What Does Genesis 23:15 Mean in the King James?
My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Even burial’s final act depends on material ground: the verse places a measured price directly beside the command to bury.
THE MEANING
A death leaves the body with a concrete need: a place, and the cost of that place must be spoken openly. The amount is named plainly, then the words turn toward the dead: “bury therefore thy dead.” Care for the body and the material terms of burial occupy the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Burial is untouched by money or property: this verse places a precise price beside the dead body’s burial.
THE ROOT
שֶׁקֶל
sheqel
GROWS FROM
שקל
sh-q-l
To weigh; שֶׁקֶל (sheqel) is a weight or weighed unit of silver.
“shekel” in this verse is sheqel. The price is named in shekels, a word rooted in weighing. The amount is not just an abstract value: the silver is measured by weight, and the next verse makes that weighing explicit.
ALSO GROWS
shaqal: to weigh
שָׁקַל
This verb from the same root appears in the next verse when Abraham pays the silver.
mishqal: weight or measure
מִשְׁקָל
This branch makes clear that the shekel belongs to a language of measured weight.
קְבֹר
qevor
GROWS FROM
קבר
q-b-r
To bury or inter.
“bury” in this verse is qevor. The root names the act of burial and the place where the dead are laid. Here, that act is tied directly to acquiring ground, keeping the body’s burial concrete rather than abstract.
ALSO GROWS
qeber: grave or tomb
קֶבֶר
This branch names the place that the act of burial requires.
qevurah: burial or interment
קְבוּרָה
This branch names the act itself, which the verse places at the end of the exchange.
THE PATTERN
Care for the dead takes concrete form when a body is carried or laid in a place of burial.
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.THE THREAD
And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.The four hundred shekels named here become weighed silver in the next verse. שֶׁקֶל (sheqel, a weight of silver) and שָׁקַל (shaqal, to weigh) share the root שקל (sh-q-l, to weigh), making the cost of the burial ground measurable in literal weight.
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