Sarah,—who, as we have seen, accompanied Abraham and Isaac part of the way to Moriah,—on her return to the tent, found an old man awaiting her. It was Satan.
He greeted her with profound respect, and asked after her husband and son.
She answered that they had gone forth on a journey.
“Whither have they gone?” asked Satan.
“My lord has gone to visit the school of Shem and Eber, our grandsires, there to leave my son Isaac to be instructed in the law of God.”
“Alas! alas!” exclaimed the Apostate Angel; “thou art greatly deceived.”
Sarah was alarmed; and she asked wherefore he spake thus.
“Know then,” said Satan, “that Abraham has gone forth with Isaac to sacrifice him, upon a mountain, to the Most High.”
When she heard this, Sarah laid her head on the bosom of a slave, and fainted. When she came to herself she hurried with her maidens to the school of Shem and Eber, and inquired after her husband and son, but they had neither seen nor heard anything of them. So Sarah was convinced that what had been told her was true, and there was no spirit left in her.
Now when Satan knew that Abraham was bringing back his son, and that God had accepted the will for the deed, he was moved with envy and spite, and he could not rest to think of the joy that this would cause; so he went hastily to Sarah, and she was weeping in her tent, and sorely cast down and broken in spirit. Then he said suddenly to her, “Thy son liveth and is returning. God hath spared him!”
And she rose up and uttered a cry, and fell, and was dead; for the joy had killed her.
Abraham and Isaac in the meantime had returned from Moriah, and they sought Sarah at Beer-sheba, but she was not there; therefore they went to Hebron, and there they found her corpse. Isaac fell weeping upon the face of his mother, and he cried, “Mother, mother! why hast thou forsaken me? why hast thou gone away?”
Abraham wept aloud, and all the dwellers in Hebron wept and lamented over Sarah, and ceased from their labours, that they might mourn with Abraham and Isaac. Sarah’s age was one hundred and seven-and-twenty years, and she was as fair to look upon when she died as in the bloom of her youth.
And as Abraham was bowed over the body of his wife, he heard the laugh of the Angel of Death, and his words, “Wherefore weepest thou? Thou bearest the blame of her death. Hadst thou not taken her son from her, she would have been alive now.”
Abraham sought a place where to bury her; and he went to the Hittites and asked them to suffer him to buy for his possession a parcel of land, where he might bury one dead body. But they said, “Nay, we will give thee land;” but he would not. So they said, “Choose now a place where thou wouldst have thy sepulchre, and we will entreat the owner for thee.”
Then Abraham said, “I desire the double cave of Ephron the son of Zohar.If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath; for as much money as is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a burying-place amongst you.”
And this was the reason why Abraham desired that cave. When he had gone after the calf, to slay it for the three angels that came to him before the destruction of Sodom, the calf had fled from him, and he had pursued it into this cave; and on entering it, he found that it was roomy, and in the inner recesses he saw the bodies of Adam and Eve laid out with burning tapers around them, and the air was fragrant with incense.
The Hittites elected Emor their chief that he might deal with Abraham, for it did not become a chief and prince, like Abraham, to deal with an inferior; and Emor said in the audience of the people of the land, “My Lord, hear me; the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee; bury thy dead.”
But this he said with craft, for he sought to take an advantage of Abraham.[336]
Then Ephron said, “Put thine own price upon the land;” but this Abraham would not do.
Then Ephron said to Abraham, “My lord, hearken unto me; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead.”
Now the land was not worth half that sum, but Emor said in his heart, “Abraham can afford to pay it, and he is in haste to bury his dead out of his sight.”
Nevertheless, Abraham paid him in the sight of all his people. And the transfer of the land and cave was signed by Amigal, son of Abischna the Hittite; Elichoran, son of Essunass, the Hivite; Abdon, son of Ahirah, the Gomorrhite; and Akdil, son of Abdis, the Sidonian.
Machpelah (double cave) was so called, because, say some, it contained two chambers; or, say others, because Abraham paid double its value; or, say others, because it became doubly holy; but others again observe, with the highest probability, because Adam’s body had to be doubled up to get it into the cave.
