Genesis 23:1-4 KJV
1 And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.
2 And Sarah died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
3 And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying,
4 I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.
Hey, men, glory to God. Welcome to program. Welcome to cafe pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV cafe So glad you're joining me here today You're new to the program. We're simply a daily Bible study 15 minutes long going from Genesis to Revelation in Podcast format. We're also on YouTube social media, etc Hey We're gonna tackle the whole chapter here of Genesis very rare for this program of Genesis 23 I think there's one or two other times we've done this, but we're gonna tackle the whole chapter in about three four or five parts I'll say four the Lord knows, you know, so Lord willing and the reason why is this chapter really is all about Sarah dying and where she's buried, right? That's it. I mean There's some historical context to this chapter and there's some themes that we can get out of this chapter And one of my favorite ones is just that God is real and like you can go to where she was buried today It's still there. You can see pictures online. So we're gonna dive into all of that today and for the next few days and then we're gonna move on to Genesis 24 and That is I believe where yes Isaac is Going to have a wife. Okay, so Moving right along and you know, I thought I was old when I got married. I got married In 2013 I was 33 at the time and so and you know, that's not that old up north But down south. That's that's pretty old. We'll get married young here and yet Isaac is 37 when Sarah dies and so if we take this in Chronological fashion in the sense that this is 23 and in the 24 He's gonna end up meeting his wife eventually. We see that hey, he was he was getting up in age. So For as we could tell She didn't get to meet his wife and also I believe in Genesis Later on 24 25 there and Sarah says that his wife Rebecca comforted him from the loss of his mother. So It's gonna be hard, you know, anytime someone loses their mom Their wife and so forth and we really see that outlined here. So what I'll do is I'll read all 20 verses of Genesis 23 And then we'll start diving in here and focusing on some of these themes Genesis 23 verse 1 and Sarah was a hundred and seven and 20 years old. So that would be a hundred and 27 These were the years of the life of Sarah and Sarah died in courgette Abba the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan and Abram came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her and Abram stood up from before his dad and spake unto the sons of half saying I am a stranger and a sojourner with you Give me a possession of a burying place with you that I may bury my dad out of my sight and the children of half Answered Abraham saying unto him hear us my Lord. Thou art a mighty prince among us in the choice of our Sepulchres buried I dead none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre But that thou mayest bury thy dead and Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land Even to the children of heath and he communed with them saying if it be your mind that I should bury my dad out of my sight Hear me and entreat from me to ephron the son of Zohar Then he may give me the cave of Macpilea which he hath which is in the end of his field For as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for possession of a burying place among you an Ephron dwelt among the children of heath and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heath even of all that went in at the gate of his city saying Nay my Lord hear me the field give I thee 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 and Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land and he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the Land saying but if thou will give it I pray thee hear me I will give thee money for the field take it of me and I will bury my dead there and Ephron answered Abraham saying unto him my lord hearken unto me the land is worth 400 shekels of silver What is that betwixt me and thee bury therefore thy dead and Abraham hearken unto Ephron and Abraham Way to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of heath 400 shekels of silver current money with the merchant and the field of Ephron which was in Macpilea Which was before memory the field and the cave which was therein and all the trees that were in the field That were in all the borders round about were made sure Under Abraham for possession in the presence of the children of heath before all that went in at the gate of a city and After this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Macpilea before Mamrie the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan and the field and the cave that is therein were made sure Under Abraham for possession of a burying place by the sons of heath Okay, it was made sure what we'll do is we'll take a break and we'll talk about that idea of being made sure we come back So stay tuned Hey, it's break time around here. Thank you for listening to KJV cafe If you haven't already visit kjv cafe.com for more information Okay, so if we look thematically at this chapter it really is about Sarah dying at 127 what a long life and about Abraham making sure Making a public purchase having more than one or two witnesses That this is the tomb. He insisted on paying and of course There's not the only time you think of King David paying there for the Threshing floor is it the threshing floor of Ornan, right King David paid for that he insisted he said I've got to pay for this, right? and there's a lot of Depth to that, but for time's sake we're focusing on this Abraham insists. He says look I got to pay for this Who is Abraham? obviously well known among the people Storied among the people blessed among the people Rich among the people right? He was no small person They said to him in verse 6 hear us my lord thou art a mighty prince among us Okay, they were willing to just give him the land right isn't that funny by the way when you encounter people of some notoriety how often times you just want to like give them something it's silly because they Have more resources than most, you know, I always thought it was silly You'd read a story like you know the president would come in for a breakfast and the diner owner would just give yeah It's on us. It's on us. You know, it's like well if anybody had the money It would be this president or movie star or whatever But anyways there they're saying tripping over themselves to say any land you want in our land You can have it. He says I'll take it. But guess what? This is the land. I want of this person Who was in the audience? Right, he said this is the land I want and