Genesis 23:8-16

23:8 Then he said to them, “If you agree ¹  that I may bury my dead, ²  then hear me out. ³  Ask ⁴  Ephron the son of Zohar 23:9 if he will sell ⁵  me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him sell it to me publicly ⁶  for the full price, ⁷  so that I may own it as a burial site.”

23:10 (Now Ephron was sitting among the sons of Heth.) Ephron the Hethite ⁸  replied to Abraham in the hearing ⁹  of the sons of Heth – before all who entered the gate ¹⁰  of his city – 23:11 “No, my lord! Hear me out. I sell ¹¹  you both the field and the cave that is in it. ¹²  In the presence of my people ¹³  I sell it to you. Bury your dead.”

23:12 Abraham bowed before the local people 23:13 and said to Ephron in their hearing, “Hear me, if you will. I pay ¹⁴  to you the price ¹⁵  of the field. Take it from me so that I may ¹⁶  bury my dead there.”

23:14 Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him, 23:15 “Hear me, my lord. The land is worth ¹⁷  400 pieces of silver, ¹⁸  but what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.”

23:16 So Abraham agreed to Ephron’s price ¹⁹  and weighed ²⁰  out for him ²¹  the price ²²  that Ephron had quoted ²³  in the hearing of the sons of Heth – 400 pieces of silver, according to the standard measurement at the time. ²⁴ 

Genesis 23:1

The Death of Sarah

23:1 Sarah lived 127 years. ²⁵ 

Genesis 21:22

21:22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you ²⁶  in all that you do.

Jeremiah 32:6-14

32:6 So now, Jeremiah said, “The Lord told me, ²⁷  32:7 ‘Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you soon. He will say to you, “Buy my field at Anathoth because you are entitled ²⁸  as my closest relative to buy it.”’ ²⁹  32:8 Now it happened just as the Lord had said! My cousin Hanamel ³⁰  came to me in the courtyard of the guardhouse. He said to me, ‘Buy my field which is at Anathoth in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. Buy it for yourself since you are entitled as my closest relative to take possession of it for yourself.’ When this happened, I recognized that the Lord had indeed spoken to me. 32:9 So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I weighed out seven ounces of silver and gave it to him to pay for it. ³¹  32:10 I signed the deed of purchase, ³²  sealed it, and had some men serve as witnesses to the purchase. ³³  I weighed out the silver for him on a scale. 32:11 There were two copies of the deed of purchase. One was sealed and contained the order of transfer and the conditions of purchase. ³⁴  The other was left unsealed. 32:12 I took both copies of the deed of purchase ³⁵  and gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah. I gave them to him in the presence ³⁶  of my cousin ³⁷  Hanamel, the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase, and all the Judeans who were housed in the courtyard of the guardhouse. 32:13 In the presence of all these people I instructed Baruch, 32:14 ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³⁸  says, “Take these documents, both the sealed copy of the deed of purchase and the unsealed copy. Put them in a clay jar so that they may be preserved for a long time to come.”’ ³⁹ 

[23:8]  ¹ tn Heb “If it is with your purpose.” The Hebrew noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) here has the nuance “purpose” or perhaps “desire” (see BDB 661 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ).

[23:8]  ² tn Heb “bury my dead out of my sight.” The last phrase “out of my sight” has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[23:8]  ³ tn Or “hear me.”

[23:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “intercede for me with.”

[23:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “give.” This is used here (also a second time later in this verse) as an idiom for “sell”; see the note on the word “grant” in v. 4.

[23:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “in your presence.”

[23:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “silver.”

[23:10]  ⁸ tn Or perhaps “Hittite,” but see the note on the name “Heth” in v. 3.

[23:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “ears.” By metonymy the “ears” stand for the presence or proximity (i.e., within earshot) of the persons named.

[23:10]  ¹⁰ sn On the expression all who entered the gate see E. A. Speiser, “‘Coming’ and ‘Going’ at the City Gate,” BASOR 144 (1956): 20-23; and G. Evans, “‘Coming’ and ‘Going’ at the City Gate: A Discussion of Professor Speiser’s Paper,” BASOR 150 (1958): 28-33.

[23:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “give.” The perfect tense has here a present nuance; this is a formal, legally binding declaration. Abraham asked only for a burial site/cave within the field; Ephron agrees to sell him the entire field.

[23:11]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text adds “to you I give [i.e., sell] it.” This is redundant in English and has not been translated for stylistic reasons.

[23:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the presence of the sons of my people.”

[23:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “give.”

[23:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “silver.”

[23:13]  ¹⁶ tn After the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction expresses purpose or result.

