In the field of biblical studies, renowned for its deficit of basic agreement and the depth of its controversies, one cannot but be impressed by the longevity and breadth of the consensus about the early Israelite notion of life after death. The consensus, to be brief, is that there was none, that “everyone who dies goes to Sheol,” as Johannes Pedersen put it about eighty years ago,
The resurrection of the dead has no early roots or sources in the Hebrew Bible, which offers a vision of life and death and the relationship between them that is strikingly different from those that underlie a belief in resurrection. In the Hebrew Bible (except for passages that are very few and very late), death is an altogether unproblematic part of God's plan, and there is neither an expectation nor even a hope to transcend it. Indeed, death is there deemed to be part of God's creation and thus presents no theological scandal at all. When people died, they were thought to descend without exception to the dreary netherworld known as Sheol, from which there was no chance of return. Only very late in the period of the Second Temple, as the last books in the Hebrew Bible were being written, did an alternative position appear.
From Intro: Professor Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life
(ב) וַתָּ֣מׇת שָׂרָ֗ה בְּקִרְיַ֥ת אַרְבַּ֛ע הִ֥וא חֶבְר֖וֹן בְּאֶ֣רֶץ כְּנָ֑עַן וַיָּבֹא֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם לִסְפֹּ֥ד לְשָׂרָ֖ה וְלִבְכֹּתָֽהּ׃ (ג) וַיָּ֙קׇם֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם מֵעַ֖ל פְּנֵ֣י מֵת֑וֹ וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר אֶל־בְּנֵי־חֵ֖ת לֵאמֹֽר׃ (ד) גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁ֥ב אָנֹכִ֖י עִמָּכֶ֑ם תְּנ֨וּ לִ֤י אֲחֻזַּת־קֶ֙בֶר֙ עִמָּכֶ֔ם וְאֶקְבְּרָ֥ה מֵתִ֖י מִלְּפָנָֽי׃ (ה) וַיַּעֲנ֧וּ בְנֵי־חֵ֛ת אֶת־אַבְרָהָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֥ר לֽוֹ׃ (ו) שְׁמָעֵ֣נוּ ׀ אֲדֹנִ֗י נְשִׂ֨יא אֱלֹהִ֤ים אַתָּה֙ בְּתוֹכֵ֔נוּ בְּמִבְחַ֣ר קְבָרֵ֔ינוּ קְבֹ֖ר אֶת־מֵתֶ֑ךָ אִ֣ישׁ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ אֶת־קִבְר֛וֹ לֹֽא־יִכְלֶ֥ה מִמְּךָ֖ מִקְּבֹ֥ר מֵתֶֽךָ׃ (ז) וַיָּ֧קׇם אַבְרָהָ֛ם וַיִּשְׁתַּ֥חוּ לְעַם־הָאָ֖רֶץ לִבְנֵי־חֵֽת׃ (ח) וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר אִתָּ֖ם לֵאמֹ֑ר אִם־יֵ֣שׁ אֶֽת־נַפְשְׁכֶ֗ם לִקְבֹּ֤ר אֶת־מֵתִי֙ מִלְּפָנַ֔י שְׁמָע֕וּנִי וּפִגְעוּ־לִ֖י בְּעֶפְר֥וֹן בֶּן־צֹֽחַר׃ (ט) וְיִתֶּן־לִ֗י אֶת־מְעָרַ֤ת הַמַּכְפֵּלָה֙ אֲשֶׁר־ל֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֖ר בִּקְצֵ֣ה שָׂדֵ֑הוּ בְּכֶ֨סֶף מָלֵ֜א יִתְּנֶ֥נָּה לִּ֛י בְּתוֹכְכֶ֖ם לַאֲחֻזַּת־קָֽבֶר׃ (י) וְעֶפְר֥וֹן יֹשֵׁ֖ב בְּת֣וֹךְ בְּנֵי־חֵ֑ת וַיַּ֩עַן֩ עֶפְר֨וֹן הַחִתִּ֤י אֶת־אַבְרָהָם֙ בְּאׇזְנֵ֣י בְנֵי־חֵ֔ת לְכֹ֛ל בָּאֵ֥י שַֽׁעַר־עִיר֖וֹ לֵאמֹֽר׃ (יא) לֹֽא־אֲדֹנִ֣י שְׁמָעֵ֔נִי הַשָּׂדֶה֙ נָתַ֣תִּי לָ֔ךְ וְהַמְּעָרָ֥ה אֲשֶׁר־בּ֖וֹ לְךָ֣ נְתַתִּ֑יהָ לְעֵינֵ֧י בְנֵי־עַמִּ֛י נְתַתִּ֥יהָ לָּ֖ךְ קְבֹ֥ר מֵתֶֽךָ׃ (יב) וַיִּשְׁתַּ֙חוּ֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם לִפְנֵ֖י עַ֥ם הָאָֽרֶץ׃ (יג) וַיְדַבֵּ֨ר אֶל־עֶפְר֜וֹן בְּאׇזְנֵ֤י עַם־הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר אַ֛ךְ אִם־אַתָּ֥ה ל֖וּ שְׁמָעֵ֑נִי נָתַ֜תִּי כֶּ֤סֶף הַשָּׂדֶה֙ קַ֣ח מִמֶּ֔נִּי וְאֶקְבְּרָ֥ה אֶת־מֵתִ֖י