Genesis 23 focuses on Abraham’s first acquisition of property in the promised land. The Hittites seem to want to deprive Abraham from owning any land by offering Abraham permission to bury Sarah in one of their tombs. Abraham, however, insists on purchasing a tomb for Sarah.
It is striking that the first piece of land that Abraham obtained in the promised land is the tomb. Notably the covenant promise is that Abraham will himself possess the land (Gen 15:7-8; 17:8). And yet, God also indicated that the nation will not be possessed by Abraham’s seed until after Abraham is buried (Gen. 15:15). If Abraham had meditated on the specifics of God’s covenant promises, he would have recognized that they entailed resurrection from the dead. Thus, the purchase of a tomb as a down payment land promise looked forward to the hope of the resurrection.
Confirmation of this eschatological hope is found in Hebrews 11:13-16. Hebrews mentions that the patriarchs and Sarah died in faith, “having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (NASB), a refence back to Genesis 23:4. The author of Hebrews understands this to mean that Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob were looking for a heavenly homeland and country. Hebrews is not teaching Abraham was looking forward to going to heaven when he died. That was not the covenant promise. Instead, he was looking forward to the land that was promised to him being characterized as heavenly rather than as Canaanite. The land will be heavenly (and the prepared city will descend from heaven to the renewed earth) after the resurrection. Notably, in the very next paragraph the author of Hebrews affirms that Abraham believed in the resurrection from the dead (Heb. 11:19).
Jesus also appealed to the Abrahamic covenant when defending the resurrection of the dead. When Jesus quoted Exodus 3:6, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” the import is that God had made covenant promises to the patriarchs that entailed them living again. My argument here is that the truth of the resurrection was not only deduced by Jesus from the Abrahamic covenant; it was deduced by Abraham himself.