Chapter 24
sidered before the Lord in the place of my son. And Abraham finished the whole of the service by the altar, and the service was accepted before the Lord, and was accounted as if it had been Isaac; and the Lord blessed Abraham and his seed on that day.
76. And Satan went to Sarah, and he appeared to her in the figure of an old man very humble and meek, and Abraham was yet engaged in the burnt offering before the Lord.
77. And he said unto her: Dost thou not know all the work that Abraham has made with thine only son this day? For he took Isaac and built an altar and killed him, and brought him up as a sacrifice upon the altar, and Isaac cried and wept before his father, but he looked not at him, neither did he have compassion over him.
78. And Satan repeated these words, and he went away from her, and Sarah heard all the words of Satan, and she imagined him to be an old man from amongst the sons of men who had been with her son, and had come and told her these things.
79. And Sarah lifted up her voice and wept and cried out bitterly on account of her son; and she threw herself upon the ground and she cast dust upon her head, and she said, O my son, Isaac my son, O that I had this day died instead of thee. And she continued to weep and said, it grieves me for thee, O my son, my son Isaac, O that I had died this day in thy stead.
80. And she still continued to weep, and said, it grieves me for thee after that I have reared thee and have brought thee up; now my joy is turned into mourning over thee, I that had a longing for thee, and cried and prayed to God till I bare thee at ninety years old; and now hast thou served this day for the knife and the fire, to be made an offering.
81. But I console myself with thee my son, in it being the word of the Lord, for thou didst perform the command of thy God: For who can transgress the word of our God, in whose hands is the soul of every living creature?
82. Thou art just O Lord our God, for all thy works are good and righteous; for I also am rejoiced with thy word which thou didst command, and whilst mine eye weepeth bitterly my heart rejoiceth.
83. And Sarah laid her head upon the bosom of one of her handmaids, and she became as still as a stone.
84. She afterward rose up and went about making inquiries till she came to Hebron, and she inquired of all those whom she met walking in the road, and no one could tell her what had happened to her son.
85. And she came with her maid servants and men servants to Kireath Arba, which is Hebron, and she asked concerning her son, and she remained there whilst she sent some of her servants to seek where Abraham had gone with Isaac; they went to seek him in the house of Shem and Eber, and they could not find him, and they sought throughout the land and he was not there.
86. And behold, Satan came to Sarah in the shape of an old man, and he came and stood before her, and he said unto her, I spoke falsely unto thee, for Abraham did not kill his son and he is not dead. And when she heard the word, her joy was so exceedingly violent on account of her son, that her soul went out through joy. She died and was gathered to her people.
87. And when Abraham had finished his service he returned with his son Isaac to his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba, and they came home.
88. And Abraham sought for Sarah, and could not find her, and he made inquiries concerning her, and they said unto him, she went as far as Hebron to seek you both where you had gone, for thus was she in formed.
89. And Abraham and Isaac went to her to Hebron, and when they found that she was dead, they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly over her; and Isaac fell upon his mother's face and wept over her, and he said, O my mother, my mother, how hast thou left me, and where hast thou gone? O how, how hast thou left me!
90. And Abraham and Isaac wept greatly and all their servants wept with them on account of Sarah, and they mourned over her a great and heavy mourning.
1. AND the life of Sarah was one hundred and twenty seven years, and Sarah died; and Abraham rose up from before his dead to seek a burial place to bury his wife Sarah; and he went and spoke to the children of Heth, the inhabitants of the land, saying,
2. I am a 63 . stranger and a sojourner with you in your land; give me a possession of a burial place in your land, that I may bury my dead from before me.
3. And the children of Heth said unto Abraham, behold the land is before thee, in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead, for no man shall withhold thee from burying thy dead.
4. And Abraham said unto them, if you are agreeable to this, go and intreat for me to Ephron, the son of Zochar, requesting that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which is in the end of his field, and I will purchase it of him for whatever he desire for it.
5. And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth, and they went and called for him, and he came before Abraham, and Ephron said unto Abraham, behold all thou requirest thy servant will do; and Abraham said, no, but I will buy the cave and the field which thou hast for value, in order that it may be for a possession of a burial place forever.
6. And Ephron answered and said, behold the field and the cave are before thee, give whatever thou desirest; and Abraham said, only at full value will I buy it from thy hand, and from the hands of those that go in at the gate of thy city, and from the hand of thy seed forever.
7. And Ephron and all his brethren heard this, and Abraham weighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver in the hands of Ephron and in the hands of all his brethren; and Abraham wrote this transaction, and he wrote it and testified it with four witnesses.
8. And these are the names of the witnesses, Amigal son of Abishna the Hittite, Adichorom son of Ashunach the Hivite, Abdon son of Achiram the Gomerite, Bakdil the son of Abudish the Sidonite. 9 And Abraham took the book of the purchase, and placed it in his treasures, and these are the words that Abraham wrote in the book, namely:
10. That the cave and the field Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite, and from his seed, and from those that go out of his city, and from their seed forever, are to be a purchase to Abraham and to his seed and to those that go forth from his loins, for a possession of a burial place forever; and he put a signet to it and testified it with witnesses.
11. And the field and the cave that was in it and all that place were made sure unto Abraham and unto his seed after him, from the children of Heth; behold it is before Mamre in Hebron, which is in the land of Canaan.
12. And after this Abraham buried his wife Sarah there, and that place and all its boundary became to Abraham and unto his seed for a possession of a burial place.
13. And Abraham buried Sarah with pomp as observed at the interment of kings, and she was buried in very fine and beautiful garments.
14. And at her bier was Shem, his sons Eber and Abimelech, together with Anar. Ashcol and Mamre, and all the grandees of the land followed her bier.
15. And the days of Sarah were one hundred and twenty seven years and she died, and Abraham made a great and heavy mourning, and he performed the rites of mourning for seven days.
16. And all the inhabitants of the land comforted Abraham and Isaac his son on account of Sarah.
17. And when the days of their mourning passed by Abraham sent away his son Isaac, and he went to the house of Shem and Eber, to learn the ways of the Lord and his instructions, and Abraham remained there three years.
18. At that time Abraham rose up with all his servants, and they went and returned homeward to Beersheba, and Abraham and all his servants remained in Beersheba.
19. And at the revolution of the year Abimelech king of the Philistines died in that year. He was one hundred and ninety three years old at his death. And Abraham went with his people to the land of the Philistines, and they comforted the whole household and all his servants, and he then turned and went home.
20. And it was after the death of Abimelech that the people of Gerar took Benmalich his son, who was only twelve years old, and they made him king in the place of his father.
21. And they called his name Abimelech after the name of his father, for thus was it their custom to do in Gerar, and Abimelech reigned instead of Abimelech his father, and he sat upon his throne.
22. And Lot the son Haran also died in those days, in the thirty ninth year of the life of Isaac, and at his death all the days that Lot lived were one hundred and forty years.
23. And these are the children of Lot, that were born to him by his daughters; the name of the firstborn was Moab, and the name of the second was Benami.
24. And the two sons of Lot went and took themselves wives from the land of Canaan, and they bare children to them, and the children of Moab were Ed, Mayon, Tarsus, and Kanvil, four sons, these are fathers to the children of Moab unto this day.
25. And all the families of the children of Lot went to dwell wherever they should light upon, for they were fruitful and increased abundantly.
26. And they went and built themselves cities in the land where they dwelt, and they called the names of the cities which they built after their own names.