שָֽׁמָּה׃ (יד) וַיַּ֧עַן עֶפְר֛וֹן אֶת־אַבְרָהָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֥ר לֽוֹ׃ (טו) אֲדֹנִ֣י שְׁמָעֵ֔נִי אֶ֩רֶץ֩ אַרְבַּ֨ע מֵאֹ֧ת שֶֽׁקֶל־כֶּ֛סֶף בֵּינִ֥י וּבֵֽינְךָ֖ מַה־הִ֑וא וְאֶת־מֵתְךָ֖ קְבֹֽר׃ (טז) וַיִּשְׁמַ֣ע אַבְרָהָם֮ אֶל־עֶפְרוֹן֒ וַיִּשְׁקֹ֤ל אַבְרָהָם֙ לְעֶפְרֹ֔ן אֶת־הַכֶּ֕סֶף אֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבֶּ֖ר בְּאׇזְנֵ֣י בְנֵי־חֵ֑ת אַרְבַּ֤ע מֵאוֹת֙ שֶׁ֣קֶל כֶּ֔סֶף עֹבֵ֖ר לַסֹּחֵֽר׃ (יז) וַיָּ֣קׇם ׀ שְׂדֵ֣ה עֶפְר֗וֹן אֲשֶׁר֙ בַּמַּכְפֵּלָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֖ר לִפְנֵ֣י מַמְרֵ֑א הַשָּׂדֶה֙ וְהַמְּעָרָ֣ה אֲשֶׁר־בּ֔וֹ וְכׇל־הָעֵץ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בַּשָּׂדֶ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בְּכׇל־גְּבֻל֖וֹ סָבִֽיב׃ (יח) לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְמִקְנָ֖ה לְעֵינֵ֣י בְנֵי־חֵ֑ת בְּכֹ֖ל בָּאֵ֥י שַֽׁעַר־עִירֽוֹ׃ (יט) וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵן֩ קָבַ֨ר אַבְרָהָ֜ם אֶת־שָׂרָ֣ה אִשְׁתּ֗וֹ אֶל־מְעָרַ֞ת שְׂדֵ֧ה הַמַּכְפֵּלָ֛ה עַל־פְּנֵ֥י מַמְרֵ֖א הִ֣וא חֶבְר֑וֹן בְּאֶ֖רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן׃ (כ) וַיָּ֨קׇם הַשָּׂדֶ֜ה וְהַמְּעָרָ֧ה אֲשֶׁר־בּ֛וֹ לְאַבְרָהָ֖ם לַאֲחֻזַּת־קָ֑בֶר מֵאֵ֖ת בְּנֵי־חֵֽת׃ {ס}
(2) Sarah died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. (3) Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, (4) “I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.” (5) And the Hittites replied to Abraham, saying to him, (6) “Hear us, my lord: you are the elect of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold his burial place from you for burying your dead.” (7) Thereupon Abraham bowed low to the people of the land, the Hittites, (8) and he said to them, “If it is your wish that I remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar. (9) Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, which is at the edge of his land. Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a burial site in your midst.” (10) Ephron was present among the Hittites; so Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, all who entered the gate of his town, saying, (11) “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.” (12) Then Abraham bowed low before the people of the land, (13) and spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, “If only you would hear me out! Let me pay the price of the land; accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” (14) And Ephron replied to Abraham, saying to him, (15) “My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Go and bury your dead.” (16) Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms. Abraham paid out to Ephron the money that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites—four hundred shekels of silver at the going merchants’ rate. (17) So Ephron’s land in Machpelah, near Mamre—the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the confines of that field—passed (18) to Abraham as his possession, in the presence of the Hittites, of all who entered the gate of his town. (19) And then Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan. (20) Thus the field with its cave passed from the Hittites to Abraham, as a burial site.
