Meaning of MACHPELAH

(probably "double").
Field located in front of Mamre, with a plantation of trees, and where there was a cave; It belonged to Ephron, a Hittite (Gen. 23:9, 17-19). Abraham purchased the land with the cave for four hundred shekels of silver, in order to bury Sarah in the cave. He himself was buried there by Isaac and Ishmael, his sons (Gen. 25:9, 10).

There were also the bodies of Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob (Gen. 35:29; 47:28-31; 49:29-33; 50:12, 13), and perhaps other people not mentioned.

In the time of Christ there were monuments erected in Hebron over the cave of the patriarchs (Wars 4:9, 7). The cave under the present great mosque of Hebron is probably that of Machpelah. From the year 1268 AD. Christians have been excluded from the mosque and the cave.

Only the following people were allowed to make short visits: the Prince of Wales (April 7, 1862); the Kronprinz of Prussia (November 1869); the two sons of the Prince of Wales, one of whom became George V of England (April 5, 1882).

After the capture of Hebron from the Turks (Nov. 1917), Colonel Meinertzhagen was able to enter through a door at the base of Abraham's cenotaph, but descriptions of him have not been clear enough to satisfy scholars.

The mosque is an old Christian church transformed into a mosque. In the mosque, next to the northwest wall and about three meters southwest of the main entrance, there is a 35 cm round hole. diameter drilled into the paved floor.

There you can see a passage that descends to a depth of about 4.5 m and leads to an opening in a southeast wall. This passage is probably the antechamber of a double cave to the southeast.

Under the tiles of the mosque it was possible to see that there were two sealed entrances that led to the underground; They could not be opened without tearing up the pavement.

The position of these two entrances seems to indicate that in the past the cave could be accessed through the rocky ceiling. The floor of the mosque and the atrium before it are 4.5 m above the road that passes to the south-west side of the sanctuary. In the northwest corner of the complex there is a "tomb of Joseph"; however, he was buried at Shechem (Josh. 24:32).