Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #6 of Genesis, chapter 23, and we are going to read Genesis 23:8-16:

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, That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a buryingplace amongst you. And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

I will stop reading there. Again, this is an historical parable, and we understand some of the characters. They are true historical figures, but they are representing spiritual truths. Abraham is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, a mighty prince or “el-o-heem” prince, God the Prince. The children of Heth are descendants of Canaan and the land of Canaan is a figure of the whole world, which God promised to give to the seed of Abraham for an everlasting possession.

So the children of Heth are in view. They are sort of in the background once Abraham started to deal directly with Ephron the Hittite. Now Ephron was the son of Zohar, and the name “Zohar” is a word that identifies with “white,” but it is not the typical word for “white.” The word “Zohar” is Strong’s #6714, and it is derived from #6713, which is translated as “white” one time, and also Strong’s #6715, which is translated as “white” one time. In one case, it refers to white asses and in the other case, it refers to white wool, and how this relates to Ephron and the purchase of the field, I do not know. I am just mentioning it to tell you what I was unable to find, but maybe something will occur to someone else.

But the name “Ephron,” we can know. It is a word, too, just like every name we read in the Bible, and as I mentioned in the last study, his name relates to “dust” or earth. He is a figure of the earth itself or the world itself, the ground. And God is going to purchase the earth. Again, the field represents the world. So in both cases, we see the same picture. The name “Ephron” points to the dirt under our feet and the spiritual definition of the field, according to the Lord, is the world, so this has everything to do with the world.

So Abraham will weigh Ephron the silver, once they come to an agreement. Again, I spoke of this earlier regarding how this was a very polite and respectful way of doing business at an extremely sorrowful time when a loved one has died – Sarah had died. The people of the land, the children of Heth, developed a very kind way of bartering and doing business so as not to appear greedy of gain in trying to profit over the death of an individual, so Abraham bargained with him: “How much for the land?” He replied that it was worth four hundred shekels of silver. And then it says of Abraham, in Genesis 23:16:

And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

Abraham paid the price for the land, and now the land belonged to him, and the children of Heth were witnesses to the purchase transaction. It was done before the sons of Heth, in the presence of the people of this village or town. It was not done in a corner, but it was done right out in the open, so the elders of the land would have been there, and they would have had record from all these witnesses that Abraham had truly purchased that field. It belonged to him. Let us say that 20 years later, a descendant of Ephron came along and said to Abraham, who was a sojourner, “Look, that field belongs to me because my father owned it, and I want it back.” And Abraham could say, “No – I purchased that field, and I did so in the very presence of the children of Heth. Let us go find some of them that remember.” I am sure they would have recorded this purchase (in whatever way they did such things), and there would have been evidence that Abraham had bought the land. It was not Abraham doing a private transaction with Ephron the Hittite, but it was all done before the descendants of Canaan.

It was just as God purchased this world before mankind. It was not done in a corner. It was done in public, in full view of many witnesses. Let us see how that works out.

First, this word “weighed” in verse 16 is the same word we find in Zechariah 11:12-13:

And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And JEHOVAH said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of JEHOVAH.

You remember, if you have been following along, that we initially went to Matthew 27:3-10:

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

At this point, we are not going to get into trying to understand the apparent contradiction with the information we read in Zechariah, as it says here that Jeremy the prophet wrote this. (We have not forgotten about this, but we will try to look into that at another time.) But we see that the money that Judas took to betray the Lord, but then he felt guilty and told the priests and elders that he had betrayed innocent blood, but they did not care. They had no concern for Judas, just like the Pharisees that had caught a woman in the act of adultery. They brought her forth before Christ and publicly humiliated her. They did not care about the woman – they just wanted to catch Jesus in a trap. They did not care about the Law either. The Law said that she should have been stoned to death.

There are people that identify with the kingdom of God through profession of faith, like the physical descendants of Abraham or, in our day, through profession of faith by those calling themselves Christians, but deep down they do not have a true concern or love for the truth. They are looking to satisfy their own lusts and desires or their own business sense or their own religious system. That is all they care about. They do not care about the truth of the Word of God. They do not care about people.

For example, there are some today that say to God’s people, “You are cruel. You are heartless. You are doing something awful when you say that God has shut the door and there is no more salvation.” We hear this at EBible all the time, but, first of all, we did not shut the door – God did. It is the Bible that says it, not me or anyone else at EBible Fellowship. It is the Bible that says in Luke 13:25: “When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door…” It is the Bible that says in Genesis 7, “and yet seven days,” and then JEHOVAH shut him in on the seventeenth day of the second month of Noah’s 600th year, which identifies with May 21, 2011. Again, I do not want to get too far off the subject, but it is God who has declared these things, and many people have gone back as the Lord is revealing their “true colors.” They have gone back to “Egypt” to the apostate dead church or back to “Egypt” to the world, or they have gone back to former doctrines, showing that they never really had a love for the truth. They act like they care about people: “Oh, I care about the salvation of souls.” But if you do not love the truth and if you do not love the Word of God, then you do not have a real and true love for people, like these priests threw aside Judas or like the Pharisees threw aside the woman caught in adultery. It was just someone they used to prove their point and to keep their cherished doctrine or “high place.”

You know, a “high place” does not always have to be something “set in stone” like the Reformers established during the church age with their confessions and creeds. A “high place” for any individual can be something “new,” like when God opened the Scriptures to reveal a truth, but the professed true believer holds onto their cherished position and refuses to look at anything else. It is done out of pride and stubborn arrogance that they hold onto these things, and it is not love for their fellow man. It is just that they do not want to bend the knee and come, broken and humbled, before the Word of God and to say, “Whatever you say, Lord. Whatever the Word of God, the Bible, says is what I wish to do.” And this is the reason God has brought these severe testing doctrines forth at this time to, finally, bring to light the true nature of these people that had been clinging to (aspects of) the true Gospel for quite a while, but now God is shaking them up and they are falling into the fire.

Again, let us go back to Matthew 27. Judas had the money that he received for betraying Christ. And what happened after he betrayed the Lord? They took Christ and they had a mock trial. They turned him over to the Roman authorities for crucifixion, and they insisted upon it. They cried out to Pilot (who had found no fault in Him) and they would not let Pilot release him. No – they would cause turmoil. They would do what any governor would abhor to have happen, and that would be to cause a riot and chaos. If word got back to Rome about trouble in his province, that could cost him his governorship. And the Jews knew this, so they forced him to crucify Him. Of course, this was all the perfect will of God and the determinate fore counsel and will of the Father that it must happen in order for the Lord to demonstrate the things He had done at the foundation of the world. Nonetheless, they forced it, and Judas’ payment had to do with the blood of Christ because “the life is in the blood.” And when the Lord Jesus went to the cross, He gave up His life. He shed His blood. And that is why these pieces of silver were said to be “the price of blood,” not Judas’ blood, but the Lord’s blood. So they took counsel and said, “What are we to do with this money? It is unlawful of us to put it into the treasury.” It was extremely hypocritical how they had gone contrary to the Law of God on so many points and, yet, they were so concerned about the lawfulness of putting this money back into the treasury.

So they took counsel and with the money they bought the potter’s field, and the field represents the world. Who does the potter represent? We are not going to go there, again, but in Jeremiah, chapter 18 God is the potter and we are the clay. It is not the potter’s field because with that money that represented the blood or life of the Lord Jesus Christ, they bought the field. It has the name of potter or the name of God because God owns the field due to the purchase price of the blood of His Son. God brought the field. And Abraham, the mighty prince or “el-o-heem” prince bought the field from Ephron in the presence of the children of Heth, just as the Lord Jesus went to the cross in a public display to the Israelites as well as the Romans. The Roman centurions saw all that happened, and the Romans represented the world, like the children of Heth. They saw the purchase transaction take place as the blood of Christ was shed (in a demonstration). And it was the money that Judas received that became the purchase price that bought the potter’s field.

What was the potter’s field to be used for? It goes on to say, in Matthew 27:7:

And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.

And in the Bible, strangers represent God’s elect. We see this picture in Exodus 22:21:

Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

This was said of the Jews, a type and picture of God’s people, and Egypt is a picture of the world.

In the next chapter, it says in Exodus 23:9:

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

So the potter’s field was bought with money that was the price of blood, and it was a field that the chief priests decided to bury strangers in, and that is probably because they had the idea that strangers or “Gentiles” were unclean or defiled. They would not want to bury good, faithful Jews in that field. This whole thing had a “stink” to them, so they would just keep the field for strangers. “We will just keep it for strangers that come to Jerusalem and end up having a heart attack – we will bury them in this field.” You see, they were distancing themselves from what they had done. It does not matter if they understood, but in using that money to buy that field, they are witnessing the purchase of the whole world by the Lord Jesus Christ, a spiritual picture that gives God great glory. It does not matter that they were ignorant of this – and they were.

For example, it is just like in John, chapter 11 when the Jews had a counsel, and it says in John 11:49-52:

And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

Did that high priest know the real importance of what he said? Obviously, not. Obviously, not. They had no spiritual understanding, but God still used their council’s decision and the words that he spoke in order to fulfill prophecy. And the money that Judas threw down in the temple, the chief priests took to buy the potter’s field to bury strangers in, a beautiful picture of the Gospel that I am sure none of them saw or understood. But God’s people can see these things.

We are going to stop here. Lord willing, we will continue to look at this. This is very comforting and interesting to me, so I hope it is interesting to you, too, that God has purchased these little things, like a field to bury strangers. Abraham purchased that field, but it is pointing to something much greater, the purchase of the whole world for the elect children of God. God purchased it. Lord willing, in our next study we will look more at the purchase price. We saw it was in view in Matthew 27, with “the price of blood.” We will look more at that when we get together in our next Bible study.