The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 355

miillor), or perhaps as going into Sarah's evinced to lie in !1TOtmd belonging to them• tent (Meimonides, Ainsworth, Wordsworth, selves (Rosenmlilfer), to an intention on the 'Speaker's Commentary') - to mourn for part of the patriarch to give a sign of his Sarah, and to weep for her. "To arrange right and title to the land of Canaan by for the customary mourning ceremony " purchasing a grave in its soil-cf. Isa. xx:ii. (Keil) ; the first verb, i~i;, (cf. u,paoa~w), 16 (Bush), or simply to anxiety that his referring to the beating of the breast as 11. dead might not lie nnburiecl (Calvin) ; but sign of grief (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 13); and it was more probably due to his strong faith the second, iJ:?f, to flow by drops, intimating that the land would yet belong to his de- a quieter 11.nd more moderate sorrow. Beyond scendants, which naturally led him to crave sitting on the ground and weeping in presence a restin"•place in tho, soil with which tho of (or upon the face of) the dead, no other hopes of both himself and people were iden- rites are mentioned as having been observed tified (Ainsworth, Bush, Kalisch). That I by Abraham; though afterwards, ns pl'Jlctised may bury my dead out of my eight-decay among the Hebrews, Egyptians, and other not suffering the lifeless corpse to remain a nations of antiquity, mourning for the dead fit spectacle for grief or love to gaze on. developed into an elaborate ritual, including Vern. 5, 6.-And the children of Heth such ceremonies as rending the garments, answered Abraham, saying unto him, Hear shaving the head, wearing sackcloth, cover- us, my lord. My lord (Adoni) = sir, mon- ing the head with dust and ashes (vide sieur, or mein herr. One acts as the spokes- 2 Sam. iii 31, 35; xxL 10; Job L 20; ii. man of all; the number changing from plural 12 ; xvi. 15, 16). Cf. the mourning for to singula.r, The LXX., reading 1:(-1;, instead Patroclus (' II.,• xix. 211-213). of iS, after the Samaritan Codex, render µ,j Ver. 3.-A.nd Abraham stood up-during a,i,p,E, Not so, my lord; but hear us. Thou art the days of mourning he had been sitting on a mighty prince among us. Literally, a the ground ; 11.Dd now; his grief ha.ving prince of Elohim; not of Jehovah, since the moderated (Calvin), he goes out ta the city speakers were heathen whose ideas of Deity gate-from before (literally, from over the did not transcend those expressed in the term face of) his dead,-" Sarah, though dcacl, Elohim. According to a familiar Hebrew was still his" (Wordsworth)-and epake unto idiom, the phrase might be legitimately the sons of Heth,-the Hittites were descend- translated as in tho A. V.-cf. "mount.tins ants of Reth, the son of Co.nann (vide eh. of God," i. e. great mountains, Ps. xxxvi. 6; x. 15). Cf. "d11.ughtersofHeth" (eh. xxvii. "cedars of God," 1·. e. goodly cedars, Ps. 46) ancl "daughters of Canaan" (eh. xxviii. lxxx. 10 (Calvin, Kimchi, Rosenmiiller, I)-saying. 'Speaker's Commentary'); but, as employed Ver. 4.-I am a stranger and a sojourner by the Hittite chieftains, it probably ex- with you. Ger, one living out of his own pressed that they regarded him as a prince country, 11.nd Tlwshabh, one dwelling in a or phylarch, not to whom God hnd given litnd in which he is not naturnlised ; cidvena nn elevated nspcct (Lange), but either whom et peregrinus (Vulgate); ,rapo111:or: a:ai ,rnp' God hnd appointed (Gesenius), or whom Go,l hrlo,1µ01: (LXX. ), This confession of the manifestly favoured (Kalisch, Murphy). Thi~ heir of Canaan was a proof that ho sought, estimate of Abraham strikingly contrasts as his ronl inheritance, a better country, with that which the patriarch had formed even an heavenly (Heb. xi. 13). Give me a (var. 4) of himself. In the choice of our po&Beseion of a burying-place with you. sepulchres bury thy dead ; none of us will Tho first mention of a. grave in Scripture, withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that the word in Hebrew signifying a. hole in the thou mayest bury thy dead. This remark- earth, or a. mound, o.ccording os the root is able offer on the part of tho Hittites '.fhomson taken to mean to dig (Fiirst) or to heap up (' Land and-Book,' p. 578) regards as having (Gesenius). Abraham's desire for a. grave in been merely compliment, which Abraham which to deposit Sarah's lifeless remains was too experienced nn Oriental not to under- was dictated by that Divinely planted and, stand. But, even if dictated by true kind- 'lmong civilised nations, universally prevail- ness and generosity, the proposal was one ing reverence for the body which prompts to which for many reasons-faith in God, men to decently dispose of their clead oy love for the dead, and respect for himsel t rites of honourable sepulture. The burning being among the strongest-the patriarch of corpses was a practice common to the could not accede. With perfect courtesy, nations of antiquity ; but To.citus notes it therefore, though likewise with rcspoctl'ul ns characteristic of the Jews that they pre- firmness, ho declines their ofl'er. ferred interment to cremation ('Hist.,' v. 5). Ver. 7. -And Abraham stood up (the The wish to make Sarah's burying-place· his customary posture among Orientals in buy- ciwn i;iossession has been traced to the in- ing and sdling being that of sitting), enr\ slinchvo desire ~hat most nations have bowed himself to tho peo11le of the lancl, u2  THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [en. xxm. 1- -20.