By Grunion Guy

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 CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
The Death of Sarah, Genesis 23:1 - 32:20.


THE FACTS!

Sarah is 127 years old and these are the years of Sarah.

Sarah dies in Kirjath-arba which is to say Hebron in Canaan.

Abraham comes to mourn for Sarah and to weep also.

Abraham speaks to the sons of Heth: "I am, once again, a stranger in a strange land. Give me a burial plot so that I can remove this corpse from my sight."

The sons of Heth say, "Thou art a might man of God and you can stick her in any of our crypts and we won't mind one bit."

Abraham humbly states, "Well, since you've offered so kindly, you know that cave at the end of Zohar's son Ephron's field? That cave thou callest Machpelah? You know, the really big, beautiful field with all the trees? No matter the worth of that cave, I shalt have it to bury Sarah."

Ephron just happens to be in the audience and says, "Nay, nay! You may have the field and the cave for free to bury thy dead woman. Let not seven sheep be my witnesses but all of my brothers of Heth shall witness the deal!"

Courteously, Abraham says, "But if I shall take your field and cave, ye shall take my money!"

Ephron counter offers, "You know, that field is worth 400 Shekels of Silver but, you know, what's money between friends? Especially if you're going to pay it to me. Go forth and bury your woman there."

Abraham weighs out 400 Shekels of Silver in front of the crowd and gives it to Ephron.

Abraham gains the deed to the cave of Machpelah which is in the field which is before the plains of Mamre. He also purchases all the trees in the field as well.

Abraham buries Sarah thanks to the sons of Heth selling him a burial plot.

 

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

What was Sarah doing in Kirjath-arba when she died? And why wasn't Abraham with her? Where is Kirjath-arba or Hebron or whichever other name the land was called? Why haven't we heard of this place before? Were Sarah and Abraham having marital problems? I mean besides the ones we've seen like Sarah setting up Abraham's affair with her slave and Sarah kicking Abraham's first born son out of the house and Sarah laughing at God in front of Abraham while God was his guest and Sarah continuously telling Abraham what to do and Sarah sleeping with Pharaoh and almost sleeping with Abimelech?

I just realized God called Isaac Abraham's only son in the last Chapter and I didn't mention it. Why would God say that? He's told Abraham on a number of occasions that Ishmael will be blessed because he is also Abraham's son and now he doesn't even acknowledge Ishmael? Maybe the test doesn't actually mean that much if everybody remembers that Abraham basically already killed his first son by throwing him into the wilderness with barely any food and a well that hadn't been built yet. Why wouldn't Abraham kill another son if God asked him? No problem!

Since I'm already looking back at Chapters, what about when Hagar and Ishmael were cast out and Hagar throws Ishmael in a bush where God hears him crying? Ishmael was at least fifteen at that point and probably older. Don't you think he'd have faired better than his old mother in the wilderness? And then God tells Hagar to lift him up. He's, at the very least, fifteen years old! He probably weighs 130 pounds or more! But the whole story plays out like he's a baby or a toddler.

Who are the sons of Heth? Is that the proper term for the people of Hebron? Or is Heth some guy whose story didn't make the cut when The Bible was being put together? They're mighty free with their tombs! Would you allow a strange person to be buried beside your dead ancestors? Would you bring that person flowers too?

Weren't you just a little bit happy that Sarah finally died? That's mean!

Why is Ephron the Hittite living among the people of Heth? What is a Hittite? Where is he from, Hitt?

Did you picture Ephron the Hittite as a giant slug creature smoking a hookah filled with frogs like I did? Blagra dogra deegra 400 Shekels, Solo. HO HO HO!

Is this Chapter more important for the lesson about burying your dead in a foreign place or for the lesson about polite haggling? I bet the haggling and business deal part is the more important thing to learn because the Chapter ends with the statement that the land was made sure for Abraham to use as a burying place. The book is pretty exact about the location too! I bet this chapter was added to justify why the Jewish People had the right to a certain area of the region. "See? Right here in The Bible! This area near the plains of Mamre in Machpelah belongs to us because Abraham purchased it hundreds and hundreds of years ago and the deal was witnessed by all those sons of Heth! So, you know, get off, eh?!"

Was 400 Shekels of Silver a good deal? It sounds like a good deal! Except Abraham isn't building a summer house on the land. He's just throwing his dead wife in a cave and going back home.

Don't you think the children of Heth are better witnesses to a business deal than seven sheep?

How many electrum pieces do you think a Shekel of Silver is worth? Probably 10 Silver Shekels for every Roman Electrum Piece.

No mention of an after life has been made yet in The Bible. God has only promised that Abraham will have lots of seeds and they will become a great nation. So what do you think Abraham believed happened to Sarah after she died? Since God hasn't mentioned Heaven or anything, what do you think Abraham and the people of his generation believed?

