And he said to them, “If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar,
8. If it be in your mind . Abraham constitutes them his advocates with Ephron, to persuade him to sell the double cave. Hebrews מערח המכפלה, ( mearath hummakpelah ,) ‘the double cave.’ See Septuagint Our translators have preferred rendering the word Machpelah as a proper name. — Ed Some suppose the cave to have been so formed that one part was above, and the other below.
Here is, I. The humble request which Abraham made to his neighbours, the Hittites, for a burying-place among them, Gen 23:3, Gen 23:4. It was strange he had this to do now; but we are to impute it rather to God's providence than to his improvidence, as appears Act 7:5, where it is said, God gave him no inheritance in Canaan.
Commenting on Genesis 23:3-15
And he communed with them,.... Entered into a discourse and conversation with them upon the above subject: saying, if it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; that is, in some place belonging to them, otherwise they could have no objection to the burying of his wife anywhere else: if now what they had said were not spoken in...