4 I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.
By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a `land' not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.
and he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: and he promised that he would give it to him in possession, and to his seed after him, when `as yet' he had no child.
I am a sojourner in the earth: Hide not thy commandments from me.
And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place.
in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. And if indeed they had been mindful of that `country' from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better `country', that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.
yea, they shall be afraid of `that which is' high, and terrors `shall be' in the way; and the almond-tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets:
If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul be not filled with good, and moreover he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he:
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, And to the house appointed for all living.
for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a burying-place, of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.
And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Genesis 23
Commentary on Genesis 23 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 23
Here is,
Gen 23:1-2
We have here,
Gen 23:3-15
Here is,
Gen 23:16-20
We have here the conclusion of the treaty between Abraham and Ephron about the burying-place. The bargain was publicly made before all the neighbours, in the presence and audience of the sons of Heth, v. 16, 17. Note, Prudence, as well as justice, directs us to be fair, and open, and above-board, in our dealings. Fraudulent contracts hate the light, and choose to be clandestine; but those that design honestly in their bargains care not who are witnesses to them. Our law countenances sales made in market-overt, and by deed enrolled. Observe,