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"There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah
his wife; and there I buried Leah."
Is it nothing more than a coincidence to find that these names, Isaac, Sarah, Rebekah,
Abraham, Leah, by an acrostic spell out the name Israel? Whether this be of Divine
ordering or whether it just "happens", one thing is most sure, the burial place of these
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives, is the great pledge that in
resurrection, they shall possess that land through which, in the days of their flesh, they
walked as pilgrims and strangers. In another sepulcher, were buried the twelve sons of
Jacob (Gen. 50: 25; Josh. 24: 32; Acts 7: 16).
The prophet Ezekiel contains a vision of a valley full of bones, and the interpretation
of the vision is as follows:
"O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves,
and bring you unto the land of Israel" (Ezek. 37: 12).
When the blessed day dawns, the three patriarchs with the twelve founders of Israel
will rise in resurrection glory, to still for ever the rival claims to the land of Canaan that is
at this moment raging over their very dust.
No.19.
Mesopotamia and Padan-Aram (Gen. 24: and 31:).
pp. 77 - 79
After the burial of Sarah, Abraham's thoughts turn to the question of Isaac, his
marriage and his successors. He therefore makes his trusted servant swear that he will
not take a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites.
"But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son
Isaac" (24: 4).
The country to which the servant traveled is called in verse ten "Mesopotamia, unto
the city of Nahor". The name "Mesopotamia" is given to-day, to a greater stretch of
country than was intended by the Scriptures. Mesopotamia is a Greek translation of the
Hebrew words, Aram Naharaim. The Greek title means "between the rivers", the
Hebrew title is more specific and means "Syria of the two rivers". The Hebrew name
occurs in the A.V. in the heading of Psalm sixty but elsewhere the word is translated as
in Gen. 24: by Mesopotamia. Without this knowledge, the reader might think that
Abraham's servant went right back to Ur of the Chaldees, which to-day is included in
Mesopotamia, but in Bible times was not. We know that "the city of Nahor" was Haran,
for to this city Jacob fled to Rebekah's brother, Laban (Gen. 27: 43). The two rivers
from which this land gets its names, are, the Tigris and the Euphrates. One section of
Mesopotamia is called Padan-Aram (Gen. 28: 2) meaning "the plains of Aram", and
this too is the site of Nahor's city.