Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sources

by S. Baring-Gould

“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.