(10) When they came to Goren ha-Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they held there a very great and solemn lamentation; and he observed a mourning period of seven days for his father.
Consolation in that set of Scriptures, so goes this line of thought, lies solely in the continuity of the family over the generations: having descendants is the functional equivalent of being immortalized, and familial survival plays the role we moderns associate with a personal afterlife ... Thus, whereas Utnapishtim, the "Babylonian Noah" of the Epic of Gilgamesh, is granted immortality after he survives the great flood, the Israelite Noah receives a covenant that "never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Gen 9:11). The permanent continuation of the human race (that is, the descendants of Noah) plays in Genesis the role that Utnapishtim's personal immortality plays in Gilgamesh, and the individual's own death - the issue that drives the narrative of Gilgamesh - is no issue whatsoever in the biblical flood story.
Professor Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life
(ח) וַיִּגְוַ֨ע וַיָּ֧מׇת אַבְרָהָ֛ם בְּשֵׂיבָ֥ה טוֹבָ֖ה זָקֵ֣ן וְשָׂבֵ֑עַ וַיֵּאָ֖סֶף אֶל־עַמָּֽיו׃
(8) And Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin.
(יז) וְאֵ֗לֶּה שְׁנֵי֙ חַיֵּ֣י יִשְׁמָעֵ֔אל מְאַ֥ת שָׁנָ֛ה וּשְׁלֹשִׁ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה וְשֶׁ֣בַע שָׁנִ֑ים וַיִּגְוַ֣ע וַיָּ֔מׇת וַיֵּאָ֖סֶף אֶל־עַמָּֽיו׃
(17) These were the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years; then he breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his kin.—
In the Midrash of our Rabbis there are many reasons for the Scriptural account of Ishmael’s years. The correct one among them is that he was righteous, a man of repentance, and Scripture tells of him as it does with all righteous people.
The expression אבדן when applied to the death of the wicked refers to such Israelite sinners as died without benefit of having repented their sins prior to their deaths. They are being judged after their physical death in Gehinom; this is the meaning of Leviticus 23,30 והאבדתי את הנפש ההיא. Such a death is worse than the death described by the Torah as כרת. The people guilty of the penalty called כרת are judged and after they have completed whatever length of punishment has been decreed for them, their souls are admitted to the hereafter.
The three types of deaths mentioned in connection with the righteous are:
1) גויעה, אסיפה, ביאה — All three of these types of death are mentioned in connection with Avraham. This means that these three are all of the same category [as Avraham certainly died only once. Ed.] We read in 25,8 ויגוע ויאסף; we also have the Torah telling Avraham about his death in the future where G’d said to him in Genesis 15,15 ואתה תבא אל אבותיך בשלום, “as far as you are concerned you will come to join your fathers in peace.” Expressions of death involving either of the three words mentioned in connection with Avraham apply to the kind of righteous people who transfer to Gan Eden immediately upon the death of their bodies, not having to face any punishment at all. Such a death was the lot of Ishmael, of whom the Torah writes ויגוע וימת ויאסף אל עמיו. Clearly, he had become a penitent.
2) The second type of death involving the righteous is described in the Torah by the word לקיחה, “being taken away.” Such an expression is applied to people who enter Gan Eden while physically alive such as Chanoch (Genesis 5, 24) of whom the Torah wrote: “he was no longer, as G’d had taken him.” The prophet Elijah experienced a similar “death,” as he had told his disciple Elisha (Kings II 2,10) אם תראה אותי לוקח מאתך, “if you will see me taken from you, etc.”
