Cave of Machpelah

Biblical Text

In Genesis 23, when Sarah dies at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, Abraham asks the Hittites of the land for a burial place. Ephron the Hittite offers to give him the field outright, but Abraham weighs out four hundred shekels of silver before the people gathered at the city gate and formally purchases the field together with its cave (Genesis 23:16-20). The following people were later buried in this cave:

• Abraham: buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael (Genesis 25:9-10).
• Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah: Jacob, giving his final charge before his death, states that they were buried there (Genesis 49:29-32).
• Jacob: his sons carried his body up from Egypt and buried him there (Genesis 50:13).

Jacob's wife Rachel was buried on the way to Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19), and the bones of Joseph were buried at Shechem (Joshua 24:32). Neither of them, therefore, was buried in the Cave of Machpelah.

Background

The name "Machpelah" is commonly explained by connecting it with a Hebrew root meaning "double" or "twofold." The Septuagint renders it as "the double cave." It is unclear, however, whether the name refers to the structure of the cave or is a place name for the surrounding area. Scholars also disagree about whether the "Hittites" of the text are the same people as those of the Hittite empire in Asia Minor or a native group in Canaan.

In present-day Hebron stands the "Tomb of the Patriarchs," traditionally identified as the site of this cave. The massive stone enclosure above it is believed to date from the Herodian period. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all regard the site as holy, and in Islam it is called the Ibrahimi Mosque. Whether this is the actual Cave of Machpelah has not been confirmed archaeologically.

Significance in the Bible as a Whole

The Cave of Machpelah is the first land in Canaan that Abraham legally owned after God promised to give him that land (the Abrahamic covenant). For this reason many interpreters read the purchase as an act of faith in the promise. Abraham calls himself "a stranger and a sojourner" (Genesis 23:4), and in the New Testament Hebrews 11:13-16 portrays the patriarchs as people who lived as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" and desired a better country. Jacob's insistence on being buried in this cave, even though he died in Egypt, is likewise interpreted as an expression of hope in the land of promise.

Interpretation and Debate

In his speech, Stephen says that the patriarchs were carried over into Shechem and laid "in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem" (Acts 7:16). In Genesis, however, the place Abraham bought is the Cave of Machpelah at Hebron, and it was Jacob who bought land at Shechem from the sons of Hamor (Genesis 33:19). Interpretations of this discrepancy differ:

• The view that Stephen telescoped two purchases and two burial sites into a single statement
• The view that the discrepancy arises from the transmission of the text
• The view that Acts simply records Stephen's words exactly as he spoke them

Those who firmly hold to biblical inerrancy generally adopt a harmonizing interpretation of the two accounts, such as the first view.

The idea that Adam and Eve were also buried in this cave comes from Jewish rabbinic tradition. It derives from an interpretation linking Kiriath-arba ("city of four") with four married couples and does not appear in the biblical text.

In the Korean Church

In Korean preaching, Genesis 23 is treated chiefly under two themes: the faith of Abraham, who trusted the promise and paid the full price to buy the land, and the life of believers who live as sojourners in this world.