Well this chapter is going to be short and sweet(or sad, I suppose). Sarah dies, and Abraham wants some land to bury her. So, the Hittites offer their tombs to him, and will freely allow him to bury his wife wherever he wants. However, it wouldn’t be Abraham’s land, or tomb. Essentially, the family would be adopting Abraham, and allowing him to bury Sarah with their own deceased.
This isn’t what Abraham wants, though, so he specifically asks for a certain piece of land that he can buy and own for himself. The owner, in turn, offers the land as a gift, but this still isn’t what Abraham wants. A gift could be argued over later. Abraham wants to buy the land, and have a record that names him as the specific owner so that no one can try to say he doesn’t belong, or run him off.
The owner agrees, and Abraham buys the field at full value, with plenty of witnesses. And so, while Abraham isn’t going to inherit the entire promised land himself, he does get a piece of it, and leaves a sign to his descendants that they have much more left to claim, but that God has already given it to them.
So Abraham gets the field, the cave, and all the trees. Of course! More TREES! That’s obviously why he picked this land. At least, it probably didn’t hurt.
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