Acts 7:16

They were carried over unto Shechem (meteteqhsan ei Sucem). First aorist passive of metatiqhmi, only here in the N.T. in this sense of changing places. Jacob was buried in the cave of Machpelah ( Genesis 50:13 ). The O.T. does not say where the sons of Jacob were buried save that Joseph was buried in Shechem ( Joshua 24:32 ). Possibly only "our fathers" without Jacob is the subject of "were carried." Which Abraham bought (wi wnhsato Abraam). Hackett is sure that our present text is wrong. Hort notes some sixty "primitive errors" in the critical text of the N.T. It is possible that this is also one. If "Jacob" is substituted for "Abraham," the matter is cleared up. "It is quite as likely, judging a priori, that the word producing the error escaped from some early copyist as that so glaring an error was committed by Stephen" (Hackett). At any rate Abraham bought a burying-place, the cave of Machpelah, from Ephron the Hittite at Hebron ( Genesis 23:16 ), while Jacob bought a field from the sons of Hamor at Shechem ( Genesis 33:19 ; Joshua 24:32 ). Abraham had built an altar at Shechem when he entered Canaan ( Genesis 12:6 ). It is possible, of course, that Abraham also bought the ground on which the altar stood. In Shechem (en Sucem). This is the reading of Aleph B C instead of the Textus Receptus tou Sucem which makes it "Hamar the father of Sichem." "In Shechem" is the true reading.