(Genesis) Genesis 22-24:60 — Joe Focht

Abraham’s Faith Under God’s Test

Genesis chapter 22 we have Abraham in the end of 21 planting a grove in Beersheba called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God. First time that's mentioned that's quite an concept for Abraham, a man thousands of years ago the everlasting God.

And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines land many days. Now these are days when he is watching Isaac grow into a young man. As we come to chapter 23 it tells us that Sarah dies at 127 years old. Now if Sarah dies at 127 that means Isaac is 37.

He was born when she was 90 and chapter 23 seems to follow on chronologically a pretty quick succession after this. So as we come to this chapter Isaac is somewhere 25 -30 probably wouldn't surprise me 33 right in there and he is a young man in full bloom and Abraham has enjoyed him living in Beersheba there in the in the desert looking at the stars no doubt thinking Lord you've made the promise and now it's been realized in my life looking at the grains of dust realizing that the promises of God that his lineage would be like that and that God would bless the nations of the world somehow through this young man.

God Tests Abraham’s Faith

And as we come to chapter 22 now we have God testing it says Abraham. The King James says tempt says it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto Abraham and he said behold here I am.

He said take now thy son thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. Now the Bible says that God does not tempt any man neither can he be tempted with evil but every man is drawn away of his own lust and entice and then when lust is conceived it brings forth sin and when sin has come to fruition it brings forth death so God does not tempt any man in the sense of soliciting us to evil but God by his designs often will put us into a circumstance where we do not know how it's going to roll out.

God allows us to enter into a series of circumstances where the things will become much clearer in a week or in a month or in six months or in a year and he knows well the end from the beginning and he of course God has great confidence as we enter into the circumstance and we enter into the circumstance and find that we have little confidence sometimes wondering how it's all going to come out and it puts us in a position then where we have to trust him and then that always becomes a test and the one who's being tested is us.

It's our faith. It's our trust in him. It's not God that is testing us to see what we're made of. He knows what we're made of. He's already been next week. He's already been a year from now and he already knows how we're going to respond.

He is testing us out only in the sense that he asks obedience. He asks us sometimes to get out of the boat and walk on the water like he beckoned Peter to come to a place where we may forsake reason or logic or sometimes we're in a situation where the scripture is telling us to turn the other cheek or to love someone or to offer ourselves a living sacrifice and we're in a situation where we're saying Lord that doesn't make a lot of sense logically or in regards to human reason and yet God is asking us to move forward in faith and I think that we then are tested in those circumstances and I think when it says that he's testing Abraham here it is simply that he's asking Abraham something that seems very cruel to us.

Take your son and offer him as a burnt offering and Isaac and Abraham were well aware of human sacrifice. The Canaanites that lived around them often sacrificed particularly their firstborn and as they had come from Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham was familiar with human sacrifice.

Again those who excavated Ur of the Chaldees found evidence of a great number of human sacrifices so this is something that Abraham understood but his God was vastly different than the gods of the heathen and it seems very cruel to us as we hear this and we'll see it progress.

The Sacrifice of Christ and Human Sacrifice

Now God is the only one that has the right to sacrifice his son. All other forms of child sacrifice, abortion, they are perversions of this sacrifice that God planned the history of humanity around. The shedding of blood and Satanism and all that it is all a perversion of the fact that in the midst of time and eternity there is a lamb as it had been slain and because Christ was willing to offer himself from the foundation of the world, God allowed human history to roll out and human history in itself is centered around God taking a bride for his son out of human history and God being justified in doing that because his own son before the foundation of the world offered himself freely as a lamb that was slain.

So God is the one that has the right in all of this as it were to offer his son and it is pagan idolatry for a human being to do that. Now God is putting Abraham through a parable. He will become a living parable.

He's going to take Isaac to the very mountain that Jesus Christ will be crucified on 2 ,000 years after this. Mount Moriah right at the peak which is Golgotha. He will take him to that very place and there he will deal with Abraham and something will be enacted that Abraham then will pass to his generations and it says even in Moses day as he records this chapter he says it is even said unto our day in the mountain of the Lord it shall be seen.

