Death of Sarah

Good morning. We're going to be moving into the passage that Courtney read for us here. And we just have to give you a little bit of a warning about this chapter. It will seem a little strange, not that strange, but strange, unless it'll seem strange unless we recognize something here. Most of the chapter seems to be consumed with this dickering or haggling over the locals, over this place for the body of Sarah to be buried. And it'll seem interesting with this 20 verses, all this back and forth dickering and haggling seems to consume most of the chapter.

Until we realize a few things. And so let's realize those. It may seem non-spiritual. As a matter of fact, God isn't talked about. God doesn't talk to Abraham and Abraham doesn't talk to God in the chapter. So at first glance, you might think, well, why is this in here?

But we'll see as we get into it. In the past, as we've talked about studying various chapters, verses, passages, we've emphasized that we need to look at three things, language, history, and culture. This particular chapter, what's going to make the understanding jump out for us is understanding the culture. There will be things, particularly about the legal environment that Abraham is working in, that will make some things clearer for us. So the culture for this chapter is the key to understanding the passage.

So, why is this spiritual? Is it spiritual? What we're going to see as we go through this chapter, although it looks like there's all this haggling going back and forth and just a few verses saying that Sarah died in Kiriath Arba and was buried there, what we'll see is Abraham was haggling by faith. Are you ready for that?

Haggling by faith, yes. His haggling by faith with these locals here was so that he would have a permanent burial place for his family. Not just for a little while, but for generations to come. And we'll see how long that lasted here as we go through that. He believed what the Lord had said because remember back in Genesis 12, the first three verses. Part of that was a promise, this land that I will show you is the land that will be long, that will be yours and will belong to your descendants. He believed God about that promise and so because of that, negotiating, haggling, if you will, for a permanent burial place was haggling by faith. He wanted a place not just, let's put her here for a while, but a place that would be there for his family and for the next generation and the generations to follow. This was the starting place of this is the land that God promised. Before we step into that, however, we want to get an idea of what was the understanding of an afterlife in Abraham's time among those who believed. Now what's interesting, we're not going to get that information out of this chapter.

The Bible reveals, however, truth progressively. Imagine here in the time of Moses, when Moses pulled together the documents that now make up the book of Genesis that we're studying. We're almost at the halfway point. When he pulled those together, he was pulling together, this was the first book of the Bible. However, as we're going to see, Scripture is a matter of progressive revelation. As time went on, from about 1400 B.C., when Genesis was pulled together from the documents that were present from before, up until the first century A.D., the time of Christ and the apostles, that 15 centuries approximately had a progressive accumulation and revelation of more truth.

So here's Genesis, the first book. It's mostly history and so it's not going to explain things about what did they believe about an afterlife. So here from the book of Genesis we have this historical account but we While we have a limited revelation from Genesis about an afterlife, fortunately we have the book of Job that was written about the same time. So here's Job, some 40 plus chapters, written about the same time as Abraham. And Job, as a matter of fact, has a fair amount to reveal.

We're going to take a quick peek at just a part of it. And this supplement here indicates the things that are on the next couple of slides here, plus this one here that gives some of the brief bits of evidence that say that Abraham and Job lived at the same time. So that's available on the cabinet to the right, right along with the maps that Courtney talked about, right? So if you grab the map, you know, grab this one too.

Okay. Here's Job 19, 25 through 27. This is not on your handout, but follow along with me. As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will take His stand on the earth. even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold and whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me."

So think about what Job 19.25-27 says. Job recognized here God as his Redeemer. Do we not recognize that from Scripture? Here's Job 4,000 years ago, a contemporary with Abraham, seeing that himself. God is my Redeemer. He is the one that redeems me. He saw God as his advocate, not his enemy. The one who was in his favor. And he would take his stand on my behalf.

Next, Job knew that his own physical flesh would decay, but he's not done. He's going to see again. He recognized that he would be given a new body. How's that for 4,000 years ago? You would think, where did he get that? I think the Lord told him. We're not done. In Job seeing again in this new body, he himself would see God, his Redeemer and Advocate. Isn't this amazing stuff? Man, what Job is saying. He's not done.

The thought of this was overwhelming. He says, my heart faints within me, or actually what we have in our Bibles is sort of carried over into our vernacular. The Hebrew actually says, my kidneys fail within me. But the point being, it's overwhelming to me. This is astounding to ponder. This is amazing to think about. My Redeemer lives. He'll take His stand on the earth and with a new body, I'll see Him. So, so much for, you know, Job's understanding of the afterlife. It is amazing, okay?

All right. Maybe as Christians, instead of saying good afternoon, we say good after, no. Never. Good afterlife? No. Maybe not. All right. Sarah died, 127, all right. Nancy's shaking her head. Okay. That didn't work. Everyone's telling these groaners again. Okay.

