Genesis 23:8-9 - Exposition

And he communed with them, saying, If it be year mind —literally, if it be with your souls, the word nephesh being used in this sense in Psalms 27:12 ; Psalms 41:3 ; Psalms 105:22 — that I should bury my dead out of my might; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar. The ruler of the city (Keil); but this is doubtful (Lange). "There is scarcely anything in the habits of Orientals more annoying to us Occidentals than this universal custom of employing mediators to pass between you and-those with whom you wish to do business. Nothing can be done without them. A merchant cannot sell a piece of print, nor a farmer a yoke of oxen, nor any one rent a house, buy a horse, or get a wife, without a succession of go-betweens. Of course Abraham knew that this matter of the field could not be brought about without the intervention of the neighbors of Ephron, and therefore he applies to them first". That he may give me the cave of Machpelah ,—Machpelah is regarded as a proper noun (Gesenius, Keil, Kalisch, Rosenmüller), as in Genesis 49:30 , though by others it is considered as an appellative, signifying that the cave was double ( LXX ; Vulgate), either as consisting of a cave within a cave (Hamerus), or of one cave exterior and another interior (Abort Ezra), or as having room for two bodies (Calvin), or as possessing two entrances (Jewish interpreters). It is probable the cave received its name from its peculiar form,— which he hath (Ephron's ownership of the cave is expressly recognized, and its situation is next described), which is in the end of his field— "so that the cession of it will not injure his property" (Wordsworth). At the same time Abraham makes it clear that an honest purchase is what he contemplates. For as much money as it is worth —literally, for full silver ( 1 Chronicles 21:22 ). Cf. siller (Scotch) for money. This is the first mention of the use of the precious metals as a medium of exchange, though they must have been so employed at a very early period ( vide Genesis 13:2 )— he shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place amongst you. The early Chaldaeans were accustomed to bury their dead in strongly-constructed brick vaults. Those found at Mughheir are seven feet long, three feet seven inches broad, and five feet high, are composed of sun-dried bricks embedded in mud, and exhibit a remarkable form and construction of arch, resembling that occur ring in Egyptian buildings and Scythian tombs, in which the successive layers of brick are made to overlap until they come so close that the aperture may be covered by a single brick. In the absence of such artificial receptacles for the dead, the nearest substitute the patriarch could obtain was one of those natural grottoes which the limestone hills of Canaan so readily afforded.