11. THE DEATH OF SARAH.
Sarah,—who, as we have seen, accompanied Abraham and Isaac part of the way to Moriah,—on her return to the tent, found an old man awaiting her. It was Satan.
He greeted her with profound respect, and asked after her husband and son.
She answered that they had gone forth on a journey.
“Whither have they gone?” asked Satan.
“My lord has gone to visit the school of Shem and Eber, our grandsires, there to leave my son Isaac to be instructed in the law of God.”
“Alas! alas!” exclaimed the Apostate Angel; “thou art greatly deceived.”
Sarah was alarmed; and she asked wherefore he spake thus.
“Know then,” said Satan, “that Abraham has gone forth with Isaac to sacrifice him, upon a mountain, to the Most High.”
When she heard this, Sarah laid her head on the bosom of a slave, and fainted. When she came to herself she hurried with her maidens to the school of Shem and Eber, and inquired after her husband and son, but they had neither seen nor heard anything of them. So Sarah was convinced that what had been told her was true, and there was no spirit left in her.
Now when Satan knew that Abraham was bringing back his son, and that God had accepted the will for the deed, he was moved with envy and spite, and he could not rest to think of the joy that this would cause; so he went hastily to Sarah, and she was weeping in her tent, and sorely cast down and broken in spirit. Then he said suddenly to her, “Thy son liveth and is returning. God hath spared him!”
And she rose up and uttered a cry, and fell, and was dead; for the joy had killed her.
Abraham and Isaac in the meantime had returned from Moriah, and they sought Sarah at Beer-sheba, but she was not there; therefore they went to Hebron, and there they found her corpse. Isaac fell weeping upon the face of his mother, and he cried, “Mother, mother! why hast thou forsaken me? why hast thou gone away?”
Abraham wept aloud, and all the dwellers in Hebron wept and lamented over Sarah, and ceased from their labours, that they might mourn with Abraham and Isaac. Sarah’s age was one hundred and seven-and-twenty years, and she was as fair to look upon when she died as in the bloom of her youth.
And as Abraham was bowed over the body of his wife, he heard the laugh of the Angel of Death, and his words, “Wherefore weepest thou? Thou bearest the blame of her death. Hadst thou not taken her son from her, she would have been alive now.”
Abraham sought a place where to bury her; and he went to the Hittites and asked them to suffer him to buy for his possession a parcel of land, where he might bury one dead body. But they said, “Nay, we will give thee land;” but he would not. So they said, “Choose now a place where thou wouldst have thy sepulchre, and we will entreat the owner for thee.”
Then Abraham said, “I desire the double cave of Ephron the son of Zohar. If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath; for as much money as is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a burying-place amongst you.”
And this was the reason why Abraham desired that cave. When he had gone after the calf, to slay it for the three angels that came to him before the destruction of Sodom, the calf had fled from him, and he had pursued it into this cave; and on entering it, he found that it was roomy, and in the inner recesses he saw the bodies of Adam and Eve laid out with burning tapers around them, and the air was fragrant with incense.
The Hittites elected Emor their chief that he might deal with Abraham, for it did not become a chief and prince, like Abraham, to deal with an inferior; and Emor said in the audience of the people of the land, “My Lord, hear me; the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee; bury thy dead.”
But this he said with craft, for he sought to take an advantage of Abraham.[[336]]
Then Ephron said, “Put thine own price upon the land;” but this Abraham would not do.
Then Ephron said to Abraham, “My lord, hearken unto me; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead.”
Now the land was not worth half that sum, but Emor said in his heart, “Abraham can afford to pay it, and he is in haste to bury his dead out of his sight.”
Nevertheless, Abraham paid him in the sight of all his people. And the transfer of the land and cave was signed by Amigal, son of Abischna the Hittite; Elichoran, son of Essunass, the Hivite; Abdon, son of Ahirah, the Gomorrhite; and Akdil, son of Abdis, the Sidonian.
Machpelah (double cave) was so called, because, say some, it contained two chambers; or, say others, because Abraham paid double its value; or, say others, because it became doubly holy; but others again observe, with the highest probability, because Adam’s body had to be doubled up to get it into the cave.
Because the Hittites dealt honourably, and sought to procure a place for Abraham, where he might lay Sarah, their name is written ten times in the Holy Scriptures.
They took also an oath of Abraham, that he and his seed should never attack their city Jebus with violence; and they wrote his promise on brazen pillars, and set them up in the market-place of Jebus. Therefore, when the Israelites conquered Canaan, they left the Jebusites unmolested.[[337]] But when David sought to take the stronghold of Jebus,[[338]] its inhabitants said to him, “Thou canst not storm our city, because of the covenant of Abraham, which is engraven on these pillars of brass.”
David removed these brazen pillars, for they were in time honoured as idols; therefore the inhabitants of Jebus were hated of David’s soul;[[339]] but he did not break the covenant of Abraham, for he obtained the city of Jebus, not by force of arms, but by purchase.[[340]]
Sarah was buried with the utmost honour; Shem (Melchizedek), his grandson Eber, Abimelech, Aner, Eshcol and Mamre, together with all the great men of the land, followed the bier. Abraham caused a great mourning throughout the country to be made for seven days. After that, Abraham returned to Beer-sheba, and Isaac went to be instructed in the law by Melchizedek. A year after, died Abimelech, king of Gerar, and Abraham attended his funeral. Soon after, also, died Nahor, Abraham’s brother.