In fact Kyle and Dillard say Moriah means Jehovah is shown or Jehovah displays himself and certainly that will be the place that what God will display himself in the greatest way there at the crucifixion of Christ.

So he's taken Abraham there. Now there are seven times as we study through that God has appeared to Abraham. In Ur of the Chaldees we know from Genesis chapter I mean from Acts 7 verse 2 that he appeared to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees the God of glory.

He appeared to him again as he came into Canaan when Abraham built an altar there in the area of Shechem as he brought him back from Egypt and his backsliding and restored him and he separated Lot from him.

Abraham then goes to battle with those kings in Chedolamor and so forth in 14 and then the beginning of 15 God appears to him in a vision and speaks to him in regards to his seed again. At the end of that chapter God appears to him again as a burning pot passing between the parts.

In the beginning of chapter 17 it says the Almighty God the Lord Yahweh the Almighty God appeared to Abraham. It's so remarkable to read that. I don't think we understand the import of that and then again in chapter 18 God comes to him with two angels and appears to him and sits in his tent door.

This is the seventh time we have in record and seven is a number of completions that God manifest himself to Abraham in a particular way and though it is very difficult as Abraham heads into the circumstance it is my conviction that if you talk to Abraham at the end of his life he would have said of you I'd have traded away all of the other experiences with God to have kept that one on Moriah.

What I saw there and what I learned there so deeply touched me and changed my life that I'd have traded everything else away to have kept that experience. Yes when I headed into it it was a great difficulty.

It greatly troubled me. My heart was broken. I didn't understand what the Lord wanted but what he revealed to me through my obedience is worth more than I can put in human words and I believe that with all my heart.

I'm not good at it but I believe that's what Abraham would have said. God beckons him to come to a mountain that he will tell him of. Now this chapter is an incredible chapter because it's the first time the word love is used in the Bible.

It's the first time the word worship is used in the Bible. It's the first time the word lamb is used in the Bible. It brings so many things together in an incredible way. Take now thine son, thine only son.

God doesn't recognize Ishmael. Thine only son, Isaac whom thou lovest. And bring the bring him to the land of Moriah to a mountain, a particular mountain. Offer him as a burnt offering there and God says in verse 2 there, I will tell you something about this mountain.

I'm going to reveal something to you about it. First time the word love is used in the Bible. The love of a son and that's fitting because that's how the worlds began. The love between the father and the son.

Abraham Obeys Without Knowing the Outcome

Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son. He claimed the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went into the place, this is very important, notice, which God had told him, past tense, of.

In the end of verse 2 it says, get to a mountain that I will tell thee of, future tense, now no doubt Abraham had spent a sleepless night, wouldn't you have? If God had said to you, the son of all your affections were set on this boy.

All of Abraham's life surrounded Isaac in a sense because the promises were all tied up in this young man. Abraham had been in the land for years before he should begin to realize the promises. He was 100 and Sarah was 90 before she conceived.

There's been a miracle in all of this and all of Abraham's dreams and all of the dreams he has for the nation of Israel and all that God has told him about them being in Egypt and coming back to the land of Israel.

And all that God has told him about all of the nations of the world being blessed will be through this boy somehow and attached to his life. And now God is saying, take all that you dream about, take all that's important to you, take the deepest most important love of your entire life, the thing that all your dreams and expectancies are tied to and offer it up as a burnt offering.

And no doubt Abraham was up that night. I wouldn't have been able to sleep tossing and turning, praying, seeking the Lord. And there was some exchange between God and Abraham that night because as we get to the third verse, now Abraham is going to the mountain that God had told him past tense of.

So that night God spoke to him, no doubt not giving him the entire scenario because he will act it out to see it. But God speaking to the heart of Abraham and he comes now with Isaac. He begins his journey and two young men.

Then on the third day, and it's a type of the death of Christ, Isaac's been dead in his heart for three days now as he's traveled. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw the place far off and this is the top of Moriah.

It's not the slope where the temple is built. As you read through the Old Testament, God always condemns the idolatrous worship on the high places. It was always on the highest point. So as he sees this place of far off, he sees the peak of Moriah and that will be the place that he will offer his son.

