Genesis 23 Footnotes

23:1-20 It may appear that this chapter is overly sentimental in relating Abraham’s negotiation of the burial plot price for his beloved wife, Sarah. But its significance goes deeper. This is the only land that Abraham ever owned in Canaan, the one piece of property that served as an earnest of Israel’s eventual possession of the land. Although Ephron the Hethite made it as if to “give” Abraham the field (v. 11), the price he received from him (“four hundred shekels of silver,” v. 15) was an inordinately high price for that time. This field is also where the patriarchs Abraham (25:9-10), Isaac (35:27-29), and Jacob (49:29-32; 50:12-13) were buried.