3/31/2024 0 Comments Genesis 23 audio sermon![]() While the emphasis of the passage does not fall here, we do know that Abraham expressed the grief common to those who face the death of a loved one. When he learned of the death of his wife he came to her side to mourn for her. While some fanciful explanations exist for this fact, it would be most easily explained by Abraham being out with his flocks or something similar. Her youthfulness and beauty would have concealed the fact that death was coming upon her.Ībraham seems to have been elsewhere at the time of Sarah’s death. Sarah must have appeared to have found the fountain of youth. Even at the age of ninety she was a woman attractive enough to catch the eye of Abimelech (20:1-2). One hundred twenty-seven years is a ripe old age, but the death of Sarah would have seemed untimely because of her youthfulness. And Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her (Genesis 23:1-2).Īs commentators over the centuries have noted, Sarah is the only woman in the Bible whose age is revealed. Now Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years these were the years of the life of Sarah. The first two verses provide the background to our chapter and also describe the grief of the patriarch: While our faith is not to be based upon our feelings, neither should it be divorced from our emotions. These verses, then, remind us of the strong ties that still remained at Mesopotamia and the significance of Abraham’s decision to bury his wife in Canaan. When Sarah died there would be strong emotional reasons for taking her body “home” to bury it. No doubt the news from “home” pulled at Abraham’s emotional heartstrings. 22:13).īeyond this, the report summarized in verses 20-24 reminded Abraham that his fatherland and family were far away. ![]() As a friend of mine has put it, “The ram is already in the bush” (cf. ![]() In the providence of God a wife for Isaac had already been provided long before the need had arisen. And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah ( Genesis 22:20-24 emphasis added). Now it came about after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, “Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor: Uz his firstborn and Buz his brother and Kemuel the father of Aram and Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.” And Bethuel become the father of Rebekah these eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. A willingness to put Isaac to death enabled Abraham to accept the passing of his wife Sarah.įurthermore, the last verses of chapter 22 record an incident which would bear upon the future: While this did not prove a necessity in the case of Isaac, it would be so with Sarah in the years ahead. The “sacrifice” of Isaac on Mount Moriah brought Abraham to a firm faith in God’s power to raise the dead (cf. While Sarah’s death is not recorded until Genesis 23, the previous chapter has prepared Abraham and us for the events of our passage. Furthermore, I believe that we must seek the greatest part of our instruction from the greater part of the passage-the purchase of the plot of ground in which Sarah is buried. I know that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” but I want us to come to this text fully convinced that God has a word for us here. No romanticist could tolerate this! The remaining eighteen verses have to do with the purchase of the plot where Sarah is buried. We should not be shocked to find the death of Sarah recorded as a part of the biography of Abraham however, of the twenty verses in this chapter, less than two of them refer to the emotional response of Abraham to his wife’s death. In reading over a sermon he preached on this chapter I note that four-fifths of his sermon dealt with one-tenth of the text. A preacher whom I greatly respect confesses that this is one text he would not preach by choice. It would seem that I have come to the right passage for my personality as I approach the twenty-third chapter of Genesis. As a preacher I thrive on the passages that would normally be passed by. As a mechanic I delight to delve into a problem that seemingly evades diagnosis.
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