Ver. 1. And Sarah was a hundred, &c.] It is observed by divines, that God thought not fit to tell us of the length of the life of any woman in Scripture, but Sarah, to humble that sex, that because they were first in bringing in death, deserved not to have the continuance of their lives recorded by God’s pen.
Ver. 2. And Sarah died.] The Jews would persuade us that the devil represented to her the offering of Isaac, whereat she took sick and died. This is but a mere conceit of theirs; for Abraham then dwelt at Beersheba, now at Hebron. And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah.] So she was the first that we read of mourned for at death; and it is mentioned as an honour to her. Solon’s Mors mea ne careat lachrymis, is to be preferred before Ennius’s Nemo me decoret lachrymis. It is one of the dues of the dead, to be lamented at their funerals; and the want of it is threatened as a curse in many scriptures. It is a practice warranted by the best in all ages; and mourn we may in death of friends, so we mourn (1.) in truth, and not feignedly; (2.) in measure, and not as men without hope. For the first, how grossly did Tiberius dissemble at the death of Augustus, and at the funeral of Drusus! Whereupon Tacitus makes his note, Vana et irrisa vero et honesto fidem adimunt. So when Julius Caesar wept over Pompey’s head, presented to him in Egypt, they that saw it, laughed in their sleeves, and held them no better than crocodile’s tears. So the mourning that Nero and his mother made over the Emperor Claudius, whose death they had conspired and effected, was deep dissimulation. This is no less hateful, than to mourn heartily, but yet immoderately, is unlawful. Here Jacob forgat himself, when so overgrown with grief for his Joseph, (Genesis 37:35) and Rachel for the rest of their children, that they would not be comforted. (Jeremiah 31:15) So David for his Absalom: Alexander the Great for his friend Hephestion; when he not only clipped his horses’ and mules’ hair, but plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city, &c. The soldiers of Pelopidas were no less excessive, when for grief of his death they would neither unbridle their horses, nor untie their armour, nor dress their wounds. Something here may be yielded to nature, nothing to impatience. Immoderate sorrow for losses past hope of recovery is more sullen than useful. Our stomach may be bewrayed by it, not our wisdom. The Egyptians mourned seventy days for Jacob: Joseph (who had more cause, but with it more grace) mourned but twenty days. God flatly forbade his people those heathenish customs, of shaving their heads and cutting their flesh, (Leviticus 21:1) in token of mourning for the dead. We read in the gospel of minstrels and people making a noise at the terming-house, as they call it. (Matthew 9:23) And the Jews that were comforting Mary, when they saw her rise up hastily and go forth, followed her, saying, “She goeth unto the grave to weep there”. (John 11:31) Such customs, it seems, they had in those days among them, to provoke themselves to weeping and lamentation; which was, saith one, as if they that have the dropsy should eat salt meats. How much better father Abraham here, who came indeed from his own tent to Sarah’s, to mourn for her (as good reason he had), but exceeded not, as the Jews think is signified by that one letter less than ordinary in the Hebrew word for weep (Libcothah) used here in the text. [Hebrew Text Note] Baal-turim gives but a bald reason of it: Parum flevit; erat enim vetula; Abraham wept not much for her, she being but an old wife, and past her best. Buxtorf gives a better: Potius quia luctus eius fuit moderatus. And therefore also in the next verse it is said, that he stood up from before his dead—where in likelihood he had sat a while on the earth, as was the manner of mourners to do (Job 2:12,13 Isaiah 47:1) -to take order for her burial, as having good hopes of a glorious resurrection. Excellent for our purpose is that of St Jerome, Lugeatur mortuus, sed ille quem Gehenna suscipit, quem Tartarns devorat, in cuius poenam aeternus ignis aestuat. Nos, quorum exitum Angelorum turba comitatur, quibus obviam Christus occurret, &c., gravemur magis, si diutius in tabernaculo isto habitemus. Mourn for none, but such as are dead in their sins, killed with death, as those in Revelation 2:23. Hinc νομιζομενα, et Iusta defunctorim. Testamentum Augusti praelegit tanto simulato gemitu, ut non modo vox, sed et spiritus deficeret. Επι μεν τη προσποιησει ταυτη γελωτη ωφλισκανε. Eum se lugere simulabant quem necaverant.— Dio in Claud. Plutar. in Vita Pelop. Mark 5:38; Αλαλαζοντας, vel Ολολυζοντες; ut James 5:1. Perinde ac si intercute laborantes falsamenta comederent -Cartur.
Ver. 3. And Abraham stood up from before his dead.] So she is called eight several times in this chapter; to note that death makes not any such divorce between godly couples and friends, but that there remains still a blessed conjunction between them, which is founded in the hope of a happy resurrection. Job’s children were still his, even after they were dead and buried. How else could it be said, that God “gave Job twice as much of everything as he had before,” (Job 42:10,13 1:2) since he had afterwards but his first number of children, viz., “seven sons and three daughters”? Pareus, in loc.