Genesis 13:18
He dwelt in the plain of Mamre
After separating from Lot he moves his tent to Hebron and builds an altar. The place becomes his base for the rest of his life.
Places of the Bible
Hebron and Machpelah
The only ground in Canaan the family ever actually owned, bought at full price for a grave.
Abraham settles by the oaks of Mamre in Hebron and builds an altar there, and it is where the three visitors come and where he argues with God about Sodom. But the chapter the place is remembered for is a property transaction. Sarah dies at a hundred and twenty seven, and Abraham stands up from before his dead and speaks to the sons of Heth, saying I am a stranger and a sojourner with you, give me a possession of a buryingplace.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Hebron and Machpelah
- 01
- 02
Genesis 23:3-6
I am a stranger and a sojourner with you
He begins by naming his own legal standing. The sons of Heth offer him the choice of their sepulchres, and he does not take it.
- 03
Genesis 23:10-16
Four hundred shekels of silver
Ephron offers the field as a gift in front of witnesses and names a price in the same breath. Abraham weighs it out rather than accept the gift.
- 04
Genesis 23:17-20
Made sure unto Abraham for a possession
The deed is recorded like a deed: the field, the cave, the trees, the borders. The first thing the family owns in Canaan is a grave.
- 05
Genesis 49:29-33
Bury me with my fathers
Jacob dies in Egypt naming the cave, the field and the man it was bought from, and lists everyone already in it before he gathers up his feet.
Why it matters
The negotiation is conducted in public at the gate with elaborate courtesy on both sides, and Abraham refuses the gift twice. Ephron names four hundred shekels of silver, what is that betwixt me and thee, and Abraham weighs it out current money with the merchant. Genesis records the field, the cave, and all the trees in the borders round about, made sure unto him. Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah and Jacob are all buried in it, and Jacob’s last instruction from Egypt is to be carried back to it.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
