And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,
Ver. 8. If it be your mind that I should bury my dead.] Alexander the Great lay unburied thirty days together. His conquests above ground purchased him no title for habitation underground. So Pompey the Great,
“ Nidus pascit aves, iacet in qui possidet orbem,
Exiguae telluris inops .” - Claudian.
Ut cui modo ad victoriam terra defuerat, deesset ad sepulturam, saith Paterculus. So William the Conqueror's corpse lay unburied for three days; his interment being hindered by one that claimed the ground to be his. a Abraham therefore doth well to make sure of a place of sepulture for him and his; and this at Hebron - which signifieth society or conjunction - for there lay those reverend couples, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, &c. These died upon the Promised Land, and being there buried, kept possession, as it were, for their posterity; as those that are dead in Christ do of heaven, for the saints that survive them. Sepulchres are symbols of the communion of saints, and of the resurrection of the dead. Hence the Hebrews call church yards Bethchajim, the house of the living. b Job also calls the grave "the congregation house of all living". Job 30:23 As the apostle after him calleth heaven "the congregation house of the firstborn". Heb 12:23 The Hebrews call it gnolam hammalachim, the world of angels; and the author to the Hebrews, saith that the saints are come by Christ "to an innumerable company of angels". πανηγυριν , Heb 12:23 When godly men die, they are said to be gathered to their people. They do no more than repatriasse, as Bernard hath it; they are not put out of service, but removed only out of one room into another, out of the outter houses into the presence chamber. They change their place, but not their company, as good Dr Preston said upon his death bed. They are gathered by Christ's hand, as lilies, Son 6:2 and transplanted into the Paradise of God. And this, Plotinus the Philosopher had a notion of, when breathing his last, he said, That in me that is divine, I resign up to the First Divine, that is, to God. c As for the body it is but the case, the cabinet, the suit, the slough, the sheath of the soul, as Daniel calleth it. Scaligeri quod reliquum est, d was Julius Scaliger's epitaph. It returns to its original dust, and is sown as seed in the ground till the resurrection. 1Co 15:35
a Daniel's Chron., fol. 50.
b Veteres sepulchrum mortuorum domicilium credebant, et portum corporis appellabant. - Turneb.
c το εν εμοι θειον αναγω επι το πρωτογονον θειον. - Synes., epist. 139.
d λειψανα .