Chapter 23
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Sarah’s life was one hundred and twenty-seven years. These were the years of Sarah’s life.
2Sarah died at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan. Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.
3Abraham got up from beside his dead and spoke to the Hittites:
4“I am a stranger and a settler among you. Give me a burial holding among you, and I will bury my dead out of my sight.”
5The Hittites answered Abraham,
6“Hear us, my lord. You are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places. None of us will withhold his burial place from you, for burying your dead.”
7Abraham got up and bowed to the people of the land, the Hittites.
8He spoke to them: “If it is your will that I bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and meet with Ephron son of Zohar for me,
9so that he gives me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns, which is at the edge of his field. For the full price let him give it to me, in your midst, as a burial holding.”
10Ephron was sitting among the Hittites. Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who entered the gate of his city:
11“No, my lord, hear me. The field I give you, and the cave that is in it I give you. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.”
12Abraham bowed before the people of the land.
13He spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land: “If only you will hear me. I will give the price of the field. Take it from me, and I will bury my dead there.”
14Ephron answered Abraham,
15“My lord, hear me. A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between me and you? Bury your dead.”
16Abraham listened to Ephron. Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had spoken of in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, at the rate current among merchants.
17So the field of Ephron that was in Machpelah, facing Mamre, the field and the cave in it, and every tree in the field, within its whole border around,
18was made over to Abraham as a possession, in the sight of the Hittites, of all who entered the gate of his city.
19After that Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan.
20The field and the cave in it were made over to Abraham as a burial holding, from the Hittites.