Gathered to His People

Gen_25:8
Such a chapter as the twenty-fifth of Genesis, composed chiefly
of names, is apt to be passed through too rapidly by unstudious
readers. Yet, even the most lax attention will be fastened by such
a verse as the eighthThen Abraham gave up the ghost, and
died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was
gathered unto his people. Here is a remarkable collection of
epithets applicable to death and burial, every one of which is well
worthy of consideration, and may suggest some profitable
thoughts.
By giving up the ghost, we now understand giving up his spirit,
as by ghost we usually suppose spirit to be meant. We doubt if
the translators intended it to bear this sense; but apprehend, that
they rather meant it to express the giving up the breath of life, or
breathing out ones life, which is the true meaning. It is there
simply equivalent to the modern and usual phrase, he expired.
The term is thought by Jewish writers to express death by old age
only, without previous sickness or pain. This is the kind of death
which results from the natural dissolution of the body, when the
radical heat and moisture, by degrees dry up and wear away.
Such a kind of death was that Euthanasia, that good and easy
departure, which was greatly desired by the ancients, and which
was indeed desirable, when old age was really venerated, and
treated with solicitude and respectwith far more of both than,
we fear, it finds under the influences and activities of modern
civilization. This kind of death, this gentle sliding out of life, had
been promised to Abraham as a blessing. Thou shalt go to thy
fathers in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age,

Gen_15:15. And we are now informed that this took place, to

show that there was no point, however comparatively
inconsiderable, in which the promises of God were left unfulfilled.
The conviction which Abraham, in life and in death, was enabled
to realize of the Lords faithfulness to his promises, must have
been the source of his highest joys and deepest consolations.
And it may be so to us. We have still better hopes and promises
from God, than those that were given to Abraham; and we shall
be happy here, or miserable, in proportion to the intensity with
which we are enabled to realize the conviction, that all the
promises of God in him (Christ) are yea, and in him amen.
But Abraham is also said to have died in a good old age. Not
only in old age, but in a good old age. The old age, which the
sacred writer calls good, is very different from the sad, broken,
fretful, and weary old age, of which these latter generations seem
to furnish more examples than were dreamt of in old time, which
invariably speak of old age as a good and a blessing. But this old
age is good, because healthful, sound, long in coming, leaving the
senses still in perfection, and free from that peevishness and
moroseness, which make old age unpleasant in and to so many.
We are sorry to record an observation we have made, that age
seems to be generally more sound, vigorous, and cheerful in
eastern than in western lands, in which old age has almost
ceased to be regarded as a blessing. Perhaps, it is not altogether
such under the New Testament dispensation, as it was under the
Old, which looked far more to this life and its blessings than we
are authorized to do. He who is enabled to know that he belongs
to Christ, has little inducement to wish for a prolonged stay in this
house of his pilgrimage. To depart and to be with Christto take
possession of the mansion prepared for him in his Fathers house
and to join his kindred in heaven, who, as life advances,

become more numerous than those who remain on earthwill

seem to be well exchanged for length of days.
He was an old man. He was a hundred and seventy-five years
of age. His great-grandfather had reached to two hundred and
thirty years, and his father to two hundred and eight years: yet so
rapidly was life falling, that although Abraham died at a
comparatively early age, he was an old man among his
contemporaries. Fallen as the duration of life had, his years
passed by a hundred, the ordinary limit at which human life has
now stood for many ages. He had seen the years which few of
our people survive, before he entered the land of Canaan, and
one hundred years he had passed in that land. He was, however,
not only old; he was full of years. The word years is not in the
original; and the word rendered full, is to be satisfied, satiated,
or filled, and is often in Scripture applied to a person having had
enough of food or of drink. It may, therefore, here well signify, that
Abraham had lived as long as he desired; had finished the
business of life; and was quite willing to die. He was satisfied with
life; he had had enough of it; and stood with girded loins, ready to
depart.
Finally, he was gathered unto his peoplea striking phrase,
over which the mind lingers. What, however, does it really mean?
It is commonly interpreted to apply to burialto sleeping in the
grave with ones kindred and friends. But this is not the sense
here, it would seem. His people were not here, nor was he here
buried with them. Sarah was the only one belonging to him that
had died in this land, and with her he was buried. What, then, can
this gathering to his people mean, but that his soul was gathered
to theirs? The phrase is certainly more appropriate to the soul
than to the body; for the body is gathered to corruption, but the

soul to glory and blessedness. It is usual to say, that in the

Pentateuch there are no indications of a life to come. Is not this
one such indication? The usual form of the expression is to be
gathered to ones fathers; yet in other instances, as in this, it is
applied to those who could not be said to be gathered to their
fathers in the grave. It is also spoken of as a blessing to those
who were so gathered. It must, therefore, it would seem, imply not
only their continued existence, but their existence in a state of
blessedness. In other words, those to whom Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and others, were gathered or assembled at death, must be
to some then really existing; for to those that had no form of
being, there could be no such gathering. It appears, therefore,
that there could hardly be any plain foundation for the phrase, if
well examined, but in the belief that the fathers, to whom they
were at the death of the body assembled, had then a real
existence. It is really of some importance to obtain even this piece
of evidence, to the existence of a belief in the immortality, or even
in the survival, of the soul, of which, it has been strongly denied
by many, that there is any evidence in the books of Moses.
So, then, it is seen, that these patriarchal fathers had the same
desire, and the same hope, of being gathered at death to all they
had in past times venerated, loved, and lost, that we have.
Indeed, it stands to reason that they should have had it. The
condition of any people would seem scarcely tolerable without it.
The seasons as they fly,
Snatch from us in their course, year after year,
Some sweet connection, some endearing tie.
The parent, ever honored, ever dear,
Claims from the filial breast the pious sigh;
A brothers urn demands the filial tear,

And gentle sorrows gush from friendships eye.

Today we frolic in the rosy bloom
Of jocund youthtomorrow knells us to the tomb.
These things were the same in old time as now; and is it credible
that men who then walked with God, and were honored with direct
communications from him, were left in the dark on matters so
essential to their comfort? that when they followed their dead
ones to the tomb, they could not say that they should ever again
behold them; and that in due timein a time not long to any
they should themselves be gathered to the great assembly of
those who died once, and are yet alive for evermore? Did David,
when, in a later day, he said of his lost childI shall go to him,
but he will not return to me,speak of the grave only, or of
something beyond the grave? Let the heart answer.