Because the Hittites dealt honourably, and sought to procure a place for Abraham, where he might lay Sarah, their name is written ten times in the Holy Scriptures.
They took also an oath of Abraham, that he and his seed should never attack their city Jebus with violence; and they wrote his promise on brazen pillars, and set them up in the market-place of Jebus. Therefore, when the Israelites conquered Canaan, they left the Jebusites unmolested.[337]But when David sought to take the stronghold of Jebus,[338]its inhabitants said to him, “Thou canst not storm our city, because of the covenant of Abraham, which is engraven on these pillars of brass.”
David removed these brazen pillars, for they were in time honoured as idols; therefore the inhabitants of Jebus werehated of David’s soul;[339]but he did not break the covenant of Abraham, for he obtained the city of Jebus, not by force of arms, but by purchase.[340]
Sarah was buried with the utmost honour; Shem (Melchizedek), his grandson Eber, Abimelech, Aner, Eshcol and Mamre, together with all the great men of the land, followed the bier. Abraham caused a great mourning throughout the country to be made for seven days. After that, Abraham returned to Beer-sheba, and Isaac went to be instructed in the law by Melchizedek. A year after, died Abimelech, king of Gerar, and Abraham attended his funeral. Soon after, also, died Nahor, Abraham’s brother.
12. THE MARRIAGE OF ISAAC.
After the death of Sarah, say some, Abraham had a daughter named Bakila, by Hagar, who returned to him now that her enemy was dead; but, according to others, the great blessing of Abraham consisted in this, that he had no daughters. Ishmael abandoned his disorderly ways, and loved and respected his brother.
Isaac mourned his mother three years. When this time was elapsed, Abraham called to him his faithful servant Eliezer, and said to him, “I am old, and I know not the day of my death; therefore must I no longer delay the marriage of my son Isaac. Lay thine hand upon my thigh, and swear to me by God Almighty to fulfil my commission. Do not take for my son a wife of the daughters of the Canaanites, but go to Haran, to the place whence I came, and bring thence a wife for my son Isaac.” And he added the proverb, “When you have wheat of your own, do not sow your field with your neighbour’s corn.”
Eliezer asked, “But how, if a woman of that place will not accompany me hither?”
But Abraham said, “Fear not; go, and the Lord be with thee.”
So the servant of Abraham went with ten camels, and he reached Haran in three hours, for the earth fled under the feet of his camels, and Michael, the angel, protected him on his way.
When he reached Haran, he besought the Lord to give him a sign, by which he might know the maiden who was to be the wife of Isaac. “Let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac.”
And there were many damsels by the fountain. And the servant said to them, “Let down the pitcher that I may drink.” But they all said, “We may not tarry, for we must take the water home.”
Then came Rebekah the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, out to the well, and she chid the maidens for their churlishness; and lo! the water in the well leaped to the margin, and she let down her pitcher and offered it to the man, and said, “Drink; and I will givethy camels drink also.” Then Eliezer leaped from his camel, and he brought forth his gifts, and he gave her a nose ring with a jewel of half a shekel weight, and bracelets of ten shekels weight. And he asked if he might lodge in her house one night.
She answered, “Not one night only, but many.”
Now Rebekah’s brother, Laban, so called from the paleness of his face,—or, say some, from the cowardice of his breast, which made him pale,—coveted the man’s gold, and resolved to kill him. Therefore he put poison in the bowl of meat which was offered him. But the bowl was changed by accident, and it fell to the portion of Bethuel, and he ate, and died that same night.
And Laban would have fallen upon Eliezer with his own hand, but that he saw him lead the two camels at once over the brook, and he knew thereby that he was stronger than he.
After the engagement had been drawn up, as is written in the first book of Moses,[341]Eliezer urged for a speedy departure. Mother and brother consented, but on the following day they asked that, besides the seven days of mourning for Bethuel, they should tarry a year, or at least ten months, according to the usual custom. But Rebekah opposed them, and said that she would go at once.
It was noon when Eliezer and his retinue, together with Rebekah and her nurse Deborah, left Haran, and in three hours they were at Hebron.