Sarah died at 127 years old, the passage says there. You can track with us with the verses that are in the upper left there. And that would put Abraham at 137 and Isaac at 37 years old. Remember, these are ages still not long after the time of the flood when the ages that are listed there in Genesis are kind of dropping down to what we would see as a more typical lifetime. Sarah died in this place called Kiriath Arba. Now, you might have recognized if you read through the Old Testament, particularly the first part of it, this word Kiriath keeps showing up again and again. Well, all it means is city of. So, for example, if we were to say city of Denver, it would be Kiriath, Denver. Okay? So that's all it is. So it's city of Arba. That's what it's talking about.

It's also known, and the modern name is still there, Hebron. It's first mentioned back in Genesis 13, 18 there. Here is a map that shows Israel and some of the surrounding area. And Hebron is here between the Dead Sea, as we call it, and the Mediterranean there, roughly halfway. And it's also known at that time as Curiath Arba.

There are archeological remains there that have been found and some of these date from the time of Abraham and before. In this particular one, this wall that you see there on the upper photograph and this, that's actually the floor and the lower walls of a house are from 4,500 years ago. So for Abraham, those had been there for 500 years when he came and did the things in Hebron that were there in this chapter. This, on the upper and on the right side of the stairs, and that other wall were built around 4,000 years ago, so that was new in Abraham's time.

Okay? Now, so here's Abraham, and he mourned and wept for her. Certainly that was the custom, and the custom was to start weeping and wailing loudly. Let everybody know you've had a death. But it's also what you'd expect. They had been married for over 62 years. She had borne an heir by a miracle of the Lord, as exactly as God had promised. You have this chart that we've been tracking. It's also on page one of your handout here. We're at Abraham's age of 137. Sarah dies. So here we are in Genesis 23. We've got two more chapters until Abraham's death at 175. So, now we step into the account here. Let the haggling begin. Are you ready? Okay.

Typically we think of haggling as, I'm going to get the best price. Either best because I'm buying and that's low or best because I'm selling and that's high. And it's all about the money you pay. That's what we usually think of when we think of haggling.

This is different. And it's not even marketplace haggling where you're in the marketplace arguing over some, you know, piece of goods. We're going to find it has a very different character to it. It's haggling, but it's quite different and it has a different goal because Abraham is not trying to get the best price. As a matter of fact, he wants to pay full price. Now this is going to seem strange. So it's nothing like the haggling that we may be accustomed to. Or maybe you're not accustomed to it. That's all right.

Abraham got up from mourning his wife and asked the sons of Heth to give him a burial site for his wife. He was not in an ideal bargaining position. An ideal bargaining position is you don't really need it and you've got lots of time. He really needed it and he didn't have any time. So really lousy bargaining position. He needed to have it real soon. This body needs to get underneath the ground and be taken care of.

He told them, I am a stranger and a sojourner. Why would he do that? He didn't have any land, and he just started right out. I'm a stranger and a sojourner. That's my position. But he had been around there so that they knew him, or at least somewhat familiar with him.

He said, give me the land. And the word there, forgive, doesn't mean automatically free. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what he didn't want, is free. It means, I need to receive it, is what it's talking about, and it includes the idea that you would pay some money. So, now we come to the first round, okay, of the haggling. Okay, here we go.

Now, the first thing you'll see in this passage, I think it's something like eight times, is this phrase, sons of Heth, okay? And so this phrase, sons of Heth, It's like pointed to twice, right? That is the phrase that he uses for the elders of the city. That is, the elders of the city were gathered together. So he wasn't speaking to a person until later on in the conversation, but he was speaking to this group of elders. And they're continuously called in this chapter about eight times, the sons of Heth. That's the elders of the city, okay?

The elders would typically, in the custom of the time, meet at the city's main gate and they would be there throughout the course of a typical day, gathering for decisions and to witness various things. So they'd be at the main gate. That was often the place where various kinds of transactions took place, even dealing with criminal matters and legal issues.

They told him, Abraham, you can have any place you want. Choose the best one. We've got no limitations. So this was quite an offer and the reason is because there were laws in place to prevent foreigners from buying land. And so for him to go through this hoop to jump this hurdle was actually an important step. So the elders granted him special status to get around the laws that prevented foreigners from owning any property and getting hold of any property. So he got permission, the one way he could get an exception here, he got permission from them. And so he spoke to these elders, the sons of Heth. They called him a mighty prince, which was a title that granted him special exemption from the prohibition. You can't buy any land here because you're a foreigner, okay?

So that was really a great thing to get past that first hoop. There's the first round. One of the things you're going to notice, it shows up here in these early verses and it shows up again later. is you're going to hear, hear us, hear me, listen to me, all those kinds of things again and again. And you're saying, what's the matter? These guys deaf? But no, the problem is not that. It's not a hearing problem. What it is, is it is a pattern that shows up verse 6 here. We're going to see it again in verses 8 and 11.

