Then Abraham died at a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.
Read Chapter 25
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Good old age. Because well spent: though he lived not so long as many of the wicked; decaying not by any violent disorder, but dropping off like a ripe apple.
Being full. The Hebrew does not express of what; but the Samaritan, Chaldean, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic agree with the Vulgate. See chap. xxxv. 29. (Haydock)
Days, not years, as Protestants wrongfully interpolate. (Kennicott)
His people, the saints of ancient days, in limbo; while his body was placed near the remains of his wife, by the pious attention of his two chief sons, attended by their other brethren. (Haydock)
The life of Abraham was a pattern of all virtues, but particularly of faith; and it was an abridgment of the law. His equal was no where found, Ecclesiasticus xliv. 20. (Calmet)
I am reviewing carefully the places in Scripture where I might find old age mentioned for the first time. Adam lived for years, yet he is not called an old man. Methuselah’s life was years, and he is not called an old man. I am coming down all the way to the flood, and after the flood for almost three thousand years, and I find no one who has been called old. Abraham is the first one, and certainly he was much younger than Methuselah, but he is called an old man because his old age had been anointed with rich oil. In fine, it is written there in the Scripture, “Abraham died at a good old age; full of days.” His was a good old age because it was full of days, for the whole of his life was day and not night.
