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| Sarah's burial cave. (The gate was added later.) |
Sarah died at 127 years of
age, and it was hard on Abraham. After
mourning a while, he realized that, like a lot of people, he hadn’t given much
thought to estate planning. He asked the
Hittites if they could help him out, and one among them said, “Sure, we can
provide your wife’s lot.” Abraham
glowered at the one-liner.
“Aren’t you the card?” he said
saltily.
“Oh, sorry… too soon?”
Ignoring the matter, Abraham
went on with his request. “I like your
cemetery, but really, what I had in mind was more of a cave, specifically the
cave owned by Ephron, son of Zohar. Any
chance you guys could help me persuade him to give me that cave?”
It turned out Ehron was there
among the Hittites when Abraham asked, and he was only too happy to do it. “Look, Abraham, the land and the cave retail
at around 400 shekels, but you can have it gratis. Go ahead and salt your wife away in there; I
don’t mind.”
Abraham considered this. “Your pun doesn’t quite scan,” he said. “The other one made more sense. It still annoys me, but since I’m getting
free land, I can drop it.”
“The plot thickens!” cried one
of the Hittites.
“Hey, light a candle for Lot’s
wife!” cried another.
Abraham, calm at last that
he’d settled the problem of where to bury his wife and, one day, himself, left
the Hittites to their awful puns. “These
people are nice enough,” he said to himself, “but I wouldn’t want any of my
kids marrying one.”
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