Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
Henceforth they had to pay tribute to Kittim, over which Abimenos ruled until his death, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign. As Joseph was returning from the burial of his father in the Cave of Machpelah, he passed the pit into which his brethren had once cast him, and he looked into it, and said, "Blessed be God who permitted a miracle to come to pass for me here!"
The following passages are wrongly assigned: Mal. iii. 1 to Isaiah according to the correct reading of Mark i. 2, and Zech. xi. 13 to Jeremiah in Matt. xxvii. 9, 10; Abiathar is apparently put for Abimelech in Mark ii. 26; in Acts vii. 16 there seems to be a confusion between the purchase of Machpelah near Hebron by Abraham and Jacob's purchase of land from Hamor the father of Shechem.
Nevertheless the conflict was not averted; it broke out in the end between the sons of Jacob and Esau and his followers. When the former were about to lower the body of their father into the Cave of Machpelah, Esau attempted to prevent it, saying that Jacob had used his allotted portion of the tomb for Leah, and the only space left for a grave belonged to himself.
This naturalised Egyptian did his work manfully in the land of his adoption, and flung himself eagerly into its interests, but his heart turned to the cave at Machpelah, and, though he lived in Egypt, he could not bear to think of lying there for ever when dead, especially of being left there alone.
Before the beadle, stunned by fright, could open his mouth, the stranger spake, and said: "I am Abraham the Hebrew, your ancestor, who rests here in the Cave of Machpelah. When I saw how grieved you were at not having the number of men prescribed for a public service, I came forth to you. Have no fear! Rejoice and be merry of heart!"
Like the other tombs in its neighbourhood, the cave of Machpelah has doubtless been opened and despoiled at an early epoch. We know that tombs were violated in Egypt long before the days of Abraham, in spite of the penalties with which such acts of sacrilege were visited, and the cupidity of the Canaanite was no less great than that of the Egyptian.
Joseph had the body of his father embalmed, as the Egyptians had the custom of doing, and after a long mourning in Egypt, Joseph and his brothers and many Egyptians who were Joseph's friends, carried the body of Jacob to Canaan, in a great procession, and buried him in the cave of Machpelah, where his fathers were buried.
He died at a good old age, 175 years, and was buried by his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, in the cave of Machpelah, which had been purchased of the sons of Heth. Isaac thus became the head of the house, with princely possessions, living near a well. He, however, was afraid to call Rebekah his wife, for the same reason that Abraham called Sarah his sister.
Abraham weighs to Ephron the four hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay for the field of Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the current money of the merchant, and yet are received by weight, and not by tale, in the same manner as ingots of gold and bars of silver are at present.
Abraham had now attained the venerable age of one hundred and forty years; his beloved Sarah was no more; and after weeping over her grave, and negociating for the entire possession of the field of Ephron in Machpelah, where she was interred, as a family burying-place, his thoughts were forcibly attracted towards the day of his own dissolution.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking