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David Guzik commentary on Genesis 23, in which Sarah dies and is buried in a field that Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite.
1. (Genesis 23:3-9) Abraham speaks with the sons of Heth. Then Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, “I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
The KJV renders the Hebrew repetition which the NIV omits, by saying: "And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah." I am not convinced that the mention of her age has the significance that the commentary attaches to it.
Genesis 23:1. The years of the life of Sarah — Of all the women that had lived, it is the peculiar honour of Sarah, the mother of the faithful, 1 Peter 3:6, to have the number of the years of her whole life recorded in Scripture.
Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old, &c.—Sarah is the only woman in Scripture whose age, death, and burial are mentioned, probably to do honor to the venerable mother of the Hebrew people.
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Genesis 21–23,” in Genesis, Old Testament Minute Commentary Series, ed. Taylor Halverson (Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central, 2021). Many of the commentaries below are in the public domain and were authored over 100 years ago.
1. Abraham Mourns Sarah’s Death (23:1-2) (i) 1 Sarah lived one hundred twenty-seven years; this was the length of Sarah’s life. 2 Sarah died in Kiryat-Arba (also called Hevron Hebron), in the land of Kena'an Canaan (“lowland”). Avraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. 2. Cave Purchased for a Tomb (23:3-18)