3) The third type of death applicable to the righteous is described as “rest.” This is an expression promising the righteous participation in the resurrection, a time which our sages have described with the words מנוחה or שבת. This promise was applied to Daniel who had been told (Daniel 12,13) ואתה לך לקץ ותנוח ותעמוד לגורלך לקץ הימין, “But you, go on to the end; you shall rest and arise to your destiny at the end of the days.”
Given this biblical concept of the self (which we shall examine in more detail in chapter 6), Rabbi Simai's logic fails. God can indeed give the promised land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob after they are dead without resurrecting them, for the people that carries their blood, bears their name, and reenacts their experience (in part) still lives and is still able to experience the fulfillment of the promise. On a deeper level, however, Rabbi Simai's observation points us toward a profound truth: the deaths of the patriarchs of Genesis do not have the finality that we (and he) associate with death. Rather, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob continue to exist after they have died, not, it should be underscored, as disembodied spirits but as the people whose fathers they will always be. That death represents an absolute terminus, as it does to the modern mind, is not a foregone conclusion in biblical thought. In biblical thinking, it is possible to continue even after death, and without either resurrection or immortality
in the sense of survival as a bodiless soul. Not everyone does, of course. Some die cut off from kith and kin and from the worshiping community that enjoys God's radiant, life-giving
presence. But it is possible, in biblical thought, to die what the non-Israelite prophet Balaam enviously calls "the death of the upright" right" (Num 23:10), to die like Abraham, "old and contented ... gathered to his kin" (Gen z5:8). Among the several ways to understand the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is to view it as a way to preserve that possibility when biblical notions of identity have eroded and a more individualistic conception of the self has come to the fore. Or, to put it differently, if we hold a more individualistic conception of the self than one finds in most of the Hebrew Bible, one must either accept a notion of the resurrection of the dead or concede that the biblical promise fell void, never to be fulfilled. From the standpoint of the biblical sources in question, the first option introduces a novelty; the second, a theological scandal. In one sense, then, resurrection is a new idea, and it is hardly surprising that prerabbinic and nonrabbinic Jews held a variety of other ideas about ultimate human destiny. In another sense, however, it is a tradition-preserving reaction to new thinking that threatened the older biblical idea that existence in an embodied, communal form could continue after death, through a gracious God's fidelity to his promise.
A major focus of that favor - especially important, as we are about to see, in the case of Abraham and job - is family, particularly the continuation of one's lineage through descendants alive at one's death. Many expressions, some of them idiomatic, communicate this essential mode of divine favor. The idiom "He was gathered to his kin" or "to his fathers" (wayye'asep 'el-`ammayw / 'abotayw), may originally have derived from burial practices, but it does not literally refer to interment in the family grave or to secondary burial any longer, since it is used, for example, of Abraham (Gen 25:8), whose deceased blood relatives all lay in Mesopotamia.19 "More likely," writes Johnston, it "indicates joining one's ancestors in the afterlife," presumably, according to "most scholars . . . in Sheol, even if Sheol is never mentioned in this con- text."20 This last concession, however, is devastating to the widespread presumption sumption to which Johnston alludes. For Sheol is anything but a locus of familial reunion. Those
Or perhaps a place other than Sheol was thought to house the dead who did not go there, something like the Garden of Eden (to put it into rabbinic language)29 in contradistinction to the Gehinnom (or Gehenna) that was Sheol, or, in the familiar Christian terms, heaven as opposed to hell. But even if this is so, it is highly instructive that the Hebrew Bible is so severely reticent about describing it, and there is, as we have seen, room for disagreement ment about how significant a role such a belief played in ancient Israelite religion.30 A better course is to examine the narratives about the end of the lives of those who die blessed. If we do so, we see that a principal source of their survival vival lies in their lineage (including, in some cases, the larger lineage that is the whole people of Israel). Thus Abraham dies after arranging the marriage of his favored son Isaac and begetting, in addition to the firstborn Ishmael, six other sons, some of them (like Isaac and Ishmael) destined to beget great nations in fulfillment of God's explicit promise to the founding patriarch (Gen 25:1-18; cf. Gen 12:2; 17:20; 21:18; 28:3-4). And so, too, job lives "to see four generations tions of sons and grandsons" (Job 42:16). This, in turn, is strikingly reminiscent cent of the dying Jacob, who tells his son Joseph, "I never expected to see you again, and here God has let me see your children as well," or of Joseph himself, who "lived to see children of the third generation of [his son] Ephraim" (Gen 48:11; 50:23). These instances of the viewing of the future lineage are hardly coincidental or irrelevant to our topic. For, in all these cases, the individual dies fulfilled, the divine promises richly (and unexpectedly) realized at the end of a stormy life, long marked by infertility or other intergenerational prob- lems.31 The viewing of the distant descendants so prominent in the cases of Job, Jacob, and Joseph establishes the felicity of the individual's destiny at the time of his death. Dying within the blessing of God, the patriarch faces his final destiny with composure, altogether unlike those who, dying outside the blessing ing of God, face the misery of Sheol, with justified trepidation and despondency. dency. The fulfillment of the blessed individual's life survives him and continues to testify to his final felicity- and to his God's steadfast faithfulness to his pledged word.
