Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town

Hebron is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with settlement dating back five thousand years. According to tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah here around 1800 BCE. King David ruled from Hebron before moving his capital to Jerusalem. Herod enclosed the tombs in the first century BCE. Since then, the site has passed through Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and Israeli control—each layer adding to its significance and its contestation.

The biblical account in Genesis 23 describes Abraham as a stranger and sojourner in the land of Canaan when Sarah died at the age of 127. The Hittite population of Hebron offered to give him a burial site, but Abraham insisted on purchasing the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron for its full price: four hundred shekels of silver, weighed out in the presence of witnesses at the city gate.

This careful legal transaction, scholars note, stands apart from the divine promises that elsewhere grant Abraham's descendants the land. Machpelah was acquired by purchase, creating an uncontestable claim. Abraham was buried there by his sons Isaac and Ishmael—together, in a rare moment of unity between the two lineages that would become Israel and the Arab peoples. Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah followed, each generation joining the ancestral tomb.

Jewish mystical tradition in the Zohar adds deeper layers. The cave, it teaches, is the entrance to the Garden of Eden. Adam recognized this when he saw light emanating from the site and dug the first burial chamber. The patriarchs, buried here, guard the threshold between worlds.