Genesis 23:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs shorter here — compare

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חֵ֑ת

Chêth

H2845

“Heth”

Noun, Proper

Appears 14× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 10:15

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H2865

TWOT: 776

Heth = "terror" - a son of Canaan and the progenitor of the Hittites

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

9: words
9: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is חֵ֑ת Heth H2845 — appearing just 14 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

חֵ֑ת Heth H2845 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
8 nouns

Verb forms

בָּאֵ֥י Qal · Participle Active

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 24 words from the Hebrew and 17 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 9 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Genesis 23:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 34:20 Hamor and Shechem, his son, came to the gate of their city, and talked with the men of their city, saying,
Ruth 4:1 Now Boaz went up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the near kinsman of whom Boaz spoke came by; to whom he said, Ho, such a one! turn aside, sit down here. He turned aside, and sat down.
Jeremiah 32:12 and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses who subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 17 words vs World English Bible 24. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Genesis 23:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְמִקְנָ֖ה לְעֵינֵ֣י בְנֵי חֵ֑ת בְּכֹ֖ל בָּאֵ֥י שַֽׁעַר עִירֽוֹ

to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 23:18 Septuagint · lemma form

ὁ αβρααμ εἰς κτῆσις ἐναντίον ὁ υἱός χετ καί πᾶς ὁ εἰςπορεύομαι εἰς ὁ πόλις

to Abraam for a possession, before the sons of Chet, and all that entered into the city.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לְאַבְרָהָם לִזְבִינוֹהִי לְעֵינֵי בְּנֵי חִתָּאָה בְּכֹל עָלֵי תְּרַע קַרְתֵּהּ

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לְאַבְרָהָם לִזְבִינוֹי בְּאַנְפֵּי בְּנֵי חִתָּאָה לְכָל עָלֵי תְּרַע קַרְתֵּיהּ

--Unto Abraham, for a purchased possession, in the presence of the sons of Hittah, (even) of all who entered in at the gate of the city.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 23:18 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Gen 23:18 Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.

Ver. 18. Unto Abraham for a possession.] Thus Abraham, as a purchaser, had some land in Canaan; but not as possessed of it by God’s gift, which is St Stephen’s sense. {Act 7:5}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Or, citizens.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

18. all that went in at] See note on Gen_23:10. The necessary witnesses of the transaction. There is no document to be attested.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And the field, and the cave that is therein, was made sure to Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace, by the sons of Heth. Who were witnesses of the transaction between Abraham and Ephron; and this was further made sure by Sarah's being buried in it, which was taking possession of it, for the use for which it was bought; and was a pledge and earnest of the future possession of the land of Canaan by the seed of Abraham: this was the first piece of ground in it possessed by Abraham and his seed; and it being called the possession of a buryingplace, shows that there is no contradiction between this and what Stephen says, Act 7:5; he had a possession to bury in, but not to live upon; not any ground of his own to till and sow, or build upon.

Next: Genesis Chapter 24

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

בכל באי שער עירו BEFORE ALL THAT CAME IN AT THE GATE OF HIS CITY — In the midst of all them, and with all of them standing by he gave him legal possession of it.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Radak

Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak)

לעיני בני חת. He weighed the money for Efron in the presence of all the assembled people, so that Efron sold the cave and the field to Avraham also in the presence of all his townspeople. He also handed Avraham a document confirming the sale.

בכל באי שער עירו. While all the people of his town were present. The expressions בכל, לכל (compare verse 10) mean basically the same. We find similar formulations in Exodus 27,19 where the two expressions occur in the same verse, i.e. לכל כלי המשכן בכל עבודתו.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 9 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Chêth (“Heth”). The Greek Septuagint runs shorter here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word Chêth carries the sense “Heth.” How does it shape the verse?
Genesis 10:15 shares the word «Heth» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs shorter here. What questions does that raise?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «בָּאֵ֥י» is Qal Participle Active. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.