Abraham and Sarah (44 page)

She had assumed that Isaac would resent his father, even hate him, for what had happened on Mount Moriah. Fearing his reaction, she had not dared mention the episode.

Though she had expected a change in Isaac, she was surprised to sense a change in Abraham. In the past he was willing to leave the boy in her tent when he checked on his shepherds or went hunting; now he constantly took Isaac with him. There was a new pride in Abraham when he looked at his son or mentioned him to strangers.

All this puzzled Sarah, but she could not bring herself to ask the questions that tormented her. Most of all she wanted to know what Isaac had felt and thought on that fateful trip. At the moment of decision, had Abraham faltered? Had Abraham discussed what he was about to do with his son? She had heard about the ram caught in the thicket, but what had gone before, she could not even imagine. Neither Abraham nor Isaac went into details, and she found it increasingly difficult to ask.

Years passed quickly with the same seasonal rounds of activity until one spring when Sarah lay weak and frail in a borrowed house in Hebron. At last she came to a final reckoning with the past. She had been fearful that she might die and leave Isaac without a bride. If that happened, Abraham would have to make the choice. Would this be fair to her son? Could he trust his father to pick wisely, or would Abraham again consider only the Elohim’s wishes? She summoned the courage to ask the questions she had pondered so long.

Isaac had ridden up from Beersheba to spend the day with her. It was early spring and the servants had carried her couch out into an area of the
courtyard where it was warm and sunny. A light rain had just fallen, leaving everything fresh and fragrant.

She looked at her son, now a strong, healthy young man, sitting so quietly beside her. She must approach the subject cautiously, not dart at it as was her usual approach. First she must broach the subject of a wife. It would be difficult to find someone who would understand their aversion to cities and their devotion to the one Creator God, the Elohim.

She realized that she had come up to Hebron to die. It was time to speak frankly, and to do that she must ask the fearful question.

“Isaac,” she said, “I am concerned that I won’t be here to choose your bride. Your father will have to manage.”

Isaac was suddenly alert. He turned to her with an anxious, questioning look. “Don’t worry, Mother,” he said.

“It’s not that I’m worried, but it’s the mother’s duty to choose a bride. If I’m not here, your father will have to make the choice.”

“We are all hoping the warm spring sunshine will make you well. You must relax and stop worrying. My father can manage.”

Sarah studied his fresh, honest face. “You trust your father then?”

He looked at her and a puzzled frown crossed his face. “Of course, I trust my father. He loves me. Why do you ask?”

“Isaac,” she said cautiously, “I have always wondered. I never dared to ask, but now I need to know: what happened on Moriah? How did you feel, knowing your father intended to sacrifice you?”

“Is that why you wondered if I could trust my father?” At his mother’s nod, Isaac looked away and seemed to be studying a spider building a web between two storage jars. When he finally spoke, it was with carefully chosen words. “I see you don’t understand,” he said. “For Father, it was a matter of obedience. If he trusted Elohim, he had to obey.”

“To obey! He didn’t have to obey!”

“If my father really trusted the Elohim and knew He had told him to do something, then don’t you see, he had to obey. For me it was the same. If I trusted my father, I had to obey him that day on the altar. I didn’t know about trusting the Elohim, but I trusted my father. It’s really very simple. If we trust, we will obey, and if we obey, God will provide. We named the place Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide.”

“So that is the way it was,” Sarah said at last with tears in her eyes. It was
the last time Isaac saw her alive. He left her in the garden with a few of her young maids. She seemed at peace with the past and had come to a new understanding of his father’s devotion to his God. She was more relaxed and even happier than Isaac had seen her in a long time.

A week later Abraham received a message that Sarah was not well and he must hurry if he wanted to see her alive. He had not imagined such a thing happening with so little warning. She had always been so vibrant, stubborn, and resilient that he could not believe she would not recover in a few days of bright spring weather. Nevertheless, he told his servants to get his donkey ready because he would need to go as quickly as possible up to Hebron.

As he rode along the worn path through the scrub and bright spring flowers, he thought of all that had happened. The time had gone so fast. He always thought he would have palaces to give her. He dreamed of orchards and vineyards. He blushed to remember that he had pictured himself king and her queen of the promised land. Could she really be dying before she saw the promises come true?

He had been too embarrassed to mention the promises lately. Although he had told her of the ram caught in the thicket, he had not told her of the message that followed, the message that he had heard at various stages in his journey. This time it had been even more distinct and forceful.

“I the Lord,” the voice said, “have sworn by Myself that because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son from Me, I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into countless thousands and millions like the stars or the sands along the seashore. Your descendants will conquer their enemies and be a blessing to all the nations of the earth because you have obeyed Me.”

He knew the words by heart. They were etched on his mind, but he had not shared them with Sarah. Sarah was practical, even arrogantly practical. She would laugh at such promises. “I’m 127 years old,” she would certainly have said, “and I have seen very little evidence of such promises being fulfilled.”

If he mentioned Isaac, she would surely remind him that the Elohim had demanded him back. She would have seen the ram in the thicket as a lucky happening. “What the Elohim wants Abraham will see that He gets,” he had heard her say many times.

