What is 400 Shekels Between You and Me?

According to Genesis, Abraham’s wife Sarah lived 127 years. She died and Abraham mourned and bewailed her.  Living in a foreign land at the time, he had no place to bury her. He asks for someone to sell him a burial site.

I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.

They tell him to bury Sarah in the choicest of their burial places. That no one will withhold his burial place from Abraham.

Abraham says ok, I know just the place.  A guy named Ephron has a cave that will do just fine, I will pay full price.

Ephron says, “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it….bury your dead.

Abraham says, “Hear me out!” and offers again to pay for it.

Ephron then replies,

My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver - what is that between you and me? Go and bury your dead.”

So Abraham accepted his terms.

It is the biblical equivalent of, I’ll get the check, no I’ll get the check, No really, I’ll get it. Ok, if you insist.

Was this fair market value? The scriptures don’t say. But compared to the 17 shekels Jeremiah pays to redeem ancestral land, it seems a bit high.

So Abraham buries Sarah. Soon he too is buried next to his wife. Eventually joined by his son Isaac and daughter-in-law Rebekah, and grandson Jacob and his wife Leah.

God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore. Early on,  from the vantage point of the Judean hills,  he viewed  the panorama of the promised land, as it extended  in every direction of the compass, but, at the end of his life, was constrained to bargain for a small plot of land were he, his wife and family would be buried.

~ by bart on February 26, 2008.