first mentioned as purchased by Abraham for Sarah from Ephron the Hittite ( Genesis 23:20 ). This was the "cave of the field of Machpelah," where also Abraham and Rebekah and Jacob and Leah were burried ( 79:29-32 ). In Acts 7:16 it is said that Jacob was "laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem." It has been proposed, as a mode of reconciling the apparent discrepancy between this verse and Genesis 23:20 , to read Acts 7:16 thus: "And they [i.e., our fathers] were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor [the son] of Sychem." In this way the purchase made by Abraham is not to be confounded with the purchase made by Jacob subsequently in the same district. Of this purchase by Abraham there is no direct record in the Old Testament. (See TOMB .)
A place of burial; grave.Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited SEPULCHREs, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. ( Matthew 23:27 )
SEPULCHRE
sep'-ul-ker (2 Chronicles 21:20; 32:33; John 19:41; Acts 2:29, etc.).
See BURIAL; JERUSALEM, VIII.
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