It was legal jargon. And it says, what I'm telling you is a part of a legal transaction. Okay? So that's why it was used, and that's why you see it repeated. And so they would gather at the gate, and if they wanted to make sure that what was happening wasn't just, hey, I'm just yakking with you, but this is a legal transaction, they would say, hear me.

Hear us. Listen to me. Okay? And so you see, if you'll only please listen to me. Abraham wasn't saying, won't you guys listen because you're not. He was simply continuing on with the legal jargon. And then again in verse 15, listen to me. Listen and hear are both the same words. And translated here earlier, and that's shema. So if you want to talk to somebody here at Holly Hills, you've got to first walk up to them and say shema. Nah, forget that. Round two. Alright. Our squirrel's still standing.

Abraham then asked the elders to approach Ephron, son of Zohar, for him, to give him, remember this word give here doesn't mean free, to give him the cave of Machpelah, which he owned, which was at the end of the field. So there's a particular piece of property Abraham's got in mind. And it's got a cave at the end. He says, I can do my burying there.

That'll be just right. So he requested, how about this? Here's haggling. I want to pay full price. What? What kind of haggling is this? Okay. He wanted to pay full price to Ephraim. So he did this in the presence of the elders with all this language. Hear me. Okay. Shema. Ephron, the son of Zohar, it happens, was right there. Right there among the elders. So this could happen quickly. Round three. Okay. Round three.

Ephron, the son of Zohar, offered to Abraham, simply have the land for free. What did Abraham ask? I want to pay full price. Now, so here's Ephron. He says, ah, he can have it for free. Free. That sounds good, doesn't it? Abraham says, no, not for free. I don't want that. Why would he say not for free? Well, believe it or not, there's a reason. The reason is this. If a foreigner was given land for free, it could be taken back at any time. He didn't want that.

He wanted to make sure that, no, this is land where I'm going to bury my wife and my family can use it and it's going to be there for centuries. Why? Because Abraham was thinking, I believe God and this land is the land that God's going to give me and I want to get it permanently. Abraham insisted on paying full price. and he would not receive the land as a gift.

I don't want it for free. I must pay a lot. How's that for haggling? Now he's going to close the deal. Well, of course, Ephron is exasperated. He can't believe this guy is actually going to want to pay for this thing. So Ephron, the son of Zohar, agreed to sell the cave for the 400 shekels of silver.

And in those days, they didn't have silver coins. Those weren't invented until a thousand or more years later. So they didn't have silver coins, so they had to weigh it out, okay? And so no coinage, probably just lumps of silver. They need to go and weigh each one out because there's no coins.

The amount was weighed out right then in front of the elders of the city. Again, this is one of those, you know, hear me, listen to me, all those things. Everything's legal right in front of the elders. Here we're going to weigh it all out. Everything is covered. Why? He doesn't want this thing to have any hiccups because this property is going to stay in the family, okay, because he believes God. So they weigh this out right in front of the elders there.

Remember the elders of the city, sons of Heth. Now, Ephron also used this between me and you, and it sounds like, you know, what's 400 shekels between you and me? It's almost like a big deal, you know? But actually, between me and you is legal terminology, okay? And you use it in the contract to indicate that this is a legal contract, okay? So he's making sure everything is legal as he gets the idea.

Abraham doesn't want this thing to fall through. He doesn't want this thing to slip back or hiccup, okay? So the 400 shekels was a price gouge. It was a horrific price to pay. Abraham insisted on it. He says, I don't want anything come back on me that this thing goes backwards. Abraham was willing to pay it. I'll pay it the full price, wherever you ask.

So it was deeded over and we have here verses 17, 18, and 20, all legal deed language, typical of the day, kind of thing that would be used in legal descriptions and deeds, descriptions of property, etc. Abraham had done everything legal and made sure that the land remained his and remained in his family, never to be taken back.

What was recorded here, however, was not just legalese, okay? It wasn't just dotting the T's and crossing your I's. Okay. But it was instead making sure that everything was covered legally. Some of you are a little slow on that. Anyway, making sure you're covered legally so that the property actually gets carried over to Abraham and doesn't get taken back at all. Okay? It was a spiritual transaction, even though God's name wasn't mentioned, even though God didn't tell him anything, and he didn't tell anything to God that's recorded anyway. It was a transaction by faith, because Abraham believed God.

Genesis 23, 19 says simply that Sarah was buried there. Very simple. I'm kind of amazed, but it's really quite simple. Sarah was buried here in this cave of Machpelah, but this purchase of land began the fulfillment of God's promise, the fulfillment of God's promise that the land would belong to Abraham and his descendants.

