Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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30 in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before
Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying place.
The solemn charge Jacob gave them concerning his burial, which is a repetition of what he had before given to Joseph. See how he speaks of death, now that he is dying: I am to be gathered unto my people, Ge 49:29. Note, It is good to represent death to ourselves under the most desirable images, that the terror of it may be taken off. Though it separates us from our children and our people in this world, it gathers us to our fathers and to our people in the other world. Perhaps Jacob uses this expression concerning death as a reason why his sons should bury him in Canaan; for, says he, "I am to be gathered unto my people, my soul must go to the spirits of just men made perfect: and therefore bury me with my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, and their wives," Ge 49:31. Observe,
1. His heart was very much upon it, not so much from a natural affection to his native soil as from a principle of faith in the promise of God, that Canaan should be the inheritance of his seed in due time. Thus he would keep up in his sons a remembrance of the promised land, and not only would have their acquaintance with it renewed by a journey thither on that occasion, but their desire towards it and their expectation of it preserved.
2. He is very particular in describing the place both by the situation of it and by the purchase Abraham had made of it for a burying-place, Ge 49:30,32. He was afraid lest his sons, after seventeen years' sojourning in Egypt, had forgotten Canaan, and even the burying-place of their ancestors there, or lest the Canaanites should dispute his title to it; and therefore he specifies it thus largely, and the purchase of it, even when he lies a-dying, not only to prevent mistakes, but to show how mindful he was of that country. Note, It is, and should be, a great pleasure to dying saints to fix their thoughts upon the heavenly Canaan, and the rest they hope for there after death.
31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried
Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.