He sees the place, the specific place of far off. And Abraham said to his young men, abide ye here. It was a donkey. I and the lad, now by the way that word lad is the same Hebrew word when we're reading about Abraham's young men, same word.

I and the lad will go yonder and worship, here's the first time worship is used, and come again unto you. Now, very remarkable verse for several reasons. First of all, notice, we're going to go worship and come back.

Isaac will say, Father behold, here's the wood, here's the fire, where's the lamb? Isaac understands well that worship is centered around the shedding of blood. Isaac understands well, Father, we can't approach a holy God, we can't worship without sacrifice, without substitutionary atonement.

Father, where is the sacrifice? He doesn't say to his father, Father, where's the band, where's the worship leaders, where's the keyboard player, how are we going to go worship? That has nothing to do with worship in a sense, that worship may take place during a song service, but worship is a lifestyle.

The Hebrew word means just to bow down in the dust before God. It means that is the position of your life. He is your God. You have no other gods before him. You live a life of worship. And they're going to worship.

Isaac understands there's no approaching a holy God without the shedding of blood. The amazing thing about verse 5 is this, it's a plural verb, and the way it should be read is, he says to his young men, Abraham, I and the lad will go yonder, we will worship and we will come again.

It's one of the most remarkable statements in all of the Bible. He's saying to the young men, we, Isaac and I, now he knows he's going to offer them as a burnt offering, we will worship and we will come again, expecting to return with Isaac.

It tells us in Hebrews 11 that he knew if it were necessary that God would raise him from the dead, but I want you to understand it meant that God would raise him from the ashes, because a burnt offering was consumed or there was nothing left from the flames.

Not just from the dead, but from the ashes. And it's remarkable, somehow in Abraham's heart, he's saying to the young men, we will come again. And that is astounding to me. And the servants are left behind.

You have to take note of that all the way through this. God is the one who has to provide the lamb. We're going to read that. The servants are left behind. What will be settled will be settled on this mountain, Calvary, Golgotha, Moriah, between the Father and the Son alone.

No servant will touch it. No servant will get close to it. Our service has nothing to do with our salvation. God loves the servant more than he loves the service that he gets from the servant. And I think sometimes we get this attitude that it's in our serving, we kind of earn, you know, brownie points with God or something, and that if we're really good this week, he's going to love us a little more.

God’s Holiness and the Need for Atonement

The servants are left behind, because what is necessary for us to fellowship with a holy and perfect God is holiness and perfection. The kind of perfection that you and I need to walk with God and to come to heaven is total perfection and total holiness.

It's the kind of holiness and the kind of perfection that God himself displays. It is God's perfection and God's holiness that you and I need to come to heaven. Without that, we will never enter. Because heaven is designed for his perfection, that's why it's heaven, and his holiness.

And it is something that you and I have no capacity at all to provide. None. Again, if you might live in a single home, and the Empire State Building might be built right next to your house, and you may think, well, you know, that building is so much higher, that's so much closer to heaven than I am.

And we look at Christians like that. Oh, that man is so much more spiritual than I am. Certainly, you know, he's going to get into heaven easier than I'm going to get in. You have to understand, when we measure height, if we measure the height of your house and then the height of the Empire State Building, and we measure it in relationship to the furthest star in the universe, 20 billion light years away, then the difference between your house and the Empire State Building becomes very negligible.

And when it comes to measuring God's perfection and God's holiness, the difference between the most spiritual Christian and the Christian who is struggling is really very negligible. So the servants are left behind where this issue must be settled.

It must be settled between the Father and the Son alone. An eternal price has to be paid. The servants are left behind, and Isaac and Abraham proceed. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, verse 6, and he laid it upon Isaac, his son.

That is incredible. And I imagine that the heart of God is breaking because he's seeing the cross being laid upon Jesus. And he took the fire in his hand, and Abraham must have had a strange feeling when he took that knife.

And then, look, twice, it'll say this again in verse 8, they went, both of them, together. Imagine that walk. I can't imagine if it was my oldest son, Mikey, and I walking together, leaving the servants behind.