As a matter of fact, as we go through the book of Genesis, we're going to find out these things. Not only, as we see in this chapter, is Sarah buried there. Abraham was buried there, chapter 25. Isaac and Rebekah, his wife Leah. the wife of Jacob, also married there, chapter 49, and later Jacob himself, the very last chapter, we'll see buried at the same place, in the same set of caves, okay?

Here is a kind of an oblique aerial view of Hebron, the old city, and so you kind of get a view of this, building, although it's been added on to at different stages, was built by Herod the Great, the same one who ordered the troops to go down to Bethlehem during the time of Christ when Joseph and Mary had just escaped.

He also had paid to have the temple, well, he didn't pay it, but he ordered the temple rebuilt and everybody else paid it, right? By the way, he also funded the 12 BC Olympics, for what that's worth. But he paid for this, okay? He paid for this and its original construction to be put over that cave of Machpelah.

And what's real interesting, Jews are, their access to this area is very limited. But this is the entrance to the cave. And as you can probably tell from it, a normal sized person can't fit through that opening, even if it's unlocked. So, about 1967, some Jews made some special, I'll say, clandestine arrangements, and they lowered a 12-year-old girl down that opening, and she went back and explored things back in there. But there was a rock blocking off the entrance where the bodies were buried, but there's still quite a few other interesting things back there. Anyway, we don't have time for all that.

Okay. Sarah. What did Abraham see in her? Why was it so important that he deal with this? Think about this. How would Abraham have viewed Sarah? Imagine how he came to view Sarah. She had been this miracle mom, giving birth at a, I'll call it a humorous age, to Abraham's one true God-appointed heir. Isaac.

From that one true God-appointed heir would come descendants numerous as the sand of the seashore." The Jewish people now number something, and this is a rough figure, 5% maybe of the earth's population, and yet one in five Nobel Prize winners are Jewish. Phenomenal. Amazing that the Lord has maintained them over the centuries. And yet it's true to the Lord's promise.

You see, Abraham haggled, not for the best price he could get, but for the purchase arrangement that was based on faith. I'll pay the maximum. Please. I insist. Because it's based on faith. Faith that God's promise, this land will be yours, was true. He didn't need something temporary because it was just passing through and this place didn't matter. No, this place does matter. And I believe God. You see, here's an amazing thing.

Faith will have us see things that others don't see. Faith will have us do things that seem ridiculous to other people. Here's Abraham coming up to the city fathers and insisting, I must pay full price. Free? I won't hear of it. Faith has us doing crazy things in a way from the world standpoint.

You ever think about that? Oh, my hope? My hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. You ever seen Him? No. My eternity? I'm counting everything on that. Have you ever seen it? No. But I count on Him more than everything I can see. Sounds a little nuts, doesn't it? Isn't that great?

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. By faith, Abraham. And Hebrews 11 records several things there. In verse 27, seeing Him who is unseen. Doing things by faith that the world doesn't even comprehend. That the world says, well, that doesn't even make sense. Alright, that's fine. Seeing what the world can't see by faith.

One of the things that we haven't touched on and the chapter doesn't touch on, I'll venture into it bravely here. Alright, here's Sarah. She died. Everyone see Sarah again? Yeah. One of the things that Scripture spells out, I don't go into the details here, but what could happen at any moment is the church is taken up. Any moment. We may not finish today.

Then scripture lays out a seven-year tribulation period after which the Lord comes, and that could be seven years from now, that close, that soon. He will come with angels, Old Testament saints, including Sarah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and tribulation saints, those who are not believers today. Could be coming with us seven years from now or that soon. And church saints, that's us, we who believe now. All coming to reign with Christ for a thousand years. That's the picture.

Yes, we will see Sarah again. The chapter doesn't say so. But the rest, remember we said scripture is progressive revelation? The rest of scripture makes it abundantly clear. So here's the cool thing. We look at this. Here's all about Sarah being buried and about Abraham's faith. But by faith, by faith, we look forward to that moment, and I hope it's now, I hope it's today, when the Lord takes us home. As we studied in the elective that met right here before, the Father will tell the Son, go get your bride. Go get your bride. And that will be the day. I hope it's today. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this chapter, as we look at this passage, what an amazing thing faith is. Faith has us doing things that count upon what you have said and count upon your character, even when the world doesn't understand any of it. even when the world looks at it and says, well, that doesn't make any sense at all. And Lord, faith has us doing things here on this planet, things here, things now, things that count, that still depend upon faith in You and faith in what You've said and faith in what You've promised. And Lord, we look to You to teach us more and more about faith, because that's what it means to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we look to you to teach us.

We look to you to draw our hearts, Lord, to have a hope that is fixed on you, that has a heart. We look for a heart that says today. I hope it's today. Maybe even before we go home. We just give you thanks. We give you praise. We thank you for the hope that we have and for what we can see through the eyes of faith. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.