And Sarah died in Kirjatharba,.... Which was so called, either, as Jarchi says, from the four Anakims or giants that dwelt here, Jos 15:13; or else, as the same writer observes, from the four couple buried here, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah; but then it must be so called by anticipation; rather, as Aben Ezra thinks, it had its name from Arba, a great man among the Anakims, and the father of Anak, Jos 14:15; though some take it to be a Tetrapolls, a city consisting of four parts; but be it as it will, here Abraham and Sarah were at the time of her death; when they removed from Beersheba hither is not said:the same [is] Hebron, in the land of Canaan; so it was afterwards called: here Abraham and Sarah had lived many years ago, see Ge 13:18; and hither they returned, and here they ended their days and were buried:and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her; Aben Ezra observes, that, when Sarah died, Abraham was in another place, and therefore is said to come to mourn for her; and the Targum of Jonathan is,"and Abraham came from the mount of worship (Moriah), and found that she was dead, and he sat down to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.'
'Others report, that, upon hearing of the offering up of Isaac, she swooned away and died. But the meaning is, that he came from his own tent to Sarah's, see Ge 24:67, where her corpse was, to indulge his passion of grief and sorrow for her; which, in a moderate way, was lawful, and what natural affection and conjugal relation obliged him to.
The Hebrews observe, that, in the word for "weep", one of the letters is lesser than usual, and which they think denotes, that his weeping for her was not excessive, but little; but both phrases put together seem to denote that his sorrow was very great; and the one perhaps may refer to his private, and the other to his public mourning for her, according to the custom of those times.
Pirke Eliezer, c. 32. Jarchi in loc.