He's bearing the wood that I will burn him on. I'm carrying the knife that I will kill him with. And the fire in my hand, and we're walking together to a place. Abraham probably walked in front of Isaac so he wouldn't have to look in his face.

I don't know what happened, but twice it will tell us they walked, both of them, together. And I think, what a stroll. What a walk that must have been. We have a little record of the conversation. Verse 7 says, Isaac spake to Abraham, his father.

Evidently, Abraham had been silent until then, as they're walking, and said, My father. He said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Isaac 30, 33, Abraham 130, 133.

The question comes, Father, I understand we're going to worship. I'm lugging this wood on my back. I see you have the knife and the fire. I must be missing something here, Dad. We don't have a lamb. Abraham says, My son, God will provide himself a lamb.

Now, it's interesting. First time the word lamb is used in the Bible. It's a question. Father, behold the fire and the wood. Where is the lamb? Now, the very interesting thing is you go to the New Testament and you find the first time the word lamb is used, it isn't in Matthew, it's not in Mark, it's not in Luke.

You read all the way through those Gospels and the word lamb is never used. You don't find it until you get to John, I think, chapter 1, verse 29. Here, there's a question in the Bible, the first time the word lamb is used.

Father, where is the lamb? There, in John chapter 1, the question is answered when John the Baptist says, Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. There's such tremendous beauty as we go through this.

Father, where is the lamb? And then I'm prejudiced to the King James Version here because the answer comes from Abraham, God will provide himself a lamb, not for himself. Your translations say that, and I'm sure that's implied.

God will provide a lamb for himself. Isaac, don't worry. But I think there is a double truth here, and it's prophetic. Abraham says in the King James, God will provide himself as the lamb. God will provide himself a lamb for the sacrifice.

And certainly he did as he came in the person of Christ. Paul says, we see God in Christ on the cross, reconciling the world to himself. God providing himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went, both of them, together.

The Ram Provided and Abraham’s Obedience

And they came to the place, and Abraham's heart must be broken, which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar. He's 130 years old. Notice Isaac's not helping. Isaac probably said, Dad, can I help?

He said, No. I want to take my time on this altar, son. Probably walking back down the mountain to get the stones, thinking, God, come on, you've got to do something here. We're to the place. He's building this altar.

Isaac's standing by. And then he laid the wood in order. He didn't just throw it on. He's taking his time. He's putting it in order. And then, most remarkably, he bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

He must have said to Isaac, it doesn't say that he bashed Isaac on the back of the head with one of the rocks when he wasn't looking and jumped on him and tied him up and threw him on the wood. It says, he bound, he must have said to Isaac, Isaac, turn around, put your hands behind your back.

I mean, I just, I look at this and I think, Lord, Jesus. And while he was tying his hands, he must have said, Father, why? And I'm sure the Father in heaven heard his son saying, Why hast thou forsaken me?

And he must have said, OK, Isaac, come over here and lay down on the wood. Let me tie your feet. And he laid him on the wood. And Isaac, like Christ, going willingly, no man taking his life, he could have easily overpowered his father.

And he must have been saying, Isaac, the God that I love and that I serve has asked us to enact this. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if Isaac said, but Father, will you use the knife on me?

Will you set the wood on fire? Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. So it comes to the point where Abraham has the knife in the air. No doubt Isaac looking into the eyes of his father, seeing the tears.

And I'm wondering if it was my son, if I would turn away my head or close my eyes before I would bring the knife down, or would I look right in his face as I plunged the knife into his heart? I wonder whose heart is more broken.

Is it Abraham's heart as he's about to sacrifice his son, not understanding what God wants? Why is God waiting this long? Or is it Isaac's heart as he looks into the face, white hair, white beard, his ancient father with a knife raised above his head with tears running down his face?

Or is it the heart of God that is most broken in this scene as he sees a scene being enacted in front of him where he will hear his own son cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Abraham, no doubt, goes to plunge the knife down.

Very interesting, verse 11, the angel of the Lord, Theophany, Jesus himself who will be the Lamb, the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven saying, Abraham, Abraham. And Isaac probably said, Dad, listen.

