Haram, built of coloss:tl blocks, and situated both had omitted, ns the JHlminativo to on the motmmin slope of Hebron towws wvq,,aro (Beza, Calvin, Bishop Pearr,e\, the east (Robinson, Thomson, Stanley, 'fhe last of these hypotheses would n~t Tiistram), which, :tfter l1aving been for 600 indeed be fatal to the inspiration of the years hermetirally sealed against Europeans, record ; but the clnims of either Luke or -only three during that period having gained Stephen to be authoritative teachers on the access to it in dis,,cruise,-was .:isited in 1862 subJect of religion would be somewhat hard by the Prince of Wales and party (vide to maintain if it once were admitted that St.anley, 'Lectures on Jewish Church,' App. they hn~ blun~ered on a. plain point in their ii.). The same is Hebron in the land of ?Wn national htStory. And yet it is doubtful Canaan (vide ver. 2). if any of the proposed solutions of the pro- Ver. 20. -And the field, and the cave blem is perfectly satisfactory; such as (1) that is !therein, were made sure unto Abra- that the two plll·chases of Abraham and ham for a possession of a burying-place Jacob are here intentionally, for the sake by the sons of Reth. The palpable dis- of brevity, compressed into one account erepancy between the statements of the (Bengel, Pererius, Willet, Hughes); or (2) Hebrew historian in this chapter concerning that Abraham bought two graves, one at the patriarchal sepulchre and those of the Hebron of Ephron the Hittite, as recorded Christian orator when addressing the Jew- by Moses, and another at Shechem of the ish Sanhedrim (Acts vii. 16) has been well sons of Hampr the father of Shechem (Words- characterised as pra;gravu q_'IJ,(Edam et per- worth); or (3) that the words "which Abra- ardua, et quorundam,iud:icw ine:r:tricabili,s ham bought for a sum of money" should be '}UQiStio (Pererius). Of course the Gordian regarded as a parenthesis, and the sentence knot of difficulty may be very readily cut by read as intimating that Jacob and the fathers boldly asserting that a mistako has been were carried over into Shechem, and (after- committ.ed somewhere ; either by Stephen, wards) by the sons of Hamor the father of the original speaker, under the impulse of Shechem interred in Abraham's sepulchre emotion confounding the two entirely differ- at Hebron (Cajetan). Obvious difficulties ent stories of Abraham's purchase of llfach- attach to each of them ; but the facts shino pelah and Jacob's buying of the field near out clear: enough in spite of the encompass- Shechem (Bede, Clarke, Lange, Kalisch, Al- ing obscurity, viz., that Abraham bought a ford, and others) ; or by Luke, the first tomb at Hebron,·in which first the dust of recorder of the Martyr's Apology, who wrote Sarah was deposited, and to which after- not the ipsissim,a verba of the speech, but wards the bodies of himself, Isaac and Re- simply his own recollection of them (Jerome); bek:i.h, Jacob and Leah were consigned, ,vhile or by some subsequent transcriber who had Joseph and the twelve patriarchs, who a.II died tampered with the original text, as, e. g., in Egypt, were brought over to the promised inserting Appaap, which Luke and Stephen land and buried in Jacob's field at Sbechem.
HOMILETICS. Vern. l-20.-The death and burial of Sarah. I. THE DEATH Oil' SARAH. 1. The mournful event. The death of-(1) An aged woman. " Sarah was o.n hundred and twenty-seven years old." (2) A distinguished princess. As the wife of ALrabam and the mother of the promised seed, Sarah was doubly ennobled. (3) An eminent saint. Sarah, like her husband, was renowned for faith and piety ; indeed in these respects only second to the rnothe: _of our Lord, whom she_ c?n• spicnously typified, and proposed by the Holy Spmt as a pattern for Chnstrnn women. (4) A beloved wife. Sarah's married life extended over the greater part of a century, and the tender and constant love which gilded it with happiness through all the passing years shines on every page of the inspired narrative. (5) A revered parent. In the death of Sarah Isaac lost a loving and o. much-loved mother. 2. Tlie attendant circumstances. Sarah died-(1) In the land of Canaan. If not the place of her birth, Canaan had become the country of her adoption, and the scene of her spiritual nativity. A special sadness att~ches to deatl! upon a foreign shore, and among heathen peoples. Sarah may be said to have exp1r~d upon her own inheritance and in Jebovah's land. (2) In the bosom of her fnm1ly. If Sarah was not spared the anguish of dying in the absence of her noble husband, her latest moments we may be sure, were soothed by the tender ministries of her gentle son. (3) Intl,~ exercise of faith. Sarah was one of those "all" who '' died in faith,' looking for a better country, even an heavenly. Hence the ast enemy, we cannot doubt, was encc,ur,trrcd with guie t fortitude and cheerful ro~ignation, Cl1. ltXlll. l-20,) 'l'HE BOOK OF GENESIS.