Ephron

Ephron son of Zohar was the Hittite from whom Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah as a family burial ground after the death of Sarah. The transaction in Genesis 23 is one of the most fully narrated commercial negotiations in the Old Testament, conducted with formal deference at the city gate before witnesses. Ephron initially offered the field and cave as a gift, in keeping with Near Eastern courtesy conventions, but when Abraham insisted on paying the full price, Ephron named four hundred shekels of silver—a sum the text implies was high—which Abraham weighed out without objection.

The legal precision of the account—naming the field, the cave, all trees on the property, witnesses, and the measurement of silver—reflects the ancient conventions for validating a real estate transaction before community witnesses. The site of Machpelah, traditionally identified with the Haram el-Khalil in Hebron, became the burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob. Ephron himself is a Hittite chieftain; his ready negotiation with Abraham reflects the kind of commercial interaction between patriarchs and Canaanite populations depicted throughout Genesis.