Did you hear that? Abraham said, Here I am. Isaac said, There he is. He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad. Isaac went, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

And it says that over and over, thine son, thine only son, being repeated from heaven. And God says, Now I know, not in the sense that God did not know, but he's saying to Abraham, I've seen you bring this to completion, Abraham.

I've seen you in obedience demonstrate your life. Look, I hate to go down here, but look down in verse 18. It says, In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. God speaking to Abraham, Because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Those are the last recorded words we have God speaking to Abraham. Because thou hast obeyed my voice. And that is the epitaph, I'm sure, on Abraham's tomb. It is the thing that characterizes life from Ur of the Chaldees, that he obeyed the voice of God, many times not understanding.

And many times making mistakes and going out of the way. We see that. But Abraham never changing God's. Abraham never running, as it were, from God. Abraham, the thing that characterized his life and his faith, which was where his righteousness came from, was obedience.

Jehovah Jireh and the Promised Seed

Now I know that you reverence me, that you fear me, seeing you have not withheld thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. Now that word ram there is not the same word from earlier in verse 8 where Abraham says God will provide himself a lamb.

That's a different word than the ram that he offers. So this isn't the one that had been prophesied. This is a ram that was caught in a thicket. How convenient. And Abraham offers him, but it isn't the lamb that was prophesied back in that verse.

There was a ram caught in a thicket. Abraham took that ram and offered him, and it would be the first of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of animals that would bleed their life out into the ground on that mountain looking forward to the one who would come to take away the sin of the world.

Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our provider. It's really in the sense the Lord that sees, but it's with action the Lord that will see to it. And then in that sense it's Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our provider.

He called the name of that place the Lord will provide. As it is said, now Moses putting in his note as he's writing, as it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord, Moses said, still future, future tense, it shall be seen.

Moses says we know in our day that this is the place where a particular thing will be manifest and demonstrated of Yahweh God. And Moses doesn't say exactly what it is, but you have to imagine what happened was Abraham came back from this experience.

He must have told his servants. He must have told Isaac. He must have told his family. This is amazing. God took me to the place. He allowed me. It seemed so cruel to me. I wasn't sure. He gave me some reassurance, but in that moment when my heart was being torn from my breast as I was about to plunge down the knife, all of a sudden I saw the one that would come.

And Jesus said that to the Pharisees. Chapter 8, I believe verse 56, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it. And no doubt it was right in that scene that Abraham saw the Savior of the world that would come.

And pass that on or in oral tradition to those that followed after him. Remember back before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he said of Abraham, I know that he will instruct his children after my ways that he'll teach them.

And no doubt Abraham passed it along so that even in Moses day, as he writes, he said, even in our day, it is still said that in this mountain, it shall be seen the thing that God will do. How incredible.

And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven a second time and said, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, now notice it's the angel of the Lord, and then it says, saith the Lord, Yahweh, the same person, for because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thine son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the seed of the Lord.

As the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed because thou hath obeyed my voice.

Very interesting. So Abraham returned unto his young men and they rose up and went together to Beersheba and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. Now it's very interesting. There's no mention of the young men returning, of Isaac rather, returning.

It says that he comes back, the young men come back. Isaac is not mentioned again until we get to chapter 24. Now there are beautiful types here. In chapter 22 we see the only son offered by the Father on the mountain, a picture of Christ.

Sarah’s Death and Burial in Canaan

In the next chapter we see Sarah die. In the chapter after that, 24, we see Eleazar, and we're told earlier in chapter 14, that's his name, the chief servant of Abraham, which God is my helper, which is a type of the Holy Spirit because Jesus said the Paracletus, the one who comes alongside two things.

So Eleazar is sent by the Father to a different land, not to Canaan, to get a bride for the only begotten son. So we have this beautiful picture of God offering up his son on the mountain, then the wife of the Father, Jehovah, as it were, setting aside Israel for a time and then sending to fetch Rebekah, a wife for his only begotten son.

And the next time we see Isaac, and the next time his name is mentioned, is when Eleazar is bringing the bride from Padnarum and Isaac is sitting by the well of Leheroi. And the beautiful picture, of course, is the son is offered, Jesus Christ.

