Jan 9 - Gen 23 - Do the Right Thing

I've been enjoying reading about Abraham the last several days, and then I came across this curious story in Gen 23 today. Abraham's wife Sarah had died and he wanted to buy a burial site in the land in which he was living. He asked the Hittites if he might purchase a suitable site to bury his wife. The Hittites viewed Abraham as a wealthy and powerful prince and they told him that any one of them would happily give Abraham their best tomb site for his family. Again Abraham insisted that he buy the site and he apparently had his eye on a specific location, a cave at the end of a field that belonged to Ephron. Abraham insisted that he pay full price.

Ephron came to Abraham and said he would gladly give him the field and the cave. Now at this stage of the story, I'm thinking this is an amazing gesture of kindness and respect. I'm thinking Abraham should accept the gift with dignity and go on to bury his wife. But no! Abraham insists again on paying full price. Ephron tells him what the price of the field is, Abraham pays him and goes to bury his wife with a clear conscience.

This got me to thinking and wondering why Abraham was so insistent on paying for this land. Several thoughts have come to me. First, when you accept a gift, there is a sense of obligation or indebtedness to the giver. Abraham did not want to be indebted to the Hittites. Second, I felt that there was a matter of honor about where you buried your family. To bury a loved one on someone else's property would not accord the proper respect to your departed family member. But I felt that there was something more than this. Now Abraham had trusted God his whole life and exhibited tremendous faith in various situations. So while this whole incident may simply have been a matter of doing the right thing to honor his family, it may also have been that Abraham's trust in God would somehow be lessened if he accepted such a great gift. His sustenance and his blessings all came from God. He needed to trust God for provision, not these strangers that he lived among. It does happen that God will bless someone through the kindness of others, but Abraham knew this gift from the Hittites was not from God and would turn him away from his faith in the Lord.

These kind of situations require much discernment. In a different setting and with different players involved, this could have been how God provided. How do you know the difference? Only by the Holy Spirit can we discern God's will. And then only if we are transformed from the world's ways to God's ways by the renewing of our mind (Rom 12:2) - and I believe this renewing is also the work of the Holy Spirit within you. Then we will be able to know God's will. Then we will know what the right thing is.