Give us each day... Our Moldy Bread
Genesis: Chapter Twenty-Three
Take my dead wife… please take my dead wife!
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- Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old and yet never had any plastic surgery ever.
- She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron, just in case you were thinking it was Cleveland) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her. Of course not so much that he forgot he still had a little something something on the side with Hagar.
- - Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites. We don’t know why they were there. Just all of a sudden these Hittites showed up at her funeral. He said,
- “I am a foreigner and stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead.”
- - The Hittites replied to Abraham, “For someone who doesn’t know us, you sure have a weird way of saying hello. ‘Hi, I don’t know you, let me stick my dead wife in your ground.’ Your social skills are lacking.” But they then gave it throught and realized it would suck to drag a dead body for several miles, so they said:
- “Sir, listen to us. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead.”
- - Then Abraham realized the creepiness of his request was nothing compared to them offering up their own tombs to a stranger. But Sarah was starting to smell. He rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the Hittites.
- He said to them, “If you are willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede with Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf
- so he will sell me the cave of Machpelah, which belongs to him and is at the end of his field. Not to mention it’s next door to the Sizzler. Ask him to sell it to me for the full price as a burial site among you,” he said, forgetting how his skills at haggling had talked God down from one of his murderous rages, apparently.* He could’ve had it at a steal!
- - Zac Ephron the Hittite was sitting among his people being incredibly blond and unexplainably famous and he replied to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of his city.
- “No, my lord,” he said. “Listen to me; I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. and if you’d like, I can give you a new wife from my stash. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead because my god man, this stench is unbearable!”
- - Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land
- and he said to Zac Ephron in their hearing, “Listen to me, you pathetic Disney hack! I will pay the price of the field. Accept it from me so I can bury my dead there.” At this point even Abraham wasn’t sure if he was using reverse psyhology, and he wasn’t exactly sure why he would, other than maybe trying to get a free meal from the Sizzler. And that’s hardly worth the risk.
- - Zac Ephron answered Abraham,
- “Listen to me, my lord; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between you and me? My career made me unbelievably rich, and you’re just a wandering camel jockey. Recognize, beyotch! Bury your dead.”
- - Abraham, sick of his vain attitude, agreed to Zac Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants, who also were there at her funeral for some inexplicable reason.
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Suddenly a voice came from Sarah’s body, saying, “But I’m not dead!'”
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Abraham said, “Sure you are! You smell rotten. You are no more! You’re push up daisies! You’ve bought the farm! You kicked the bucket! You’re an ex life form!”
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But a voice came from Sarah’s body again, saying, “I’m feeling better!”
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Just then Abraham realized God was throwing his voice, and everyone, Abraham, the Hittites, and even the weird little people who they dragged around on dog collars, all had a hearty laugh about it.
-- - So Zac Ephron’s field in Machpelah near Mamre—both the field and the cave in it, the steamroom, the moonshine still, and the weird shrubberies which were made at different heights, giving it a two-level effect with a little path going down the middle,* and all the trees within the borders of the field—was deeded
- to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city to find out what smelled so bad (at last we finally know why they were there. Turns out a really old fart takes forever to bury his woman and the smell was getting to them).
- Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron, home of the world famous paraplegic ventriloquist known as Mumbles) in the land of Canaan.
- So the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the Hittites as a burial site. This entire story about how an old fucker argued for a gravesite with a blond Disney kid and then buried his dead wife is obviously the exciting, riveting type of tale you were hoping for when you opened up a book known to be the supposedly greatest book of literature of all time, isn’t it? Turns out, God gets writer’s block too. Now stop criticizing my work or I’ll damn you for being a smart-ass.
The Death of Sarah
NOTES:
9 – Well, temporarily anyway, as in Genesis chapter 18. Eventually he went ahead and killed the cities anyway, as found in Genesis chapter 19, but he at least thought about not doing it.
17 – If you’re wondering, this was NOT stolen from Monty Python’s Holy Grail from the Knights Who Say Ni. They stole it from the Bible. Because they’re blasphemers! But they do have great taste of shrubberies, so God will most likely forgive them.
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