Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Sarah dies: Abraham buys a field with the double cave from Ephron, and in it buries Sarah.
Vulgate Text: Genesis 23:1-20
1. And Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years. 2. And she died in the city of Arba, which is Hebron, in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to mourn and weep for her. 3. And when he had risen from the funeral rites, he spoke to the sons of Heth, saying: 4. I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me the right of a burial place with you, that I may bury my dead. 5. The sons of Heth answered, saying: 6. Hear us, lord; you are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our sepulchres; no one shall be able to prevent you from burying your dead in his tomb. 7. Abraham arose and bowed before the people of the land, namely the sons of Heth, 8. and said to them: If it please your soul that I should bury my dead, hear me, and intercede for me with Ephron, the son of Zohar, 9. that he may give me the double cave which he has at the end of his field; for the full price let him deliver it to me in your presence as a burial possession. 10. Now Ephron was sitting among the sons of Heth. And Ephron answered Abraham in the hearing of all who entered the gate of his city, saying: 11. By no means, my lord, but rather hear what I say: I give you the field and the cave that is in it, in the presence of the sons of my people; bury your dead. 12. Abraham bowed before the people of the land. 13. And he spoke to Ephron with the people standing around: I beg you to hear me. I will give money for the field; accept it, and so I will bury my dead in it. 14. And Ephron answered: 15. My lord, hear me: The land which you request is worth four hundred shekels of silver; that is the price between me and you; but what is that? Bury your dead. 16. When Abraham heard this, he weighed out the money that Ephron had demanded, in the hearing of the sons of Heth: four hundred shekels of silver of approved public currency. 17. And the field that had been Ephron's, in which was the double cave facing Mamre, both the field itself and the cave, and all the trees in all its boundaries round about, were confirmed 18. to Abraham as a possession, in the sight of the sons of Heth and all who entered the gate of his city. 19. And so Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the double cave of the field facing Mamre, which is Hebron in the land of Canaan. 20. And the field and the cave that was in it were confirmed to Abraham as a burial possession by the sons of Heth.
Verse 2: Arba, Which Is Hebron
'Arba, which is Hebron.' -- Why Hebron was called Arba I will discuss in Joshua 15. Sarah died in the 127th year of her age, which was the 137th of Abraham, two years after the death of Terah; for Terah died in the 135th year of Abraham.
'And Abraham came to mourn and weep for her.' -- Some think that Sarah died while Abraham was absent, and that this is why Moses said: 'And Abraham came.' But among the Hebrews, "to come" often means to begin something, to gird oneself to do something. So Abraham here "came," that is, girded himself, to mourn Sarah. Hence some translate: Abraham began to mourn Sarah.
Note: Lamentation is distinguished from weeping, and signifies a solemn mourning and a mourning and funeral procession. So for Stephen they made a great lamentation, that is, a great mourning and funeral procession, Acts 8. So David with a solemn funeral and song lamented Saul and Jonathan, slain in battle, 2 Kings 1:17. So all Judah and Jerusalem mourned and lamented the death of their most beloved King Josiah, 2 Chronicles 35:24.
Verse 4: The Right of Burial
'The right of burial.' -- The Hebrew is achuzzat qeber, that is, a burial possession: for Abraham does not ask to be mingled with the sepulchres of idolaters, but requests a separate place for himself, in which both Sarah, he himself, and his posterity may be buried. Mystically, Abba Pastor in the Lives of the Fathers, when asked by someone: "What shall I do to be saved?" replied: "When Abraham came to the land of promise, he acquired a tomb for himself, and through the sepulchre he received the land as an inheritance." As if to say: So also you, through the thought of death, will tend toward salvation in heaven. And the brother said: "What is a sepulchre?" The elder replied: "A place of weeping and mourning."
'My dead' -- that is, my dead one, namely his wife. So St. Augustine. Secondly, more simply, "my dead," namely the body or corpse; hence Vatablus translates, "my funeral." Add that after death no distinction of sex is considered in the body; hence we rightly call someone "the dead," whether it be a man or a woman.
Verse 6: You Are a Prince of God Among Us
'You are a prince of God among us' -- as if they said: We regard and revere you as a prince, and as the Septuagint translates, a holy king, who is dear to God and in His care, and therefore distinguished and illustrious, and worthy of exceptional veneration. We look up to you on account of your virtues, and because of God's favor, care, and protection toward you; as though you were a great prince, come down to us from heaven.
'In the choicest' -- bury Sarah in the most select of our sepulchres. They did not grasp the mind of Abraham, who did not wish to be mingled and buried with the Hittites, since they were idolaters.
'And no one will be able to prevent you' -- no one will be so brazen as to dare or wish to prevent you.
Verse 7: He Bowed Down
'He bowed down.' -- In Hebrew it is yishtachu, that is, Abraham bowed himself, giving thanks and showing civil honor and reverence to the Hittites: so Cajetan and others.
