The Mother

Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people.  Genesis 25:8  NASB

With life – Irvin Yalom wrote, “Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, . . .”[1]  Clearly he’s right when it comes to religions we identify today.  Christianity and Judaism project a blessed world in the afterlife.  Islam offers Paradise to the faithful.  Buddhism encourages its followers to embrace the great wheel of suffering in the pursuit of non-existence.  Taoism, Confucianism, and other oriental religions follow suit, looking for either escape or peace in the next world.  But Yalom seems to have forgotten his own roots.  As an atheistic Jew, he ignores the perspective of the Torah, which is not, by the way, the perspective of the Talmud.  The Torah just doesn’t have a lot to say about the next world (if there even is one).  It is virtually entirely focused on this life—here and now.  Perhaps that’s because it is the counterpoint to Egyptian preoccupation with the dead, but at any rate, what happens next doesn’t seem to be of much concern to the real fathers of the faith.

Abraham is a prime example.  How does the text summarize his end?  Simply, “he died at a good old age,” and “was gathered to his people.”  We should note that the words “with life” are an editor’s addition.  The root is śābēaʿ, usually used in connection with food (i.e., plenty to eat).  Here it is “(śābēaʿ). Satisfied, sated, abounding in. This adjective is used ten times in the ot. In each case it conveys the idea of being full and satisfied. In Gen 25:8 Abraham dies being ‘old and full [of years].’ Proverbs 27:7 speaks of a person full of food, while Job 10:15 shows Job full of confusion.”^[2]  From this we see that it is the length of Abraham’s life that is “full,” not necessarily the metaphorical idea of a “satisfied life.”  In fact, given the events at the end of his days, it hardly seems reasonable to read the text as if Abraham was “happy” when he died.  At the end, he is estranged from his wife (after a long and difficult marriage), he lives with the fact that he sent his first son into the wilderness to die, and that he attempted to sacrifice his second son, only to have that son break completely from relationship.  In fact, in the end it seems that all he really has left is his obedience to God and God’s declaration of endorsement.  The rest has turned to ashes, including the promise of land and destiny.  So, Abraham dies, the text tells us.  End of story.  At least the end of his personal story.  Abraham continues because of his standing at the beginning but that’s not quite the same as saying he waits for us in “Heaven.”

I’m dying.  But, of course, you knew that because you’re dying too.  We all are.  But I’m not too overly concerned about what’s next.  Frankly, I just don’t know.  Something, I’m sure, because the Messiah seems to say so, but that, he’s also a product of his age, an age when the rabbinic idea of an afterlife blossomed from its Hellenistic seed to occupy the thoughts of men—and Irvin Yalom.  My question isn’t, “Where will you go when you die?” (a Campus Crusade original), but rather, “Does śābēaʿ  show up in my obituary?”  I hope so.

Topical Index:  death anxiety, Irvin Yalom, Abraham, śābēaʿ, satisfied, Genesis 25:8

[1] Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Being at peace with your own mortality, p. 5.

^[2] Waltke, B. K. (1999). 2231 שָׂבֵַע. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 870). Chicago: Moody Press.