At the self-same time Isaac was abroad in the fields, returning from the school of Seth, lamenting over his mother, and saying his evening prayer. Rebekah saw him with his hands outspread, and his angel walking behind him, and she said, “Who is that with a shining countenance, with another walking behind him?”
At the same moment she knew who it was, and with prophetic vision she saw that she would become the mother of Esau, and she trembled and fell from the camel.
Isaac took Rebekah to wife and led her into the tent of Sarah, and the door was once more open, and the perpetual lamp was again kindled, and it seemed to Isaac as if all the happiness that had gone with Sarah, had returned with Rebekah, so he was comforted for his mother.
Eliezer was rewarded for his faithful service, for Abraham gave him his freedom, and he was taken into Paradise without having tasted of death.
Abraham, after the death of Sarah, had brought back Hagar, and she was called Keturah, which signifies “the Bond-woman,” and this she was called because she had ever regarded herself as bound to Abraham, though he had cast her away. But others say that Keturah was not Hagar, but was a daughter of one of Abraham’s slaves. She bare him six sons,[342]all strong, and men of clear understandings.
According to Mussulman traditions, she was the daughter of Jokdan, and was a Canaanitish woman.
Abraham said to the Most High, in gratitude of heart, “Thou didst promise me one son, Isaac, and thou hast given me many!”
All his substance he gave to Isaac; but some say he gave him a double portion only, and the rest he made over to his other sons. And to Isaac only he gave the right to be buried in the cave of Machpelah, and along with that, his blessing. But others say that he did not give his blessing to Isaac, lest it should cause jealousy to spring up between him and his brothers. He said, “I am a mortal man; to-day here, and to-morrow in the grave; I have done all I can do for my children, and now I will depart when it pleases my heavenly Father.”
He sent the sons of Keturah away, that they might not dwell near Isaac, lest his greatness should swallow them up; and he built them a city of iron, with walls of iron. But the walls were so high that the light of the sun could not penetrate the streets, therefore he set in them diamonds and pearls to illumine the iron city.
Epher, a grandson of Abraham and Keturah,[343]went with an army into Libya and conquered it, and founded there a kingdom, and the land he called after his own name, Africa.
Abraham was alive when Rebekah, after twenty years of barrenness, bare to Isaac his sons, Esau and Jacob; and he saw them grow up before him till their fifteenth year, and he died on the day that Esau sold his birthright.
The days of his life had been 175 years; he reached not the age of 180, to which Isaac attained, because God shortened his life by five years, lest he should know the evil deeds of Esau.
The Angel of Death did not smite him, but God kissed him, and he died by that kiss; and because the sword of the angel touched him not, but his soul parted to the kiss of God, his body saw no corruption.
This is the Mussulman story of his death. The Angel of Death, when bidden to take the soul of the prophet, hesitated about doing so without his consent. So he took upon him the form of a very old man, and came to Abraham’s door. The patriarch invited him in and gave him to eat, but he noted with surprise the great infirmity of the old man, how his limbs tottered, how dull was his sight, and how incapable he was of feeding himself, for his hands shook, and how little he could eat, for his teeth were gone. And he asked him how old he was. Then the angel answered, “I am aged 202.” Now Abraham was then 200 years old. So he said, “What! in two years shall I be as feeble and helpless as this? O Lord, suffer me to depart; now send the Angel of Death to me, to remove my soul.” Then the angel took him,[344]having first watched till he was on his knees in prayer.[345]
Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the double cave by the side of Sarah; and he was followed to his grave by all the inhabitants of Canaan, and Shem and Eber went before the bier. And all the people wailed and said, “Woe to the vessel when the pilot is gone! woe to the pilgrims when their guide is lost!”
A whole year was Abraham lamented by the inhabitants of the land; men, and women, and young children joined in bewailing him.
Never was there a man like Abraham in perfect righteousness, serving God, and walking in His way from the earliest youth to the day of his death.
Abraham was the first, say the Mussulmans, whose beard became white. He asked God when it became so, “What is this?” The Lord replied, “It is a token of gentleness, my son.”