God promised Abram that he would be buried at the end of his life:
Genesis 15:15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
When God made this promise, He was not following some OT Hebrew preference because Abraham was the first Hebrew so there was no long-standing or well-established Hebrew preference that had already been in place that could be or needed to be followed by God.
Because this verse is the first mention of burial in Scripture, we learn that within the limits of what is revealed in Scripture, we are to hold that God is the One who communicated to the Hebrews the importance of burying their own. He, therefore, was not following some OT Hebrew preference when He did so–He was making a divine promise that communicated the vital importance that He placed on burial!
Moreover, based on this understanding of this key promise, we learn that the numerous repeated mentions of the burials of God’s people in the OT are not instances of OT Hebrew preference of burial. Rather, they show the vital importance that God placed on burial when He promised Abram that he would be buried in a good old age.
Picture Credit: M. Shires
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