Matthew Henry on Genesis 23:3-15
Here is, I. The humble request which Abraham made to his neighbours, the Hittites, for a burying-place among them, Gen 23:3, Gen 23:4. It was strange he had this to do now; but we are to impute it rather to God's providence than to his improvidence, as appears Act 7:5, where it is said, God gave him no inheritance in Canaan. It were well if all those who take care to provide burying-places for their bodies after death were as careful to provide a resting-place for their souls. Observe here, 1. The convenient diversion which this affair gave, for the present, to Abraham's grief: He stood up from before his dead. Those that find themselves in danger of over-grieving for their dead relations, a…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 23:9
Machpelah--the "double cave."
Adam Clarke on Genesis 23:8
Entreat for me to Ephron - Abraham had already seen the cave and field, and finding to whom they belonged, and that they would answer his purpose, came to the gate of Hebron, where the elders of the people sat to administer justice, etc., and where bargains and sales were made and witnessed, and having addressed himself to the elders, among whom Ephron was, though it appears he was not personally known to Abraham, he begged them to use their influence with the owner of the cave and field to sell it to him, that it might serve him and his family for a place of sepulture.
John Gill on Genesis 23:9
That he may, give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath,
which is in the end of his field,.... The Targum of Jonathan renders it, "the double cave", and so do the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions; and, according to Aben Ezra and Ben Melech, it was so called because there was a cave within a cave in it; and, as Jarchi thinks, because it was a house and chamber over it (y) or, as he adds, because it was fit for couples, for two corpses to be laid in it; and the Jews say (z), here Adam and Eve were buried, which made Abraham so desirous of having it for a buryingplace: but it seems rather to be the proper name of a place, and indeed of a tract of land, in which the field and the cave in…
