GHOSTLY LAMENTATIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 776, 24 September 1929, Page 9

GHOSTLY LAMENTATIONS

WAILINGS HEARD IN TOMB OF ABRAHAM HEBRON ARABS TERRIFIED (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) JERUSALEM, Monday. The Arabs residing at Hebron and in that neighbourhood have been abjectly terrified by ghostly voices emanating from the cave of Machpelah, where according to tradition Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried. Before sunset, it is declared, a low moaning and wailing is maintained until dark. Then come cries of; “Why were my children slaughtered? Sons of Ishmael, why have ye dishonoured your Father’s name. Also heard from beneath the ground, it is said, are women s voices crying: “Why have ye shei, innocent blood? Why have ye no pity? ’ The Arabs are trying to discover means of calming the troubled spirits of the Patriarchs.

At Maclipelah, in a double cave on the hillside, is the traditional bmml place of Abraham, and other Jewish patriarchs. Above the cave rises the Mohammedan mosque of Ll Khuhl, which means the friend, i.e.. Abiaham. Abraham bought the cave of Maclipelah from Ephron, son ot Zohat, the Smite (Genesis 23) In payment for thn Field in which the cave as ne "weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the a „„ s 0 f Heth, four hundred shekels ot silver current money with the merchant' And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre the field, and the cave t'hich was therein, and all the trees that wSre in the field, and that were m all the borders round ahout,^ motile" pretence “of the children j,t Heth, before a.ll that went 6a The°ca?e e if believed to contain the gg? £ 3-JSSSM Yale of Mamre.