See also EPHRON (עפרון) and MAMRE (ממרא).
Genesis 23:9: the cave which Ephron ben Zohar of the Beney Chet (Hittites) sold to Av-Raham for Sarah's burial, east of Mamre.
Genesis 49:29/32: Av-Raham, Sarah, Yitschak (Isaac), Rivkah (Rebecca) and Le'ah were all buried there. The other patriarch, Ya'akov, may have been buried at the threshing-floor of Atad, which came to be known as Avel Mitsrayim, according to Genesis 50:10/11; though Genesis 50:13 insists that he too was buried at Machpelah, and perhaps Atad was simply where the pre-burial vigil or post-burial shiva was held.
The other matriarch, Rachel, was buried at Tseltsach (usually pronounced Zelzah in English - see 1 Samuel 10:2), where her tomb is still an important place of pilgrimage (see also Genesis 35:16 ff).
The root Caphal (כפל) means "a portion" or "a doubling"; those who have visited it will know that it is a "double-cave", which is to say there are two inner areas (actually there are more than two, but two "main" caves") one of which appears to have been used since Palaeolithic times as a burial chamber, the other for a variety of purposes from religious rites to simple habitation.
What exactly are we dealing with here then? An ancient oracular-shrine, with skull-priests; or merely a burial-cave? It must have been a very important royal tomb, akin to Ur etc, for the later scribes to place so many patriarchs there. It is also held to be the navel of the cosmos, and linked to the Eden myth - are we dealing with the entrance to the underworld etc?
Today the Cave of Machpelah, or the Tomb of the Patriarchs, or the Sanctuary of Ibrahim, is as important to Islam as it is to Judaism, and its location in the heart of the West Bank, in the semi-autonomous Palestinian territory...well, this is a blog about the Bible, not contemporary politics; read that grim and pointless idiocy yourself, and take a trip inside the actual cave here.
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