any payment for Machpelah, but finishing up by asking its fullest value, in this true oriental manner: "My

lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver (about fifty guineas  37 ); what is that

betwixt me and thee?"

In contrast, Abraham truly stands out prince-like in his courtesy and in his dealings. And so the field and

cave were secured to him - a "burying-place," Abraham's only "possession" in a land that was to be his for

ever! But even in this purchase of a permanent family burying-place, Abraham showed his faith in the

promise; just as, many centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah showed his confidence in the promised return of

Judah from Babylon, by purchasing a field in Anathoth. (Jeremiah 32:7, 8) In this cave of Machpelah lie

treasured the remains of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Leah also, and the embalmed bodies

of Jacob and perhaps Joseph.38 No other spot in the Holy Land holds so much precious dust as this; and it

is, among all the so-called "holy places," the only one which to this day can be pointed out with perfect

certainty. Since the Moslem rule, it has not been accessible to either Christian or Jew. The site over the cave

itself is covered by a Mahomedan sanctuary, which stands enclosed within a quadrangular building, two

hundred feet long, one hundred and fifteen wide, and fifty or sixty high, the walls of which are divided by

pilasters, about five feet apart, and two and a half feet wide. This building, with its immense stones, one of

which is no less than thirty-eight feet long, must date from the time of David or of Solomon. The mosque

within it was probably anciently a church; and in the cave below its floor are the patriarchal sepulchers.

Three years after the death of Sarah, Abraham resolved to fill the gap in his own family and in the heart of

Isaac, by seeking a wife for his son. To this we shall refer in connection with the life of Isaac. Nothing else

remains t o be told of the third -eight years which followed the death of Sarah. We read, indeed, that Abraham

"took a wife," Keturah, and that she bore him six sons, but we are not sure of the time when this occurred.

At any rate, the history of these sons is in no wise mixed up with that of the promised seed. They became

the ancestors of Arab tribes, which are sometimes alluded to in Holy Writ. And so, through the impressive

silence of so many years as make up more than a generation, Scripture brings us to the death of Abraham, at

the "good old age" of one hundred and seventy-five, just seventy-five years after the birth of Isaac. To

quote the significant language of the Bible, he" was gathered to his people," an expression far different from

dying or being buried, and which implies reunion with those who had gone before, and a firm and assured

belief in the life to come. And as his sons Isaac and Ishmael, both aged men, stand by his sepulcher in the

cave of Machpelah, we seem to hear the voice of God speaking it unto all times:

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were

persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on

the earth." (Hebrews 11:13)