Our examination of personal identity in the earlier literature of the Hebrew Bible thus suggests that the conventional view is too simple: death was not final and irreversible after all, at least not in the way in which we are inclined to think of these matters. This is not, however, because individuals were believed lieved to possess an indestructible essence that survived their bodies. On the one hand, the body itself was thought to be animated in ways foreign to modern materialistic and biologistic thinking, but, on the other, even its most spiritual part, its nepes (life force) or its nefdmd (breath), was mortal. Rather, the boundary between individual subjects and the familial/ethnic/national group in which they dwelt, to which they were subordinate, and on which they depended was so fluid as to rob death of some of the horror it has in more individualistic cultures, influenced by some version of social atomism. In more theological texts, one
sees this in the notion that subjects can die a good death, "old and contented ... and gathered to [their] kin," like Abraham, who lived to see a partial - though only a partial - fulfillment of God's promise of land, progeny, and blessing upon him, or like job, also "old and contented" after his adversity came to an end and his fortunes - including progeny - were restored (Gen 25:8; Job 42:117). If either of these patriarchal figures still felt terror in the face of his death, even after his afflictions had been reversed, the Bible gives us no hint of it.16 Death in situations like these is not a punishment, a cause for complaint against God, or the provocation of an existential crisis. But neither is it death as later cultures, including our own, conceive it. Given this embeddedness in family, there is in Israelite culture, however, a threat that is the functional equivalent to death as we think of it. This is the absence or loss of descendants. It is in this light that we should understand the association the book of Proverbs makes between Sheol and infertility: '--'The leech has two daughters, "Give!" and "Give!" Three things are insatiable; Four never say, "Enough!": 16Sheol, a barren womb, Earth that cannot get enough water, And fire which never says, "Enough!" (Prov 30:15-16) The three items analogized here to "a barren womb" are all redolent of death - Sheol (the dark, miserable netherworld), parched earth that cannot sustain life, and a raging fire that consumes everything and everybody in its way. Given such associations, we can better understand why the future patriarch triarch Abraham's childlessness evokes such terror and depression: 'Some time later, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision. He said, "Fear not, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great." 2But Abram said, "0 Lord GOD, what can You give me, seeing that I shall die childless!" (Gen 15:1-2) All the reward in the world -wealth, longevity, even having God as one's personal protector-cannot compensate for childlessness." And the proof that Abraham truly "fears God," that he places obedience to the divine command mand above his personal welfare, is that he is willing to sacrifice the promised son when at long last his previously barren and now elderly primary wife has borne him (z z: I I - 12.).