Verse 9: The Double Cave
'The double cave.' -- It was double either because it had two chambers, one for burying men, the other for women, as Procopius holds; or because one was inner and the other outer, in which the inner was as if enclosed. So Aben-Ezra.
'For a worthy price' -- that is, for a just price.
Verse 10: The Gate of the City
'The gate of the city.' -- From this it appears that at the gates, as in a public place where all, even foreigners, could easily gather, both business transactions and legal proceedings were customarily conducted in ancient times. At the gates, therefore, judges, magistrates, and town councilors used to sit, and there they would handle all matters both public and private, just as they now sit and conduct business in the town hall.
Verse 13: I Will Give Money for the Field
'I will give money for the field.' -- Abraham did not want to have the field for free, but to buy it at a fair price, both because this befits an honest, generous, and kingly spirit, and lest the descendants of Ephron reclaim the field or demand a shared burial right in it. Thus generous men vie with each other in generosity, just as the avaricious compete in stinginess. Aelian relates that Alcibiades sent the most lavish gifts to his teacher Socrates; Socrates refused them magnanimously, though his wife Xanthippe greatly pressed him: "Let Alcibiades have his ambition, he said; let us also have ours: Alcibiades showed his generosity by giving, Socrates his by not accepting."
You will say: To buy a burial place and the right of burial is simony. St. Thomas responds, first, in II-II, Question 100, article 4, to the third objection, that Abraham did not buy the right of burial, but only the field in which to bury Sarah; and a field in itself can be sold.
Secondly, Abulensis says: A sepulchre becomes sacred, so that it cannot be sold without simony, not by its excavation, but by the burial of the dead in it. Therefore it was not yet sacred when Abraham bought it. This is true by Roman civil law, by which the very burial of a corpse makes the place a religious site.
But this has nothing to do with the crime of simony, which is an ecclesiastical matter, not a civil one. For a burial place to be unsaleable without simony, it must be made sacred by consecration or ecclesiastical blessing, as theologians and canonists commonly teach. But in Abraham's time, there was not yet any consecration or ecclesiastical blessing (for the Christian Church instituted this), by which a place would be consecrated for burial; hence it could be sold without simony. So Cajetan, Lipomanus, and others. Add that the sepulchres and priesthoods of the Gentiles, being those of idolaters, are not sacred but profane; indeed their priesthoods are diabolical, and therefore to buy them is not simony. However, the Gentiles who sold them, from an erroneous conscience by which they thought them sacred, sinned by simony. So St. Thomas.
Verse 16: Four Hundred Shekels of Silver
'Four hundred shekels of silver' -- that is, 400 Brabantine florins; I shall say more about the shekel at Exodus 30:13.
'Of approved public currency.' -- The Hebrew has: silver current among merchants; the Septuagint: silver approved by merchants. For merchants are especially accustomed to examining, weighing, and testing currency, and they demand the most genuine and tested coin.
Verse 17: The Field Was Confirmed
'The field was confirmed' -- that is, through the purchase this field, with its double cave, was transferred by firm and stable right into the ownership of Abraham.
Consider: Abraham in Canaan did not have a house, not a field of his own, but only his own sepulchre; because by God's admonition he wished to be a pilgrim in life, and to strive toward heaven. But in death, as at the boundary and border of heaven, he demanded a place of his own for himself and his faithful, lest he rest among the unfaithful. For in death there is a separation of the faithful and the unfaithful; therefore it is fitting that the same distinction exist in the sepulchre. See how great was the care of the ancient patriarchs for burial, and how great it ought to be now for the faithful, so that they may be buried in sacred places with the faithful and the saints, and this in hope of the blessed resurrection with them; for the unfaithful and heretics have the burial of a donkey.
For this reason, in this sepulchre of Sarah there were buried Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, and Leah; indeed Jacob also wished to be transferred there from Egypt. So, as the history of Kings has it, Samuel, Saul, Jonathan, the prophet killed by the lion (3 Kings 13), King Josiah, and others were honorably buried with their own. So Tobit kindly performed the office of burial for the bodies of the faithful who had been slaughtered by the tyrant. So John the Baptist was carefully brought out of prison by his disciples for burial. So Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Christ and placed it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out of rock. So St. Anthony was sent by God to St. Paul the First Hermit to bury him, and since he had no spade, two lions dug the grave for him with their own claws.
'Of Ephron.' -- St. Stephen in Acts 7 asserts that this field was bought not from Ephron but from the sons of Hamor, and he says certain other things that do not seem to agree well with this passage, but these matters must be discussed at Acts 7.
Verse 19: Mamre, Which Is Hebron
'Mamre, which is Hebron.' -- Hebron was called Arba; it was also called Mamre from the neighboring valley, which was called Mamre after the powerful man Mamre, who possessed it and who fought alongside Abraham against the four kings, chapter 14, verse 13.