The Scottish Machpelah – Vayyechi
The Cave of Machpelah today
Colloquially some people tend to use the phrase “Morris and MacPelah” as if it were a Scottish or Irish phrase, but the correct words are “Me’arat Machpelah”, the Machpelah cave.
The name Machpelah means “double” (from the root k-p-l) – perhaps because the cave had two sections (Ibn Ezra), or perhaps because the patriarchs and their wives (maybe also Adam and Eve) are buried there (Rashi on Gen. 23:2). Rachel was not interred there since she died on a journey, but Leah was (verse 31).
Esau was not regarded as having any claim to the site (Nachmanides) though according to mystical lore his head rolled into the cave.
