Genesis23chapter 23

This chapter opens the fifth portion of the annual cycle, and the portion runs from its first verse to Genesis 25:18 (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). A congregation hears the death of Sarah, the buying of the cave, the finding of Rebecca and the death of Abraham in one sitting. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition. Radak and Malbim are quoted from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

The chapter is a purchase, and the classical comment reads it as a legal record. Rashi reads the standing of Abraham in the fourth verse two ways. The plain sense is a man from another land who has settled among them. The Midrashic sense is an offer and a claim together, that he will buy as a stranger or take as a settler by the promise given him (Rashi on Genesis 23:4:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 58:6).

Malbim reads the answer of the sons of Heth as the custom of the place. A man of his standing "may have the best grave in the public cemetery", or may ask for the private plot of any man in town. Their own custom keeps a plot of his own out of the hands of a sojourner (Malbim on Genesis 23:5:1). Radak adds that the townspeople were willing, and wanted Abraham to hold a burial plot among them (Radak on Genesis 23:20:1).

Rashi reads the sitting of Ephron in the tenth verse from a missing letter. The man had been made an officer that same day, so that Abraham would deal with someone of standing (Rashi on Genesis 23:10:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 58:7). He reads the name of Ephron in the sixteenth verse as written short because the man was short in his dealing, promising much and doing little (Rashi on Genesis 23:16:1, citing Bava Metzia 87a). He notes that Abraham paid in shekels that passed everywhere at full weight.

Ibn Ezra carries four comments on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone, at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 23:3:1, 23:7:1, 23:12:1 and 23:19:1.

Rashi carries three sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is on the years of Sarah. Rashi reads the repeated word for years in the first verse as a sign that each number stands on its own. At a hundred she was as a woman of twenty as to sin, and the years were all equally good (Rashi on Genesis 23:1:1 and 23:1:2).

The second is on the name of the city. Rashi reports that Kiriath-arba is the city of the four, named either for the four giants who lived there or for the four couples buried there. The couples he names are Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah (Rashi on Genesis 23:2:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 58:4). He reads the name of the cave in the same way, as a double cave with a chamber above and below, or as doubled by those couples (Rashi on Genesis 23:9:1, citing Eruvin 53a).

The third is on what the sale did to the field. Rashi reports the reading that the field rose in standing, since it passed from a commoner to a king. He gives the plain sense of the verse beside it (Rashi on Genesis 23:17:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 58:8).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, twenty seven under Midrash and thirteen under Talmud, which is the heaviest Talmud weight of these twenty five. The weight falls on the purchase, because the tractates that argue about sale and title are the tractates that cite it.

The Talmud is cited at Bava Kamma 93a:3 on the mourning, Berakhot 18a:3 on the rising from the dead, Chullin 120a:18 on the eighth verse and Bekhorot 50a:8 on the tenth. It is cited at Bava Metzia 87a:3 and Avot DeRabbi Natan 13:3 on the fifteenth verse, and at Bava Batra 69b:1 on the seventeenth. The Jerusalem Talmud is cited at Bava Metzia 9:11:1 on the fourth verse and Kiddushin 1:3:4 on the eighth. It is cited at Berakhot 4:3:5 and Kiddushin 1:1:3 on the thirteenth verse, Berakhot 9:5:2 on the eighteenth and Sotah 5:6:2 on the twenty first.

Bereshit Rabbah reads the first verse at 58:1, the second at 58:4, the tenth at 58:7 and the twelfth at 58:6. It reads the sixteenth verse at 79:7, the seventeenth at 58:8 and the nineteenth at 58:9. Bereshit Rabbati reads four places in Parashat Chayei Sarah, at 9, 10, 11 and 12. Aggadat Bereshit reads the fourth verse at 58:4, the sixth at 29:3 and 56:1, and the nineteenth at 34:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the first verse at 14:11 and the third at 2:26, and the Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael reads the fifth and sixth at Tractate Pischa 18:2.