Journey of Faith – Abraham joins Sarah

[Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.–Admin1.]

Here ends the life and spiritual journey and witness of the ‘father of all nations’, and the progenitor of the people of Israel.  The account is brief, as it should be. It merely states his age at death, how content he was at his end of life (on earth).

 Both Isaac/Yitzchak and Ishmael/Yismael, firstborns from different mothers Sarah and Hagar, bury Abraham, a detail we’ve missed noticing for many years when as Christians, we simply swept through the “Old Testament” just so we could say we’ve read it.  

7 Now these are the days and years of the life of Avraham, which he lived:
8 A hundred years and seventy years and five years, then he expired.

Avraham died at a good ripe-age, old and satisfied (in days),

and was gathered to his kinspeople.
9 Yitzhak and Yishmael his sons buried him, in the cave of Makhpela, in the field of Efron son
of Tzohar the Hittite, that faces Mamre,
10 the field that Avraham had acquired from the Sons of Het.

There were buried Avraham and Sara his wife

11 Now it was after Avraham’s death, that God blessed Yitzhak his son.

And Yitzhak settled by the Well of the Living-one Who-Sees-Me.

There is a phrase that might be a clue, or so we hope, is a clue, to being reconciled with our loved ones who have gone on ahead of us —vs 8 was gathered to his kinspeople. 

As far as we know, only Sarah has been buried at the cave of Makpelah, so what does the phrase mean?  

There seems to be a distinction between this phrase and descriptions of the actual burial of the physical body.  

Later, Isaac would be buried with Abraham (Genesis 49:30), and Jacob (Genesis 50:4-11), as well as the matriarchs.

Earlier in Genesis 15:15, during the cutting clean animals ratifying YHWH’s covenant with Abraham and his seed, this much is indicated: 

Genesis 15:15 As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace;

you will be buried at a good ripe-age.

Here are a few more usages of “gathered to his people” or “go to his fathers”:  

• Ishmael (Genesis 25:17); 
• Isaac (Genesis 35:29); 
• Jacob (49:29, 33); 
• Aaron (Numbers 20:24, 26), 
• and Moses whose burial place was unknown (Deuteronomy 32:50), 
• David (1 Chronicles 17:11), 
• Josiah (2 Kings 22:20).

Significantly, YHWH says to Moses—-

Deuteronomy 32:49 Go up these heights of Avarim/The-region-across, Mount Nevo

that is in the land of Moav,

that faces Jericho, and see the land of Canaan

that I am giving to the Children of Israel for a holding.
50 You are to die on the mountain that you are going up,

and are to be gathered to your kinspeople,

as Aharon your brother died on Hill’s Hill

and was gathered to his kinspeople

It is a comforting thought to us, earth-bound humans who love the people in our valued circles of relationships, whether family, friends and fond acquaintances, to look forward to seeing them again in another realm of existence.  Christianity teaches that much but the Hebrew Scriptures merely hint about an afterlife; that is why Jewish teaching focuses on how to live and be fruitful and useful in the here and now, for this life we are in is all we know. Scripture is silent about the hereafter, the Eternal God simply declares:

Deuteronomy 30:19

I call-as-witness against you today the heavens and the earth:

life and death I place before you, blessing and curse;

now choose life, in order that you may stay-alive, you and your seed,
20 by loving YHVH your God,

by hearkening to his voice and by cleaving to him,

for he is your life and the length of your days,

to be settled on the soil

that YHVH swore to your fathers, to Avraham, to Yitzhak and to Yaakov,

to give them!

While the context of these verses is specifically addressed to Israel before the second generation led by first generation survivors Joshua and Caleb enter the promised land, the words “choose life” are key—the original hearers were obviously already alive so what “life” were they to choose? Evidently, the “life” that is related to “loving YHWH your God by hearkening to his voice and by cleaving to him for he is your life and the length of your days”.  Surely the choice in this life has consequences in the afterlife, that is only to be expected of a just God Who blesses those who hear and heed His call to live His Way, His Torah. Whatever the Eternal God has in store for those who ‘choose life’, only He knows, we don’t worry or speculate about it, we focus on this side of eternity where our choices matter for us and for those around us.

Our Torah teacher says that when each of us have accomplished all that our God YHWH has ordained for us to do, we earn our well deserved rest in the sleep of death . . . which makes us think that we should keep ourselves as useful in all ways and opportunities that open to us until the moment we take our last breath. But what next?

There is a story, true or not,  about a rich man who had a terminal disease, the cure to which had not yet been discovered; and so he was primed about being cryogenically frozen until such time medical research would find a cure for his disease perhaps in 50 years or so.  It was not the preposterous suggestion that he scoffed at, it was the thought of being revived at a time when all his loved ones and everyone he knew would surely have died.

The generational gap of one or two generations is difficult enough to adjust to.  Indeed, where is the joy and pleasure in living among a generation of strangers in times we hardly relate to . . . in the world to come?

A nice epitaph would be:  “And he was gathered to his kinspeople.”  

May it be so for all of us, be reunited with our kinspeople.

NSB@S6K