ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – AN AMBASSADOR – AIZAGADA  איזגדא Aleph Yod Zayin Gimmel Daleth Aleph 

Genesis 23:4: “I am a foreigner and stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead.”

It is reported in the Talmud that the cave that Abraham purchased as a burial place for his wife Sarah and later himself and the other patriarchs is one plot of land that no one can dispute belongs to the Jews because Abraham purchased and paid for the land.  Abraham had settled in the land of Canaan for over 40 years and he made no arrangements for burial.  I mean if you live in an area for 40 years you are pretty well settled down, that is your home, where you raise your family, the start a business which was very prosperous for Abraham. You make friends and Abraham had many friends among the Canaanites. He was welcomed among the people and yet he made no arrangements to be buried in this land until his wife passes and he needed a burial ground.  He asks a land owner Ephron the Hittite to sell him a cave for the burial but Ephron would have none of it. He respected Abraham too much and insisted that he just give it to Abraham. But Abraham wanted to pay for it because he said he was just a foreigner and stranger in the land. 

A foreigner and stranger in he land?  He probably lived in the land longer than Ephron. I would say he qualified for full citizenship of Canaan by this time. This was his home. The word foreigner is gar in Hebrew which is a word used for a sojourner which means one who stays temporarily in one place then moves on.  Abraham stayed in this area until his death, he did not move on so what is this gar or sojourner business? Then he says he is a yashab which is a foreign resident.  After over 40 years of living, settling, starting a family, a business, and making friends in an area he still calls himself a temporary resident and foreigner with just a green card and visa. 

Jewish tradition teaches that this shows that there is life after we leave this body on earth. That this world is not our home.  I remember as a teenager our youth group used to sing a chorus: “This world is not my home, I’m just a traveling through. My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore. Oh, Lord you know, I have no friend like you, if heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do.”  That was Abraham’s song.  He knew this world was not his home, he was just a foreigner a sojourner.  

This is not an Old Testament concept but a New Testament one as well.  Paul says as much in II Corinthians 5:20: “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech [you] by us: we pray [you] in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” The word ambassador in Aramaic is aizagada which is just a foreigner who is a messenger for another government. In other words, an ambassador. Webster defines our English word ambassador as an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative.  His job is to be the messenger for his home country, the contact that a nation can use to convey messages.  That is the perfect definition of an aizagada.  An aizagada is a citizen of the country he represents, he is not a citizen of the country he lives in while serving his home country.  In the United States, we send an ambassador to say, France.  He could live in France for 40 years as an ambassador but France will never be his home or will he be a citizen of that country. One day his mission will be over and he will return to his home in the United States.  So, to Abraham and us, this world is not our home, we are just ambassadors of heaven, our true home to which we yearn to return. 

There is an old rabbinic story of a visitor who stopped by the home of a master rabbi and was outraged by the poverty he encountered in the home of this illustrious and famous rabbi. The home was bare of all furnishings other than some rough wooden planks and blocks which served as benches for his students during the day and beds for his family at night. “How can you live like this?” demanded the visitor.  “I am not a wealthy man but at least in my home I have chairs, tables, and beds for my family.” “Really?” said the rabbi, “But, I don’t see your furnishings, how do you live without them?”  “Be reasonable” said the visitor, “Do you think I carry my possession wherever I go?  When I travel I make do with what is available.  But at home, that is a different matter altogether.”  “Ah” replied the rabbi, “So it is indeed, at home it is an entirely different matter altogether.”  

In other words, the rabbi was saying that his house was not his home, this world was not his home, his home was with God, he is merely an ambassador, a mere messenger of God who is here for a short time and then once his mission is accomplished, he will return home.  

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