(2) Death of Sarah. Eight years after Sarah died at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years, being then at or near Hebron (Gen. xxiii:1). This loss first taught Abraham the ne cessity of acquiring possession of a family sepul chre in the land of his sojourning. His choice fell on the cave of Machpelah (see MACIIPELAH ), (Gen. xxiii :9), and after a striking negotiation with the owner in the gate of Hebron, he pur chased it and had it legally secured to him, with the field in which it stood and the trees that grew thereon. (See Thomson's Land and Book, ii, 381 seq.) This was the only possession he ever had in the Land of Promise (Gen. xxiii The next care of Abraham was to provide a suit able wife for his son Isaac.
(3) Marriage of Isaac. It has always been the practice among pastoral tribes to keep up the fam ily ties by intermarriages of blood relations (Burckhardt, Notes, p. 134) and now Abraham had a further inducement in the desire to maintain the purity of the separated race from foreign and idolatrous connections. He therefore sent his aged and confidential steward, Eliezer, under the bond of a solemn oath, to discharge his mission faithfully, to renew the intercourse between his family and that of his brother Nabor, whom he had left behind in Charran. (See ELIEZER.) He prospered in his important mission (see IsAAc), and in due time returned, bringing with him Re bekah, the daughter of Nabor's son Bethuel, who became the wife of Isaac, and was installed as chief lady of the camp in the separate tent which Sarah had occupied (Gen. xxiv).
Some time after Abraham himself took a wife named Keturah, by whom he had several children. (See KETURAll.) These, together with Ishmael, seem to have been portioned off by their father in his lifetime, and sent into the east and south east, that there might be no danger of their inter ference with Isaac, the divinely appointed heir.
(4) Death. There was time for this, for Abra ham lived to the age of 175 years, too of which he had spent in the land of Canaan. lie died (B. C. 2158?). and was buried by his two eldest sons in the family sepulchre which he had pur chased of the Hittites (Gen. xxv 6. flew Testament References. in the New Testament Abraham is referred to in a variety of ways. The words of John the Baptist in Matt. Luke in :8, and of St. Paul, Rom. ix :7, rebuke the popular Jewish supposition that descent from Abraham carried with it any special claim upon Divine favor. Our Lord speaks of Abraham as one with whom all the partakers of Divine redemption shall be privileged to dwell (Matt. viii :ii); and as of one who is both cogni zant of things on earth and is also entrusted with the special charge over the souls of the blest (Luke xvi:22). Our Lord employs the
imagery of current religious belief ; Abraham is the typical representative of 'the righteous' who have been redeemed ; he is 'the father of the faithful.' Hence he says (John viii:56), 'Your father Abraham rejoiced to sec my day; and he saw it, and was glad.' He obtained a vision of the meaning of the promises, and rejoiced in the hope of their future fulfillment. Christ was the consummation of all the aspirations of Abraham the father of the race (Hastings' Bib. Diet.).
7. Character. Abraham's character merits the tribute paid it in all ages. Its strength is seen in the choice of Jehovah as his God when all around were idolators, and in his grand loyalty to Him amidst every temptation. Neither disappointment, nor delay, nor the strain of the sternest demands, for a moment shook his faith. Knowing Him in whom he believed, he trusted Him with an immovable confidence. Nor was his bearing less worthy towards his fellowmen. Though the elder, he gives the choice to Lot when the two must part; willing, for peace and kindliness, to take contentedly what his nephew leaves. He is too magnanimous to claim the spoil which war had made his, after the defeat of the kings, but renders the great service freely, without reward.
I f I lagar and Ishmael live ill at ease with Sarah. they have no such feeling towards him ; for they knew how unwilling he had been to send them away, and must have seen how the heart clung to them, which broke out in the fatherly prayer, "0 that Ishmael might live before thee. The pity even for the unworthy that marks his inter cession for Sodom is a lesson for every age, His bearing to the three mysterious strangers under the oaks of NI amre is the ideal of patriarchal courtesy and hospitality. Ile runs to meet them, and, bowing low, begs them to let him entertain them, and himself hastens the meal. That he should have maintained relations so friendly with the races among whom he lived at Shechein, Bethel, and Hebron, speaks for his prudence, in tegrity, and neighborly worth No wonder that his descendants, regarding him at once in his relations to God and to his fellow-men, should speak to him as "incomparable in his genera tion," or that they have fabled of him that, in Jeremiah's day, when the temple had been de stroyed, Abraham's form was seen over the ruins, his hands uplifted, pleading with God for the sons of his people led off to captivity (Geikc, /fours with the Bible, vol. 1. 410, II).