Genesis 23:2 - Exposition

And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba —or city of Arba, Abraham having again removed thither after an absence of nearly forty years, during which interval Murphy thinks the reign of Arba the Anakite may have commenced, though Keil postpones it to a later period (cf. Joshua 14:15 ). The same is Hebron —the Original name of the city, which was supplanted by that of Kir-jath-arba, but restored at the conquest (Keil, Hengstenberg, Murphy; vide Genesis 13:18 ) in the land of Canaan —indicating that the writer was not then in Palestine ('Speaker's Commentary'); perhaps rather designed to emphasize the circumstance that Sarah's death occurred not in the Philistines' country, but in the promised land (Rosenmüller, Keil, Murphy). And Abraham came —or went; ἤλθε ( LXX .), venit (Vulgate); not as if he had been absent at her death (Calvin), either in Beersheba, where he retained a location (Clarke), or in Gerar, whither he had gone to sell the lands and other properties he held there (Luther), or in the pasture grounds adjoining Hebron (Keil, Murphy)'; but as addressing himself to the work of mourning for his deceased wife (Vatablus, Rosenmüller), or perhaps as going into Sarah's tent (Maimonides, Ainsworth, Wordsworth, 'Speaker's Commentary')— to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. " To arrange for the customary mourning ceremony" (Keil); the first verb, סָפַד (cf. σφαδάζω), referring to the beating of the breast as a sign of grief (cf. 1 Kings 14:13 ); and the second, בָּכָה , to flow by drops, intimating a quieter and more moderate sorrow. Beyond sitting on the ground and weeping in presence of (or upon the face of) the dead, no other rites are mentioned as having been observed by Abraham; though afterwards, as practiced among the Hebrews, Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity, mourning for the dead developed into an elaborate ritual, including such ceremonies as rending the garments, shaving the head, wearing sackcloth, covering the head with dust and ashes ( vide 2 Samuel 3:31 , 2 Samuel 3:35 ; 2 Samuel 21:10 ; Job 1:20 ; Job 2:12 ; Job 16:15 , Job 16:16 ). Cf. the mourning for Patroclus ('Il.,' 19:211-213).