We don't see him again until the Holy Spirit brings the bride. And that's what we're waiting for tonight, if you don't know that, for the trumpet to sound and for this corruption to put on incorruption and this mortal to put on immortality and how beautifully the story is told out in these chapters.

Abraham returned unto his young men, but it doesn't mention Isaac. They rose up and they went together to Beersheba. And Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham, now by this time there's some trade going back and forth, some traveler, some trader.

The idea is some man who is traveling tells Abraham, behold Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor back in Ur of the Chaldees. So he receives word that his family is growing back in the land of Ur.

Huz, his firstborn, and Buz, his brother. I don't know who would do that to their kids. Huz and Buz, you know, I don't know whether they're inventing names or running out of names here. I wonder if they're twins, Huz and Buz.

And Chemuel, the father of Aram. And Hexid, and Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaf, Bethuel. What a mouthful to call those kids for dinner. No wonder they called two, Huz and Buz, it makes everything easier. And Bethuel begot Rebekah.

Now that's important because that's where we're going in chapter 24. These eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, whose name was Rumah, she bear also Teba, Geum, Teash, and Meaca.

Now, Sarah was a hundred and twenty-seven years old. And these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan. And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.

Very interesting. This is the only woman recognized as the mother of faithful women in the Bible. There's no other woman that's singled out and said this is an example. But she tells us she's a mother of believing women in regards to faith.

It gives us the age that she dies here. Very interestingly, 127, which makes Isaac 37 years old when she dies. And it's the only woman's age in the Bible given like that. It's significant. Sarah died in Kiriath Arba in Hebron in the land of Canaan.

And then it says Abraham came to mourn for Sarah. So evidently he's not there when she dies. So we get the idea it is not a prolonged sickness. She must have died suddenly. We don't know if it was a heart attack.

What happened? Abraham is away doing something. He gets word and he comes then to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. He wasn't there when she died. First mention of a man's tears in the Bible also. Abraham weeping for Sarah and how they must have loved one another.

Imagine that. Imagine being in love all those years. Broken hearted, not having children. Moving to another land. You know, you change environment and it kind of glues you together in an interesting way.

The only familiar face around was Sarah's as it were. And then God blessing in a miraculous way. Giving birth at 90 years old. Living 37 years after that, her and Abraham. And Abraham is rejuvenated too.

He gets remarried at 165. Has more kids. And just how heartbroken. Imagine being married. How long were they married? 100 years? Imagine having your 80th anniversary. Your 90th anniversary. He came and he wept for her.

I bet he did. And what a woman she was to have been with him all those years. Living in tents, never finding the city that he looked for. Never inheriting a piece of ground. What a woman. Abraham stood up from before his dead and he spake unto the sons of Heth saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.

Give me a possession for a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The children of Heth, they're Hittites, answer Abraham saying unto him, Hear us my Lord, thou art a mighty prince.

Now the Hebrew says, thou art a prince of God. They recognize Abraham as having a special relationship with the living God. I mean, they have seen him defeat Chedolamor and the four kings from the north with a huge army with only 300 guys.

They have seen his God just smoke Sodom and Gomorrah. They've seen Abraham become a father at 100 years old. They know that Abimelech's house was plagued because of his trying to take Sarah into his harem.

And then Abraham prayed for him and he was healed. So Abraham has quite a reputation. Now these Hittite men say, you are a prince of God among us. Take the choice of your sepulchers of burying for thy dead.

None of us will withhold from thee his sepulcher, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. And he communed with them saying, if it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat from me to Ephron, the son of Zoar, that he may give me the cave of Mephila, which he hath, which is in the end of his field.

For as much money as it is worth, he shall give it to me for a possession of a burying place amongst you. Now, there is a bit of culture and it is not spoken bargaining here that has not really begun.

But as the table is being set, oh, we would never take anything you want. You just mention it and then Abraham says, oh, no, no. And then finally, they'll say, well, it's worth 400 pieces of silver. But what's that between friends?

You can have it. And Abraham says, no, no, let me pay you. And, you know, this whole thing goes on as part of the culture. The most amazing thing is recognize this. This is the only piece of ground. It's one we know for sure, maybe two.