Here, in the close neighbourhood of the later Hebron, he bought a plot of ground in the sloping cliff, wherein a twofold chamber had been excavated in the rock for the purposes of burial.

The sepulchre of Machpelah was the sole possession in the land of his adoption which he could bequeath to his descendants.
Of these, however, Ishmael and the sons of Keturah moved southward into the desert, out of the reach of the cultured Canaanites and the domination of Babylonia.

Isaac, too, the son of his Babylonian wife, seemed bent upon following their example.

He established himself on the skirts of the southern wilderness, not far on the one hand from the borders of Palestine, nor on the other from the block of mountains within which was the desert sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea.

His sons Esau and Jacob shared the desert and the cultivated land between them.