Professor Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life
רַבִּי בְּנָאָה הֲוָה קָא מְצַיֵּין מְעָרָתָא כִּי מְטָא לִמְעָרְתָּא דְאַבְרָהָם אַשְׁכְּחֵיהּ לֶאֱלִיעֶזֶר עֶבֶד אַבְרָהָם דְּקָאֵי קַמֵּי בָּבָא אֲמַר לֵיהּ מַאי קָא עָבֵיד אַבְרָהָם אֲמַר לֵיהּ גָּאנֵי בְּכַנְפַהּ דְּשָׂרָה וְקָא מְעַיְּינָא לֵיהּ בְּרֵישֵׁיהּ אֲמַר לֵיהּ זִיל אֵימָא לֵיהּ בְּנָאָה קָאֵי אַבָּבָא אֲמַר לֵיהּ לֵיעוּל מִידָּע יְדִיעַ דְּיֵצֶר בְּהַאי עָלְמָא לֵיכָּא עָיֵיל עַיֵּין וּנְפַק כִּי מְטָא לִמְעָרְתָּא דְּאָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן יָצְתָה בַּת קוֹל וְאָמְרָה נִסְתַּכַּלְתָּ בִּדְמוּת דְּיוֹקְנִי בִּדְיוֹקְנִי עַצְמָהּ אַל תִּסְתַּכֵּל הָא בָּעֵינָא לְצַיּוֹנֵי מְעָרְתָּא כְּמִדַּת הַחִיצוֹנָה כָּךְ מִדַּת הַפְּנִימִית וּלְמַאן דְּאָמַר שְׁנֵי בָתִּים זוֹ לְמַעְלָה מִזּוֹ כְּמִדַּת עֶלְיוֹנָה כָּךְ מִדַּת הַתַּחְתּוֹנָה אָמַר רַבִּי בְּנָאָה נִסְתַּכַּלְתִּי בִּשְׁנֵי עֲקֵיבָיו וְדוֹמִים לִשְׁנֵי גַּלְגַּלֵּי חַמָּה הַכֹּל בִּפְנֵי שָׂרָה כְּקוֹף בִּפְנֵי אָדָם שָׂרָה בִּפְנֵי חַוָּה כְּקוֹף בִּפְנֵי אָדָם חַוָּה בִּפְנֵי אָדָם כְּקוֹף בִּפְנֵי אָדָם אָדָם בִּפְנֵי שְׁכִינָה כְּקוֹף בִּפְנֵי אָדָם
§ Having mentioned Rabbi Bena’a, the Gemara relates an incident in which he was involved. Rabbi Bena’a was marking burial caves for the purpose of helping to prevent the contracting of ritual impurity. When he arrived at the cave of Abraham, i.e., the Cave of Machpelah, he encountered Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, who was standing before the entrance. Rabbi Bena’a said to him: What is Abraham doing at this moment? Eliezer said to him: He is lying in the arms of Sarah, and she is examining his head. Rabbi Bena’a said to him: Go tell him that Bena’a is standing at the entrance, so that he should assume an appropriate position to receive a visitor. Eliezer said to him: Let him, i.e., Rabbi Bena’a, enter, since it is known that there is no evil inclination in this higher world, so it is not inappropriate for Rabbi Bena’a to see Abraham and Sarah in this position. He entered, examined the cave in order to measure it, and exited. When he arrived at the cave of Adam the first man, who is buried in the same area, a Divine Voice emerged and said: You gazed upon the likeness of My image, i.e., Abraham, who is similar to the image of Adam the first man. Do not gaze upon My image itself, i.e., Adam the first man, about whom the verse states that he was formed in the image of God (see Genesis 1:27). Rabbi Bena’a said: But I need to mark the cave. The voice said to him: As the measurements of the dimensions of the outer cave where Abraham is buried, so are the measurements of the dimensions of the inner cave, where Adam is buried. The Gemara notes: And according to the one who says that the Cave of Machpelah consists of two chambers, this one above that one, not two adjacent chambers, the voice said: As the measurements of the dimensions of the upper cave where Abraham is buried, so are the measurements of the dimensions of the lower cave. Therefore, there is no need to measure it. Rabbi Bena’a says: I gazed at his, Adam’s, two heels, and they shone so brightly that they are similar to two suns. Along these lines, the Gemara states that all people compared to Sarah are like a monkey compared to a human, as Sarah was exceedingly beautiful; Sarah compared to Eve is like a monkey compared to a human; Eve compared to Adam is like a monkey compared to a human; and Adam compared to the Divine Presence is like a monkey compared to a human.