Genesis 23:4 I [am] a stranger and a sojourner with you:
In reading through Jewish literature I am finding that this statement of Abraham is really a loaded comment. Sarah, Abraham’s beloved wife has passed away and he wishes to bury her. It is a custom to bury a loved in land that you own, however, at this time Abraham does not own any land, he is a just a stranger and sojourner in the land of Canaan, yet he had a promise from God that his descendants would one day own this land. The people of this land offered to give a burial spot to Abraham for free, yet he insisted on paying for. They haggled a little and finally agreed to accept payment. This is in accordance with Near Eastern custom that in a situation involving grief or an emergency you would offer what is necessary to deal with the grief or emergency for free. It was just a customary curtesy. However, had Abraham accepted the offer for free he would no longer be a stranger or sojourner in the land, he would be accepted as one of them.
What has captured the attention of the ancient sages and even Christian commentators is that Abraham first expressed to the Canaanites that he was a stranger and sojourner in the land. This is curious as he planned to live in the land of Canaan. It might suggest that he planned on moving further into the land but the ancient Jewish sages saw more in this. Why did Abraham insist on paying for the land, was it just the customary curtesy or was there something else going on. Why does Scripture take up so much time with telling this story, what is the significance of this story that it should take up a whole chapter? I mean what spiritual value is there to wasting twenty verses on haggling over a burial place. Why not just say he purchased some land and buried his wife and get on with the rest of the story.
The key is found in those words I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Both words in the Hebrew could means stranger and sojourner, but each word has a different twist. The word for sojourner is gar from the root word guwr. This is really a loan word from the Canaanite word GR which means lime or a chalk line. Markings with lime or chalk were temporary. This word has its origins in foam or boiling up. Again the foam or boiling is only temporary. It is there for a moment and then when it cools down it is gone. While is it boiling into a foam it is like stirring things up. That foam is intermixed with all the ingredients in what is being boiled. Then when the foam disappears everything is calm again. When someone comes into a close knit group, say a Bible Study, he is a stranger but if his presence causes a disruption in the normal proceedings of the meeting we say that that person caused quite a stir. That is the idea behind the word gar which we render as sojourner. Abraham was doing more than just hanging around, he was making himself known, and he was stirring things up in a positive way. The residents of Canaan had come to respect Abraham and like him, yet he was still a stranger to them, he was not really one of them or a part of their culture and civilization even though he was fully accepted and welcomed as indicated by the curtesy extended to him. In a sense if Abraham accepted the grave site at no cost it would be a way to indicate that he was now totally absorbed into their society and culture. By purchasing the land he would remain a stranger.
The word stranger in Hebrew is torshab which is really applied to a foreigner, one who inhabits a land but is not really a citizen. There are many occasion in my disability bus where I drive individuals to the immigration department where they have a meeting with certain representatives in the hopes of becoming citizens of the United States. They live and work in our country and in some cases even own a home in our country, but they are still torshabs, strangers or non-citizens.
The ancient sages and even Christian commentators see a message being given to us today. Abraham, even though he was a resident of this land, never really belonged to the Canaanite society, he never practiced their religion and their customs. He remained an outsider even though the Canaanites would have gladly given him citizenship, so to speak. He refused it. He was an old man, his wife had passed away, he should have stayed with his new friends and lived out his life with them, but he was compelled to move on. He was and never would be a part of that world.
Therein lies the message of Genesis 23, we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven, this world is not our home, we are just passing through. We are simply torshab(s) in this world. We live, we work and even own homes in this world but we are not citizens of this world, we are citizens of another world, a world that is eternal, heaven is our true home.
Yet, while we live in this world we are also a gar, sojourners or ones who create quite a stir, who shake things up so that possibly those offering us a home here on earth might be persuaded to accept a home in our future world and become citizens of heaven.
Recent Comments