6). It seems that Abraham was not in his tent when Sarah died, and as he heard the sad news, he stood before her recalling the long years they have been together. She was the last one of his household who departed with him from Ur of the Chaldeans to live with him wherever he chose. He stood before her to get in touch with the companion of his life, in great grief. That was the first time to hear that Abraham, the old and respectable man, wept or grieved. We did not hear that he wept as he left his folks back in Ur of the Chaldeans, when Lot was captivated, nor as he set forth for three days to slay his son; yet he is now standing before Sarah weeping and grieving. If Abraham’s faith raised him above events; as by faith he fought the kings to set his nephew Lot free; and by faith he took his son Isaac to the land of Moriah to slay him; Yet that faith does not contradict the human tender feelings that drove the fountains of tears before the body of Sarah! Faith does not deprive us from emotions, but sanctifies them and makes them grow. That is what we see in Abraham our father, the man of faith, and what we know about the apostles and disciples; and even in the 4 Lord Christ Himself, who could not help weeping as he saw the tears of Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died; that the Jews said: “See how He loved him!” (John 11:35-36). The epistles of the apostle Paul came loaded with holy human emotions: we see him several times recalling how his disciple Timothy wept for the departure or imprisonment of his mentor (2 Timothy 1:3-4). 2- THE PURCHASE OF THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH In these bitter moments when Abraham profusely wept proclaiming his feelings toward Sarah, he behaved with faith and wisdom, as for instance: (1) He did not think to bury his wife in the land of his ancestors; If he, by faith departed with Sarah from Ur of the Chaldeans, he persisted on that faith until his last breath. Instead of taking the body of Sarah back to the land of his ancestors, he purchased a cave in Canaan to bury her, and to be his future burial place, and that of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Lea. (2) “And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying: ‘I am a foreigner and a sojourner among you. Give me a property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.’ And the sons of Heth answered Abraham saying to him; ‘Hear us my Lord. You are a mighty prince among us; bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold from you his burial place, that you may bury your dead.’ Then Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, the sons of Heth” (Gen. 23:3-7). The Scripture demonstrates Abraham’s humility. So while the sons of Heth look at him as a ‘mighty prince’ from the Lord among them, yet he calls himself a ‘foreigner and sojourner’ among them. In appreciation of their love and generosity, he bowed himself to them. The children of God are indeed recognized, not by their love of authority and self esteem, but by the spirit of love, meekness, and humility; according to the words, “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14); not the hill of haughtiness, but that of God, set and established upon the Lord Christ Himself, the Grantor of humility! Abraham lived for a long time among the ‘Hittites,’ the people of Heth, descendants of Heth son of Canaan (Gen. 10:15). They looked at him as a mighty prince from the Lord among them, not that they gave him an official leading status, but through feeling submission to him, because of what he enjoyed of fellowship with God. As for him, he kept on feeling in the depths of his heart, that he was a foreigner and a sojourner, something that surfaced up when Sarah died. By this spirit, the true children of Abraham lived, that the prophet David, in his last days, as he set everything for his son Solomon to build the temple: “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before you, as were all our fathers. Our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope” (1 Chronicles 29:14-15). The apostle Paul summarizes the life of the men of faith, the children of Abraham, saying: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). (3) The sons of Heth were so deeply moved by that old man who lost his wife, that they proclaimed their love and respect for him by putting at his disposition the best burial lot from their burial place. Yet he, as St. John Chrysostom says, [did not misuse that love, but in integrity of heart, begged them to let the owner of the cave 5 accept the price1.] I wish every servant and minister of God in the Church, when he sees how the congregation is eager to give love, does not misuse this love, but, in integrity of heart, and in innocence of hand, covet nothing! (4) St. Irenaeus commented on the thought of faith, lived by our father Abraham, and strongly proclaimed by refusing to accept the cave as a free gift from anybody, in patient anticipation for his descendants to receive the whole land - the land of promise - from the hand of God, he said: [The promise of God remained steadfast, saying to him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are - northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever” (Gen. 13:14-15). And he also said: “Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you” (Gen. 13:17). However, “God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on” (Acts 7:5). He stayed a foreigner and sojourner all his days. And when his wife Sarah died, as the sons of Heth wanted to give him a burial place for free, he refused to take it as a gift, but paid 400 silver Shekels for the cave owned by Ephron the Hittite. He, thus, patiently anticipated the realization of God’s promise, and refused to accept from anybody something that God promised to give him, when He said to him: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18). So, if he was promised by God to inherit the land, yet did not get it during his days, he will surely do, in the resurrection of the righteous, he and his descendants, namely, the believers and those who fear God. Those descendants are the Church that enjoyed sonship to God in the Lord; according to the words of St. John the Baptist: “God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones” (Matthew 3:9). So, the apostle also says in his epistle to the Galatians: “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise” (Galatians 4:28). In the same epistle, he clearly proclaims, that those who believed in Christ, receive Christ as being the promise given to Abraham, saying: “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘and to seeds,’ as of many, but as of One, ‘and to your Seed,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Thus, then, those who are of faith are blessed together with Abraham the faithful, the children of Abraham2.] (5) St. Basil the Great, believes that Abraham, as a man of faith, did not own a thing. All he owned, in all his life, was a place of burial for himself, his wife, and his children. As though proclaiming that all he demands of land, is no more than what is wide enough for his dead body, in anticipation of the resurrection from the dead! (6) Abraham purchased the burial cave with silver; so if silver refers to the word of God (Psalm 12:6), he thus insists to have no possession on earth, except what is to be purchased by the word of God. Finally, the cave of Machpelah, is a double cave, consisting of an inner an outer compartments, in the city of Hebron, owned by Ephron the Hittite, whom Abraham did not seem to know, as is obvious from the context of talk between Abraham and the sons of Heth (Gen. 23:13). Ephron, however knew who Abraham was, and was keen on giving the cave, and the field around it, to him as a free gift (Gen. 23:11). 1 In 1 Cor. hom 35:10. 2 Adv. Haer. 32.
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