 

FAITH vs SCIENCE
Real Estate

Science
The science of purchasing real estate is called Flipping. There are 5 steps to buying land or houses in the science of Flipping. The first step, or Step #1, is called Buying Low With No Money Down. The second step, or Step #2, is called Fixing the Place Up. Many people skip this step because it is hard work and they have this imaginary idea that real estate is automatically worth a lot more once you own it. The third step, or Step #3, is called Selling the House to Some Other Suckers Who Are Flippingtists (that's someone who studies the field of Flipping). This step is hard to do because Flippintists will try to haggle you out of all of your Shekels because they're still on Step #1. But they're the biggest part of your market so they'll be the ones you'll mostly be dealing with. If you can find someone who actually wants to live in your crappy house that you didn't bother to fix up, they might actually be willing to pay as much as 185% of the house's real market value! The fourth step, or Step #4, is called Profiting. This is where you cash the check and pay off the taxes and the bank loan. If you did the other steps correctly, you'll have some money left over! That's called Profit! The fifth step, or Step #5, is called Retiring. The Retiring Step only works if you've flipped a lot of properties and remembered to keep one to live in for yourself. Sometimes Step #5 is called Return to Step #1 and you do it all over again and hopefully make more money. Lately, Step #5 has been called Foreclosure. This happens because nobody wants to buy the house that you put no money down on and you have to pay obscene monthly payments because you didn't care about the changing rates on the crappy loan you got because of the no money down part and you really weren't expecting to be stuck with the mortgage payments anyway because Step #3 was supposed to work.		 Faith
In The Bible, you can get a really good deal on some land if you claim your wife has just died. Maybe that's why Abraham was in Kirjath-arba. Maybe he just dragged Sarah down there to pull the old My Wife Died and I Need a Large Plot of Land to Bury Her On Scam! Seeing as how he almost got the place for free, it seems like a good way to invest in real estate. But you have to be careful because if you're trying to be polite like Abraham was (which you have to be or else people will sniff out the scam), you might go back and forth too many times with the one guy offering the land for free and you saying, "Oh, no! I must pay something!" and finally he'll go, "Well, okay, 400 Shekels of Silver it is!" and then you go, "D'oh!" unless that's trademarked and then you'll go, "Doops!" (which I just trademarked so you should say something else entirely). But you have to pay it off because you made the deal in front of a lot of children of someone (or someplace). But that still sounds like a pretty good deal! Probably because even though the guy wanted some money for his burial plot, it would have looked bad if he'd charged too much to a grieving husband whose dead wife was just lying there at everyone's feet.
The Winner: FAITH!
In both systems, you can sometimes get something for practically nothing! If the guy falls for your dead wife scam and you negotiate the haggle correctly, you'll get free land! And in Science, if you can do Step #3 quickly enough, you're not out any money because you borrowed it all from the bank! But Faith wins because I think there is more honor out of scamming people out of land using your dead wife rather than scamming people out of their money by being a middle man on a piece of land. Nobody needed you to interfere! That land could have been purchased by someone who wanted it instead of being bought up by some greedy jerk who was just going to sell it for an inflated price anyway. All you and the other Flippingtists did was cause the price of housing to go up! I hope a lot of Flippingtists got caught with their pants down and their wallets empty when the housing market crashed. Jerks!

 

 

HISTORICAL FACTS

Abraham buried Sarah on the tenth level of the dungeon complex within the cave. Before he could do this, he had to find a Blue Ribbon which allowed him access to the lower levels. Then he had to kill a wizard that had taken refuge there. For doing this, he was awarded a Chevron!

An Apocryphal Text called the Book of Maury describes how Sarah had traveled to Kirjath-arba to reveal to Abraham a sexy secret she had been keeping from him. But she died before revealing the secret. While Sarah was waiting in the Green Room to tell the secret, she made out with a plant. By plant I mean a person working for the people who paid for her trip out to tell the secret and not a fern or a fichus.

One Platinum Coin is equal to 10 Electrum coins which is equal to 5 gold coins which is equal to 50 silver coins which is equal to 500 copper coins. That's because Platinum and Electrum are in the Monetary Metric System. But most American Gamers are gold oriented and use the Non-Standard Gold Standard Monetary System which makes using Electrum confusing.

You might have been curious about the game Rogue since I mentioned it in an earlier Historical Facts Section. It's a game where you delve deeper and deeper into a dungeon composed of astro-turf while fighting letters and picking up punctuation. Whenever you encountered a T or a D or a J, your game was practically over.

I was going to tell you all about Electrum Pieces and when they were first invented and which Nations used them but my internet is currently out for scheduled maintenance. How am I supposed to do historical research without an internet? I mean, without leaving my couch! I'm pretty sure Electrum was a fusion of steel and bronze (unless I mean copper) and it was used by the Romans to purchase lubricant and party favors.

ESSAY ASSIGNMENT.
Choose one.

A. Determine why Sarah was in Kirjath-arba. You'll probably need to do some outside research. But if you haven't been doing outside research for the Essay Assignments, then you've been doing them wrong.
B. Redo all of your Essay Assignments if you didn't use any sources. Or just make up some sources that might explain why you came up with the answers you came up with.
C. Who is Ephron the Hittite? The Bible seemed to act like he was someone of some import.

 

DRAWING TIME!

Draw Sarah's burying place as described in the Chapter, embellished by your imagination. Unless your imagination is a pervert. I don't need to see that! Unless you imagine Spring Break is happening on the site of Sarah's grave and there's a wet t-shirt contest happening! That kind of pervert stuff is okay! I just don't want to see any pervert stuff involving an old woman's corpse.

 

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

Getting a good deal on real estate is more important than mourning over your dead wife.