4 "I am a stranger and a foreigner living 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 lived as an alien 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 you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.
He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when he still had no child.
I am a stranger on the earth. Don't hide your commandments from me.
"'The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners 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 as a burial place.
By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen{TR adds "and being convinced of"} them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking after a country of their own. If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Yes, they shall be afraid of heights, And terrors will be in the way; And the almond tree shall blossom, And the grasshopper shall be a burden, And desire shall fail; Because man goes to his everlasting home, And the mourners go about the streets:
If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he:
For I know that you will bring me to death, 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, from Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.
Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to 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,