A Journey Through the Bible, Part Twelve

Old Testament

Genesis 23 and 24

Genesis 23:14-15—“And Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him, ‘My lord, listen to me; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? So bury your dead.’” This entire chapter (20 verses) is given to the death of Sarah and her burial. Abraham was in land that was controlled by the “sons of Heth,” Hittites, a people who will become quite powerful in the generations after Abraham’s death. They had a significant empire located in what is today the country of Turkey, and were a constant thorn in every major country’s side for several centuries. The man Ephron had a cave at the extremity of his field that Abraham desired in which to bury Sarah. According to custom, Ephron offered it to Abraham for no charge, which the patriarch, according to custom, declined. So then Ephron then set a price of 400 shekels of silver. One commentator suggests that this—according to custom—was a ridiculously high price, because Ephron figured Abraham would haggle over it (for example, 1300 years later, Jeremiah bought a field, which was probably larger, for only 17 shekels of silver, Jer. 32:9). Most non-Western peoples love to haggle. But Abraham was above it. Arguing about money is not the highest of spiritual virtues—if you will pardon my facetiousness—and the godly Abraham wasn’t going to do it. So, probably to Ephron’s surprise, and no doubt, much to his delight, Abraham gave him what he asked for. I wouldn’t claim that it is wrong, if we go to a country where they haggle in the markets, for us to do so. But do beware of covetousness. I believe it was some of the Greeks who refused to place any of their schools near marketplaces lest the young should be corrupted by the swearing, shouting, wrangling, and lying that went on there.

Genesis 24:2-4—“So Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had, ‘Please, put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell; but you shall go to my country and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac.’” A lovely story of Abraham procuring a wife for Isaac. If you aren’t familiar with it, you would be blessed to read about it. It’s too long to relate the tale here, but in a nutshell, Abraham’s servant went to where the patriarch’s brother, Nahor, lived, discovered his Rebekah, "who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother,"  and was able to persuade her, and especially her brother Laban, that it was of the Lord that she become Isaac’s wife. Marriages among relatively close relations like this was not unusual in ancient times, and arranged marriages were the rule (it doesn't appear that Isaac and Rebekah were blood related, though, because the language seems to imply that Bethuel was Nahor's stepson.  If I've got all the eggs in the right basket, that would make Rebekah Abraham's step-grandneice, which would make her Isaac's....what?  You figure it out...). The current Western custom of “falling in love” before marriage is romantic, but quite frankly, fails at a much higher rate than the arranged marriages of other cultures and previous ages. Of course, husbands and wives were more dependent upon each other, thus needed to stay together. But the Chinese had a saying, mocking our Western custom: “You put a hot kettle on a cold stove; we put a cold kettle on a hot stove.” One particularly noteworthy point about the Isaac/Rebekah story as related in the reading above: Abraham did NOT want Isaac to marry among the pagan people of Canaan. He thought his son would have a better chance, spiritually, among his own people. A wise choice, which Christian young people today would be well advised to follow.

New Testament

Matthew 14:23—“And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.” There is a lot of interesting material in this chapter—the beheading of John the Baptist, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, Jesus’ walking on the water and Peter’s lack of faith, but I chose verse 23 because it says something that we tend to pass over in order to get to what we might think is more substantive material: Jesus “went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.” Jesus took the time to pray; on one occasion, He spent all night in prayer (Luke 6:12). All night! Prayer is mentioned 134 times in the 250 chapters in the New Testament. I truly wonder how many of us spend one-tenth as much time in prayer as we ought. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” (James 5:16), and perhaps one of the reasons our prayers aren’t very effectual is that we don’t availeth ourselves much of it. Being allowed the privilege of approaching the throne of God and making our requests known to Him is, next to the forgiveness of sins, the greatest blessing we have. Let’s don’t neglect or abuse it. “Pray without ceasing,” (I Thessalonians 5:17). It is possible to pray too much, but I wonder how many of us are guilty of that?

Just in case my last statement—it’s possible to pray too much—sounds a little peculiar, let me explain. Don’t pray and pray and pray for God to give you something to eat if you aren’t willing to go out and work for it. There will be no manna from heaven any more. I’d like a job right now, and I pray about it often. But I send out a lot of résumé’s, too.