Where is the cave of Machpelah, the tomb of the patriarchs?

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Accepted Answer

In Hebron, in the hills of Judah about 30 km south of Jerusalem in a straight line, under the great stone enclosure known as the Cave of the Patriarchs or the Haram al-Khalil. The map point stands on it, less than a kilometre from Tel Rumeida, the mound of ancient Hebron, and about 4 km from Mamre, which Genesis names beside it. The identification goes back at least to the Herodian period, when the enclosure was built, and is not seriously disputed, though the cave itself has not been excavated. Genesis gives the place in detail: “the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein”. Abraham bought it to bury Sarah, “in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan”, and Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham there. Dying in Egypt, Jacob listed those who lay in it: “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah”; his sons carried him up and buried him there too. The enclosure, about 59 by 34 m, is attributed to Herod the Great for its likeness to the walls of the Temple Mount. A church inside it became a mosque after the Arab conquest, a church again under the Crusaders and a mosque under Saladin. The cave below the floor is closed; visitors see cenotaphs above it. Since 1994 the building has been divided between a mosque and a synagogue, and in 2017 UNESCO inscribed the old town of Hebron with the sanctuary.