Then just as the road began to wind up to the prominence of Hebron, he became acutely aware of a very real crisis he would be facing. If it were true that Sarah was dying as the messenger had said, there was the problem of her burial. She was no doubt already worrying about it. For all the wonderful promises over the years, he had to admit, he had not a single parcel of land in which to bury Sarah. Land wasn’t sold. It was carefully passed down in a family from generation to generation, and selling any part of one’s inheritance was a great shame.

As he entered the gate of the courtyard, he paused and looked around. Sarah was lying on a couch that had been pulled out into the warmth of the sun. She hadn’t heard him coming, and so he had a few moments to look carefully at her. He was shocked. She was obviously very weak.

“Sarah,” he said as he hurried over to her side.

She reached out her hand to touch his sleeve, and he saw how feeble she had become. She tried to smile. “I suppose they told you I was dying. You should have known I wouldn’t go without seeing you.”

There it is, he thought. She is still making clever remarks. As he sat down beside her, she reached out for his hand, and he was surprised to find it cold and fragile.

“Our lives have gone so fast,” he said. “I made so many plans.”

“Things seem to be fitting into place despite our mistakes. We have our son.”

“But Sarah, the land. We’ve never had the land. I had hoped to build such palaces for you.”

She smiled. Her voice was growing weaker and she struggled to reassure him, “So much time passed and nothing seemed to happen.”

“Sarah, you can’t leave me now. We have so much left to do.”

“I have my son and I’m content.”

“Am I so wrong to want all the promises fulfilled?”

“Is the land so important to you then?”

He frowned and looked away before he spoke. He couldn’t bear to see her ashen face or notice how every breath was an effort. “Sarah, if you should die,” he said at last, “we have no place to bury you.”

“I can’t be bothered with that now,” she said, smiling with a faint hint of her old spirit. “You’ll have to manage.”

He could see that she was a bit amused. It was Sarah’s way to see some humor in a thing.

She closed her eyes. He noticed that each small effort exhausted her. He sat beside her until he knew she was asleep. Then very gently he lifted her hand and placed it on the warm woolen robe. Quietly, so as not to disturb her, he rose. Motioning to his men, he went out to search for someone in the city who would sell him a plot of land.

Hours later he returned tired and discouraged. Sarah was lying where he’d left her. She was too weak to talk but gave him a questioning look. He didn’t want to frighten her but couldn’t help blurting out his frustration. “Oh Sarah,” he said, “I’ve been out all day among our neighbors trying to find one man who would sell me land. Not one, not one person, would sell me a single section of his land.”

Sarah reached for his hand but said nothing. He continued, “You can’t imagine how angry and disappointed I’ve been. In all these years I never doubted our God would give us all the land He promised, and now you’re sick.” He paused, too overwhelmed with emotion to continue. In desperation he blurted out the shameful situation he found himself in despite all his efforts. “I don’t even own land enough to build one tomb.”

Sarah, sensing his total dejection, roused herself and summoned every bit of strength she possessed. With a great effort she tried to encourage him. “Remember,” she said, “when you went to sacrifice our son?”

“How could I forget?”

“You didn’t see the ram until your hand was raised to slay our son.”

Abraham rubbed his eyes and pushed his headpiece back. “It’s true. I almost slew him.”

“It seems this is Elohim’s way.”

“What do you mean?”

“He always waits until there’s no way around or through and then He acts.”

“It’s true. That’s how it’s been. But why? Why should it always be so hard?”

Sarah patted his arm and smiled a weak, tired smile. “Don’t you see? He wants you to know it’s not by your wits or from your wealth but from His hand alone.”

With quiet assurance she continued, “When I am gone, and you need the burial place, it will be given.”

“Sarah, oh Sarah,” Abraham said as he gently cradled her in his arms. Sarah didn’t respond, but he felt a new and quiet peace about her. When did it happen? he wondered. When did she come to understand Elohim? He sat beside her until he knew she slept. He could see her breathing was difficult, and he worried that she would never regain consciousness.

He dared not leave, and so he sat beside her until the late afternoon. She opened her eyes only once more and seemed to recognize him but was too weak to speak. She tried to smile and then was gone.

People came crowding into the room and filled the courtyard. Isaac, Lot with his daughters, Eliazer with Urim and their burgeoning families. Tribesmen, servants, and slaves wept and spoke of things they remembered, but to each one, the question came, “Where will he bury her? After all this time he hasn’t even a burial plot.”

The women tried to indicate it was time to wrap the body for burial, but Abraham would not listen. Isaac insisted they let him grieve and not disturb him.

Just as Isaac said that, there was a commotion at the gate and whispers ran through the crowd. The villagers along with important men had come to pay their respects. The family and friends made way for them, and so they came to stand beside Abraham in the courtyard. He rose and looked from one to the other. They were the men of Heth who had often spent time with Abraham sitting at the gate of the city. He could see they were moved by his grief, but didn’t understand his dilemma.

Abraham spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “As you see, I am a visitor in a foreign land, with no place to bury my dead. Please sell me a piece of ground, only one small piece of ground.” His eyes moved from one to the other of the men, and he could see they were moved.