The Story Moves On: Genesis 23:17-20
There are pros and cons to most things in this world. Few things in life are solely good or completely evil. The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil, but some money is necessary to pay bills and pay for necessities. Children can be an incredible blessing in life, but as they grow and mature there are sleepless nights and moments of anxiety that come. Most things in life require taking the good along with the bad and trying to find God in it all.
Once the sale is complete, it is finalized before the Hittites at their city gate. Abraham goes to the cave and buries Sarah. Reinforcing the point made at the beginning, the burial of Sarah gets as many verses as her death and Abraham’s mourning. Sarah is dead; her body is the physical remains of her being. She has passed on from life. Abraham respects the dead by giving her a proper burial and the story moves on.
The field and the cave are the only land owned by Abraham as recorded in Genesis. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t own anything. Abraham was incredibly wealthy. He had many servants. He had significantly large flocks. He had tents and all the accoutrements necessary to live as a nomad. Abraham had many possessions, but the only land he had to tie him down was a field with a tomb attached.
This fact meshes well with the lack of verses about Sarah’s death. Abraham wasn’t tied to a locale. He didn’t have to worry about maintaining family homesteads. He could move as God directed him. He was flexible enough to travel as the resources of the land shifted with the seasons.
Ultimately, this meant he was flexible enough to follow God’s lead. When God directed him to go somewhere, he didn’t have a rigid home to worry about. He didn’t have fields to protect from squatters. He had herds to keep safe, but those could travel with him as he moved around.
The point of this story isn’t that it is against God’s will to own land. After all, when the Hebrew people come out of Egypt, God gives them land to possess. Almost everyone in the Bible owned a home, probably including Jesus! God doesn’t have an issue with people possessing land; but we cannot deny possessions like land hold us to a particular place. Land cannot follow us around and go where the Lord calls.
Having possessions like a home and land provide feelings of safety and belonging, but they also can increase anxiety in our life and make it harder to follow God’s call. Have a home can make it easier to care for ourselves and store up goods in case a bad season of life comes about, but it can also make it more difficult to fully rely upon God’s provision. There are pros and cons to most things in this world.
