Comentario sobre Génesis 49:30

לאחוזת קבר, they will not be able to challenge my right to be buried there.

אשר קנה אברהם, seeing that they had already spent many years in a foreign land, he felt it necessary to remind them that that burial plot was legally theirs. Seeing that already two generations of the patriarchs had been buried there, there was no legal way anyone could now challenge the ownership of this cave.

במערה, we have explained on Genesis 25,10 why this mention of the cave of Machpelah as the patriarchs’ burial site is mentioned so many times in the Torah as if we did not know already.

במערה וגו'...אשר קנה אברהם, “in the cave of Machpelah which Avraham had acquired, etc.” According to Nachmanides the reason why Yaakov recalled the details of the cave and who had been buried inside it, was to add distinction to that site in order to give his sons additional incentive to bury their father in that cave also. He added the words: “which Avraham had acquired as an inalienable ancestral plot,” in order to make them aware that Avraham had already designated this cave as an ancestral burial plot, so that they would have a legal basis for disputing anyone among the Hittites who might challenge their right to bury Yaakov there. The reason why the Torah repeats this once more in 50,13, is to indicate that with the burial of Yaakov in that cave Avraham’s intention at the time he purchased that cave had been carried out completely. He had purchased the cave for three pairs of human beings to be buried inside it, and not more. This is the reason that when the time came, Joseph did not ask the brothers to bury him there also.

Die Gegend, wo Abraham so lange gelebt und gewirkt und dann auch für sein Weib die Grabstätte erworben.

במערה, “in the cave;” according to the plain meaning of the word, Yaakov requested to be buried in the cave of Machpelah. [The question is why he had to repeat this, having just requested it in the previous verse. Ed.] If you were to answer that there were many caves and many fields, and he wanted to specify which one he had in mind, and his son might not know which one he referred to, he spelled out the name of the cave and the field, In the event that people would object to his being buried there, Yaakov gave him details of the transaction that had taken place between Avraham, Efron and the townspeople at the time, and he presumably handed him the document that testified to the sale of both the field and the cave at the time. (Genesis 23,16-18) He left out no detail that could be considered pertinent to ensure that there could be no legal impediment that Joseph would have to face.

לאחוזת קבר, “as a burial property.” Yaakov reminds Joseph that there is no legal way to dispute that he is entitled to be buried there.