A while back, a British newspaper, The Times, interviewed a prominent member of the Jewish

community, let's call him Lord X, on his 92nd birthday. The interviewer said most people, when

they reached their 92nd birthday, start thinking about slowing down, you seem to be speeding up.

Why is that? Lord X's reply was this.

When you get to 92, you start seeing the door begin to close. And I have so much to do before the

door closes that the older I get, the harder I have to work. Something like that is the

impression we get of Abraham in this week's parisher. Sarah,

his constant companion throughout their journeys, has died. He is now 137 years old. We see him

mourn Sarah's death, and then he moves into action. He engages in an elaborate negotiation

to ply a plod of land in which to bury her. As the narrative makes clear,

this isn't a simple task. He confesses to the local people, the Hittites, that he is Gervat or

shav, an or chiebitochahm, I am an immigrant and a temporary resident among you, meaning that he knows

he has no right to buy land. It will take a special concession on their part

for him to do so. The Hittites politely, but firmly try to discourage him. He has no need to

buy a burial place. No one among us will deny you his burial site to bury your debt. He can

bury Sarah in somebody else's graveyard. Equally politely, but no less insistently, Abraham makes

it clear that he is determined to buy land. In the event, he pays a highly inflated price, 400 silver

shekels, to do so. The purchase of the Cave of Mach Pelaar is evidently a highly significant

event because it's recorded in great detail and highly

legal terminology, not just here, but three times subsequently in Baratis each time with the same

formality. Here, for instance, is Jacob on his deathbed speaking to his sons, bury me with my fathers

in the cave, in the field of Ephron the Hittite.

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