This is ephron the son of Zor right and he has this cave of Mac Pilea, right? And this is what he he desires and and it's hysterical cuz ephron said hey No, it's yours and Abraham said I need to pay for it. Ephron said well. It's you know, it's worth this much You know, what's that between us right? It's worth up 400 shekels of silver. That's verse 15 of Genesis 23 My lord harken unto me the land is worth harken means listen. So my lord listen to me the land is worth 400 shekels of silver What is that betwixt me in the berry there for that dead right now? There's some truth to this in a way like again, I guess that I kind of undercurrent of when you just want to do a favor for somebody that Is well to do I think part of that is it could benefit you right like maybe they would owe you a favor And so you know, maybe whatever ephron thought he could get from Abraham was worth way more than 400 shekels of silver Then having to sell the land but if it's kind of comical because he doesn't mention the exact amount that he would need for the land But hey, you know, no big deal. So whether he wanted the money Whether again, it could have been a favor whether they just all loved Abraham. He was very humble. He was bowing himself before them And all of this and we're gonna get into a little bit about who the children of heth are But before we do that, I just want to get to this idea of sure He they kept saying the word sure in this right that it need to be made sure right You know that this is this is something Verse 20 in the field in the cave that is there and we're made sure unto Abraham Okay, so the reason why is Fast forward Thousands of years right and we're still disputing this land today So Hebron, okay is a place that still exists by the way. So is bear sheba, right? And the distance between where we last see Abraham in the previous chapter of bear sheba to modern day Hebron Would be something like? 26 miles, okay And Hebron is in Palestine the disputed territory, right? Up till recently that was, you know, off limits a lot to is the Israelis But then with the Gaza conflict things have been changing rapidly with the Israelis occupation of Palestine So things are fluid, but historically speaking in the last long period of time 20 30 years what we've seen is is that This has been a hot area of conflict, okay, and specifically this tomb So it's called the cave of the patriarchs or the tomb of the patriarchs Some call it even the cave of the patriarchs and matriarchs, right? So you don't have just fathers, but mothers buried there In biblically we call it the cave of Macpelia Muslims call it the sanctuary of Abraham And it is not far from Jerusalem So if you were ever like go visit the holy city, it's only 20 some miles give or take from Jerusalem So look we drive 20 miles to go get lunch to get dinner You know we go 20 miles to go to the you know the grocery or whatever we live out in the country and we're very blessed I mean first of all there's if you don't know if you live in the country. There's a dollar general everywhere, okay? So and there's an interesting article that said why they put them out here, but I love time for that But either way, it's not like we're starving out here But you know if you want to go to a certain store or just get out of the house 20 miles Drive isn't bad even you know Yeah, you could walk it, you know within it what a few hours, right? If you walk fast, I guess And yeah, maybe be a little bit of a walk if you're run, you know, what's that like a marathon, you know But it's not that far from Jerusalem. It is a again a modern They've got this place figured out and they actually have this tomb figured out and it's fascinating. It's shared between the different between the Israelis or the Jews and the Muslims they share it literally they have different Entrances they have different times that they can go in they have all the security apparatus there It's absolutely fascinating. There are some videos of the inside, but not that many. There's some pictures It is it is unbelievable In court I read this and I tried to find the article briefly and I couldn't so just I guess take my word for it Or you could look it up and see if you can find the article The Israelis actually used the Bible or they're you know, they're their Torah to give evidence that this was their property and so when we see the emphasis in Genesis 23 of Abraham paying for this land and it being a sure Thing that it must be sure must be certain it must be exact that he paid for the land that it was his land and He being the father of the Jewish people They've actually used this in court to argue that this is their land that this is their Holy site that it's theirs and not the Muslims and so It's incredible. It's like God had the foreknowledge To put into Abraham's heart to pay for it and to to to insist, right? And then the foreknowledge to have Moses right by the working of the Holy Spirit the account in such detail That that if you were to read it like say as a judge you would say yeah, this is Abraham's he bought it now Whatever happened with that court trial. I don't know and whether they have the authority to do anything I don't know again. It's hotly contested. There has been Issues over the years again for time's sake. I'm trying to keep it brief But it but what we see here is that God is sovereign and God has put in his word the truth and so we understand that this is Abraham's and Abraham's families land and it is his tomb and it is his wife's tomb and this is a holy place And we see it in the scripture. We see him purchasing it We see all of it so clearly and I understand from other perspectives They look at Abraham as a prophet and so forth and so that's a whole other thing But in terms of how from a biblical worldview if you would right from looking at the Bible as our source source of truth Right our single source of truth. We see it here that that it was made sure and that is I guess Just one of the most interesting parts of this chapter when you read it if you think about it still being disputed All of these years later and somehow miraculously preserved right like it's incredible that it's still being disputed But no one's blown it up, you know, and and and it's still there and so God's allowed all of us to occur Partly I believe so that we can read our Bibles and we can research and we can look at the archaeology and we can look again at just present day And we can say wow God you have preserved this In your word and in in our lives for us to see that you are at work And that he was a great man of faith and that here he is there mortally buried But spiritually in heaven with God tune in next time. We'll get deeper in this chapter. Thank you for listening. Take care God bless amen listen to the KJV cafe and we'll see you at the cafe tomorrow
