The Promise and the Place

Being no stranger to new cultures and new places, Abraham had traveled across the Middle East, from  Old Babylon in the east to Canaan in the west.  Living in tents, his nomadic lifestyle made travel part and parcel of his life.  All that Abraham owned could be carried and moved.  When God told Abraham to leave his home, his family and  his people, He  promised to lead him to a land where He would make Abraham into a great nation.  The group that traveled with Abraham included his nephew, Lot, and his wife, Sarah along with servants and animals and all the gear needed for living as a nomad.  It must have been quite a site to see the group of travelers, some riding camels, some on foot, making their way to the land God would show them. 

Once the nomads reached Shechem, God spoke to Abraham again, promising to give the land to his descendants. It is this promise that the children of Abraham kept alive as they moved into Egypt and became slaves.  It is this promise that inspired the wanderings in the desert and it is this  promise that led to the conquest of the Promised Land some 400 years later.  The land was for the children of Abraham.  Abraham was only a sojourner there.

In addition to land, God promised to make Abraham a great nation, however at that time, Abraham had no children, no one to whom he could pass on the promise.  God, as is His way, made Abraham a father by a  miraculous way.   And the promise had a person to carry it. 

Even in the Promised Land, Abraham’s nomadic life meant a life of movement, following the grazing grounds for the herds.  It meant not staying too long in any one place.  It meant he did not own a piece of the land promised to his descendants.  The community of people with Abraham was a mobile community.  He had no city there, no permanent house. The land that was the Promised Land was for his descendants to dwell in; Abraham was only a sojourner there.        

But Abraham did eventually buy land in Canaan.  What led him to purchase a place of he would own?   It was after his wife,  Sarah, died that  he decided he needed a place to inter her body.  A permanent place, a place to which  he could return and a place where he, too, could be interred.  So  he bought a graveyard. 

The plot of land Abraham bought included a field and a cave.  He paid for it in silver.  It was a witnessed transaction, deeded to him from the owner.  It was all legal.
Genesis 23: 14-16 tells the way it happened.  "Then Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him,'My lord, listen to me; a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.'  Abraham listened to Ephron; and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, commercial standard."

 The only land Abraham owned in the Promised Land was a graveyard.

Abraham was the beginning of the nation of Israel, the first one.  He received the promises from God, but never owned a piece of the land he was promised, save for a cemetery. The promise was crucial for Abraham; it gave him the knowledge that God was real, God was overseeing his life.  Abraham believed God we are told, about the promise and the future.  But he never lived as an owner in the Promised Land.  He was an alien there, because beyond the promise, he was looking for more.  He was looking for “the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God,” Hebrews 11:10.  He was looking much farther into the future to the city of God.   Are we?