Machpelah was a district and the cave was part of the district.

The double cave, a mystery of thousands of years, was uncovered several years ago beneath the massive building, revealing artefacts from the Early Israelite Period (some 30 centuries ago). The structure was built during the Second Temple Period (about two thousand years ago) by Herod, King of Judea, providing a place for gatherings and Jewish prayers at the graves of the Patriarchs.

Illustrated Bible Dictionary – by M.G.Easton M.A. has this account…."The cave which Abraham bought, together in which the field in which it stood, from Ephron the Hittite, for a family burying place. (Gen 23). It is now called El-Haram. It was on the slope of a hill, East of Hebron, before Mamre. Here was laid the bodies of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Over the cave an ancient Church was erected, probably in the time of Justinian, the Roman Emperor. The Church has been converted into a Mohammedan mosque, the whole surround by the sacred enclosure about 200 ft long, 115 broad and an average height of about 50ft. The building, from the immense size of the stones and the manner in which they are fitted, is supposed to have been erected in the days of Solomon, while others ascribe it to the time of Herod. It is looked upon as the most ancient and finest relic of Jewish architecture. On the floor of the mosque are erected six large cenotaphs as monuments to the dead who are buried in the cave beneath. Between the cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca there is a circular opening in the floor into the cave beneath, the cave of Machpelah. Here it may be that the body of Jacob, which was embalmed in Egypt is still preserved, although those of the others there buried may have long ago mouldered into dust. As a special favour by the Mohammedan authorities, the Prince of Wales visited the mosque in 1862, by the Marquis of Bute in 1866, by the Emperor, Frederick of Germany in 1869 and, in 1881, by the two sons of the Prince of Wales accompanied by Sir c.Wilson and others."

The Spanish Jew, Benjamin of Tudela,visite dthe cave about 1200AD and wrote about it in ‘Purchas his Pilgrimes’. "I came to Hebron seated in a plaine, for Hebron the ancient Metropolitan City stood upon a hill but is now desolate, but in the valley there is a field wherein there is a duplicate. That is, as it were, two valleys, but there the city is placed and there is a huge temple there called Saint Abraham, and that place was the synagogue of the Jews at the time that the country was possessed by the Ishmaelites. But the gentiles who afterwards obtained and held the same built six sepulchres in the temple by the names of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca Jacob and Lea (Leah), The inhabitants now tell the pilgrims that they are the monuments of the Patriarchs and great sums of money are offered there. But surely to any Jew coming hither and offering the porters a reward the cave is showed with the iron gate opened, which from antiquity remains yet there, and a man goes down with a lamp light down into the first cave, where nothing is found. Nor also in the second, until he enter the third in which there are six monuments the one right over against the other, and each of them are engraven with the characters and distinguished by the names of every one of them after this manner…’SEPULCHRUM ABRAHAM PATRIS NOSTRI; SUPER QUEM PAX SIT’. And so next after the same example. And a lamp perpetually burns in the cave day and night the officers of the temple continually administering oil for the maintenance thereof. Also in the self same cave there are two ????? full of the bones of the ancient Israelites bought thither by the families of Israel which even until this day remains in the self same place."

John Sanderson was there in the Summer of 1601 and says "Into this tomb not anyone is suffered to enter but at a square hole through a thick wall they may discern a little light of a lamp. The Jews do their ceremonies by prayer there without. The Moors and the Turks are permitted to have a little more sight, which is at the top where they let down the oil for the lamp. The lamp is a very great one continually burning.

All ancient versions translate Machpelah as the ‘Double Cave’ probably because there may be two caves for bodies or two entrances. The cave opens to the South and the bodies were laid with their heads to the North (Faucetts Encyclopedia).

"The cave itself is one of the sacred places of Islam. It is surrounded by enormous block stones very much like those of the wailing wall. It stands 40ft high with walls of a more recent construction on the top. Until recently entry into the mosque was forbidden to those who were not Muslims. In the mosque are six large cenotaphs to the six patriarchs said to be buried there. We were invited to pier through a grating in the floor of the building into the rocky cavern beneath, but all we could see was darkness. There was an iron door said to lead down into the cave but, as far as we know no one has entered the actual tomb since the time of the Crusaders."

The next record is only in part and happened in the First World War. It is from the magazine printed in England in 1937 "The Story of the Bible" published by The Amalgamated Press. I have lost the name, but here it is…."Motoring up through Beersheba, and up the Jerusalem Road to Hebron, my object being to get some sort of administration set up in this important centre immediately after our troops enter it. Our troops were holding a line just outside the town but hearing that no enemy were within I went boldly into Hebron in my car and at once tried to find out where were the elders of the city. It was like a city of the dead. I eventually got hold of a Jew and he told me all the city notables were hiding in the Mosque, so thither he conducted me but refused to pass beyond the entrance. I walked in and found the building apparently deserted. Passing up a passage in the massive building I entered a court and on the left was a mosque vulgarly decorated with the usual ornaments. It appeared to be only half furnished for I expected most of their good stuff had been hidden away. Finding no body about I shouted out and thinking I heard voices through an iron grid floor-door I pulled it back and passed down a stone staircase into a chamber which was pitch dark. Having only matches I could see little but by lighting match after match I searched all round for people, finding nothing but a stone coffin with spiral columns at each corner all in stone. I sat on the coffin, lit my pipe but was soon driven on by the unventilated atmosphere. When things became normal in Hebron an examination of the mosque was made by experts but the Muslim guardians, now returned under British protection, refused to allow anyone to enter the cave again. Whether the bodies of the Patriarchs are yet there still remains an open question.