Sarah's Burial and Isaac's Marriage

Sarah dies at 127 in Hebron, and Abraham comes "to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." Then he rises and goes to the sons of Heth, the people of the land: "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace."

What follows is a careful, courteous negotiation at the city gate. The Hittites offer him their best tombs for free. Abraham insists on paying for the cave of Machpelah, owned by Ephron. Ephron, with exquisite politeness, names his price: "the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee?" Abraham weighs out the silver "current money with the merchant," and the field, the cave, and every tree in it are made over to him before witnesses. The man promised the whole land now owns one grave.

Abraham, "old, and well stricken in age," makes his chief servant swear to find Isaac a wife from his own kindred, not from the Canaanites, and never to take Isaac back there. The servant sets out with ten camels for Aram-naharaim, "the city of Nahor."

At the well at evening, when the women come to draw water, he prays for a sign: let the young woman who offers water to me and my camels be the one. Before he finishes, Rebekah comes out with her jar. She gives him a drink and then runs again and again to water all ten camels. He gives her a gold nose ring and bracelets and learns she is the granddaughter of Abraham's brother Nahor. He bows and worships.

Her brother Laban welcomes him. The servant tells the whole story, and the family agrees, but wants her to stay ten days. They ask Rebekah herself: "Wilt thou go with this man?" "I will go." Like Abraham before her, she leaves her country and her father's house. Isaac is walking in the field at evening when he sees the camels coming. He brings her into his mother's tent, "and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death."

The Cave of the Patriarchs

In Hebron today stands a massive stone enclosure over the traditional cave of Machpelah. Its walls are built in the style of Herod the Great (late 1st century BC), with huge finely dressed stones. Later it held a Byzantine church, then a mosque (the Ibrahimi Mosque), and it remains holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. In 2017 UNESCO inscribed Hebron's Old Town, including the site, as a World Heritage Site. The caves beneath have been entered only a few times in modern history.

The enclosure shows that the burial tradition was firmly established and honored by the Second Temple period. It cannot, by itself, prove who was first buried in the cave.

Buying land at the gate

Ancient business was done at the city gate before witnesses, as in Ruth 4. Genesis 23 lists the boundaries, trees and price, like a deed. Scholars have compared it with Hittite laws and with Neo-Babylonian "dialogue documents" of the first millennium BC; the comparisons point in different directions for dating, but they confirm that the chapter reflects real legal practice.

The camels

The servant's ten camels have become a famous historical question. Tel Aviv University archaeologists found that domesticated camels appear in the copper mines of the Aravah valley only in the late 10th century BC. Camels were known earlier, and a few earlier finds may show limited domestic use, but camel caravans are clearly attested later than Abraham's traditional date.

Two views of the camels