including children, and wounding over 125. The site is considered a holy place in Judaism and Islam. Etymology of "Makhpela" Amoraic proposals The etymology of the Biblical name for the site, Me'arat haMakhpela, is uncertain. The word Me'arat means "cave of" and haMakhpela may mean "doubled", "multiplied" or "twofold", so a literal translation would be "cave of the double". Two hypotheses are discussed by the Talmud in b. Eruvin 53a:The cave of makhpela: Abba Arikha and Samuel of Nehardea [disputed]; one said, "It is two chambers, one behind the other", and one said, "It is two chambers, one above the other."The position that the chambers are stacked is satisfactory -- this is makhpela. However, according to the position that one is behind the other, what is makhpela? That it is doubled in [that it contains] couples:"And Jacob came to his father Isaac, [to] Mamre, the 'City of the Four' which is Hebron . . ." (Gen. 35:27). Isaac the Smith said, "The City of the Four Couples: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah".According to b. Bava Batra 58a, Abba Arikha and Samuel of Nehardea agreed that the two chambers, whatever their layout, shared identical dimensions. Genesis Rabbah 58 gives a third hypothesis:"And Epron's field which was in the makhpela . . ." (Gen. 23:17). This teaches that it universally "doubles" the renown of those [within], as whoever is interred within is believed to have earned a very great reward [in Heaven]. Later scholarship Saadia b. Joseph and Abraham ibn Ezra believed it referred to a "cave within a cave". Another hypothesis, supported by Samuel b. Meir, Moses b. Nachman, Obadiah Sforno, Moses Mendelssohn, Ernst Rosenmüller, and Samuel David Luzzatto, holds that makhpela isn't an adjective describing the cave but rather is a proper noun describing the tract of land on which it sits. This hypothesis is supported by the phrasing of some Bible verses, such as , "the cave in the field of the Makhpela . . ." The question over the right interpretation of makhpela has been discussed extensively in various Biblical commentaries. Strong's Concordance derives makhpela from kaphal, a verb meaning “to double”. Biblical origin According to , Abraham's wife Sarah dies in Kiryat Arba near Hebron in the land of Canaan at the age of 127, being the only woman in the Bible whose exact age is given, while Abraham