When we are pushed to our limits, God promises us that the ways of the Kingdom of God are far more profitable in the long term than trying to avoid pain. That’s what Abraham and Sarah learned over many years of their lives. It’s all the more relevant today for increasing social and physical pressure put on believers in the Holy One of Israel and the Anointed One of God. This lesson of faith is the backdrop of the Torah section Chayei Sarah (“life of Sarah,” Gen. 23:1–25:18).
Why did Abraham the nomadic “father of faith” pay so much for a tomb for his wife Sarah? What’s the connection between Abraham’s and King David’s picking a certain son as the successor over other, older sons? Are does the symbol of a well in the account of Yitzkhak marrying Rivkah and in Yeshua’s encounter with the Samaritan woman teach us about the Mashiakh’s work of bringing new life out of death? These are questions tackled in this discussion of the Torah portion Chayei Sarah (“life of Sarah”), covering Genesis 23-25.
This chapter sounds like a drawn-out real estate transaction, but it shows two things: Abraham was so important that Hittites, people of a major international power at the time, had great respect for him. Abraham’s first title to land in Canaan was to bury Sarah, who was very significant as the mother of the promised son by way of God, Yitskhak.
The events around Sarah’s death are not mentioned simply as a marker of time. She was a prominent person in her own right. Her Biblical biography is the only one of a woman that mentions her age at the time of her death as well as the elaborate negotiations surrounding the location of her final repose. The negotiations for her burial place have implications into the present day.