[23:15]  ¹⁷ tn The word “worth” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[23:15]  ¹⁸ sn Four hundred pieces of silver. The standards for weighing money varied considerably in the ancient Near East, but the generally accepted weight for the shekel is 11.5 grams (0.4 ounce). This makes the weight of silver here 4.6 kilograms, or 160 ounces (about 10 pounds).

[23:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “listened to Ephron.”

[23:16]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and Abraham weighed out.”

[23:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “to Ephron.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[23:16]  ²² tn Heb “silver.”

[23:16]  ²³ tn Heb “that he had spoken.” The referent (Ephron) has been specified here in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[23:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “passing for the merchant.” The final clause affirms that the measurement of silver was according to the standards used by the merchants of the time.

[23:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “And the years of Sarah were one hundred years and twenty years and seven years, the years of the life of Sarah.”

[21:22]  ²⁶ sn God is with you. Abimelech and Phicol recognized that Abraham enjoyed special divine provision and protection.

[32:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “The word of the Lord came to me, saying.” This verse resumes the narrative introduction in v. 1 which was interrupted by the long parenthetical note about historical background. There is again some disjunction in the narrative (compare the translator’s notes on 27:2 and 28:1). What was begun as a biographical (third person) narrative turns into an autobiographical (first person) narrative until v. 26 where the third person is again resumed. Again this betrays the hand of the narrator, Baruch.

[32:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “your right.” The term מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) here and in v. 8 refers to legal entitlement for the option to purchase a property (BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 5; cf. Deut 21:17).

[32:7]  ²⁹ sn Underlying this request are the laws of redemption of property spelled out in Lev 25:25-34 and illustrated in Ruth 4:3-4. Under these laws, if a property owner became impoverished and had to sell his land, the nearest male relative had the right and duty to buy it so that it would not pass out of the use of the extended family. The land, however, would not actually belong to Jeremiah because in the year of Jubilee it reverted to its original owner. All Jeremiah was actually buying was the right to use it (Lev 25:13-17). Buying the field, thus, did not make any sense (thus Jeremiah’s complaint in v. 25) other than the fact that the Lord intended to use Jeremiah’s act as a symbol of a restored future in the land.

[32:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “And according to the word of the Lord my cousin Hanamel came to me to the courtyard of the guardhouse and said, ‘…’” The sentence has been broken down to conform better with contemporary English style.

[32:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “I weighed out the money [more literally, “silver”] for him, seventeen shekels of silver.”

[32:10]  ³² tn The words “of purchase” are not in the text but are implicit. The qualification is spelled out explicitly in vv. 11, 12, 13. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity. An alternative translation would be “I put the deed in writing.” However, since the same idiom כָּתַב בְּסֵפֶר (catav bÿsefer) is used later in v. 12 with respect to the witnesses, it is likely that it merely refers to signing the document.

[32:10]  ³³ tn The words “to the purchase” are not in the text but are implicit in the idiom “I had some witnesses serve as witness.” The words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[32:11]  ³⁴ tn There is some uncertainty about the precise meaning of the phrases translated “the order of transfer and the regulations.” The translation follows the interpretation suggested by J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 237; J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 586, n. 5; and presumably BDB 349 s.v. חֹק 7, which defines the use of חֹק (khoq) here as “conditions of the deed of purchase.”

[32:12]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the deed, the purchase.” This is a case of apposition of species in place of the genitive construction (cf. GKC 423 §131.b and compare the usage in Exod 24:5).

[32:12]  ³⁶ tn Heb “I took the deed of purchase, both that which was sealed [and contained] the order and the regulations and that which was open [i.e., unsealed], and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch…in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and in the presence of…and in the presence of….” It is awkward to begin a sentence with “I took…” without finishing the thought, and the long qualifiers in v. 12 make that sentence too long. The sentence is broken up in accordance with contemporary English style. The reference to the “deed of purchase” in v. 12 should be viewed as a plural consisting of both written and sealed copies as is clear from v. 11 and also v. 14. Part of the confusion is due to the nature of this document which consisted of a single papyrus scroll, half of which was rolled up and sealed and the other half which was left “opened” or unsealed. J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 237-38) is probably incorrect in assuming that the copies were duplicate since the qualification “containing the order of transfer and the regulations” is only applied to the appositional participle, “the sealed one [or copy].”

[32:12]  ³⁷ tc The translation follows a number of Hebrew mss and the Greek and Syriac version in reading “the son of my uncles (= my cousin; בֶּן דֹּדִי, ben dodi).” The majority of Hebrew mss do not have the word “son of (בֶּן).”

[32:14]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For this title see 7:3 and the study notes on 2:19.

[32:14]  ³⁹ tn Heb “many days.” See BDB s.v. יוֹם 5.b for this usage.