Commentaire sur La Genèse 23:13

אך אם אתה לו שמעני BUT IF THOU WOULDST ONLY HEAR ME — You tell me to listen to you (verse 11) and to accept it without payment.

‘LU’ (IF) THOU WILT HEAR ME. This is equivalent to saying, “If you, if you will hear me,” and the purport thereof is like, “if you, if you would hear me,” the redundancy being for the purpose of emphasizing the matter. Similar cases are found in these verses: Turn in, my lord, turn in to me;³⁴Judges 4:18. Art thou any better, better than Balak?³⁵Ibid., 11:25. And to speak against him, saying;³⁶II Chronicles 32:17. And as for me, whither shall I go?;³⁷Further, 37:30. And I turned myself;³⁸Ecclesiastes 2:12. And I saw myself;³⁹Ibid., Verse 13. Seeing all the congregation are all holy.⁴⁰Numbers 16:3. All these are examples of expressions of synonimity. In my opinion, this is also the case in the verse, If from a thread even to a sandal tie, if I take (anything that is thine),⁴¹Above, 14:23. Here too, there is a redundant “if.” which is equivalent to saying, “If, from a thread even to a sandal tie, I take anything that is yours.” It may be that [in the verse here before us the meaning is], “If you are as you have said.” that is, if you are speaking what is in your heart concerning the matter, and if you will listen to me and consummate the sale. A similar usage of a missing word is found in the verse, And their brethren said unto them, What are ye?⁴²Judges 18:8. [which means, “What are you saying?”] In my opinion, a similar case of such usage is the verse, Wherefore am I?⁴³Further, 25:2. See also Ramban there. [meaning, “Wherefore am I in the world?”] Perhaps this is the opinion of Onkelos who translated here, “if you will do me a favor,” meaning, “if you will do my will as you have said.”

אך אם ...נתתי בסף השדה, I will comply with what you said, namely to bury my dead there only if I can hand over the money for the field. I will not bury Sarah there as a result of any other kind of arrangement.

וידבר אל עפרון, "He said to Efron, etc." The use of the word אך indicated Abraham's desire to proceed with a minimum of further discussion.

וידבר...אך אם אתה לו שמעני, I wish you would have listened to what I said that

נתתי כסף השדה קח ממני, “I have as good as given the money for the field, all that is needed is that you accept it from me.” He meant, not as Efron had indicated that “you” have given me the field, I have already given the money for this purpose; you only have to accept it, pick it up.

I do not wish this... Rashi needed [to add] this phrase, due to the word אך which always comes to exclude something stated previously. Here it excludes [Ephron’s previous offer, by saying]: “I do not wish this...”

נתתי כסף השדה קח ממני, “I have already set aside the money for the field, just accept it from me.” The word: נתתי, really belongs to an earlier part of the dialogue which the Torah did not quote in full. Avraham responded to the “generous” offer with the question: “did I hear you right that you are also willing to “give” me the field?” There is no need for this as I have already have set aside the money for the field, i.e. that money is already legally yours if you fulfill the bargain. He made it clear that he would not accept a gift. The sages who were the authors of the cantillation marks already drew our attention to this nuance by placing the tonesign gershayim, a disjunctive tone sign, on the word: נתתי, to indicate that Avraham considered this part of the transaction as having been completed.

I do not desire this: BUT IF THOU WOULDST ONLY HEAR ME!—i.e. I only wish that you would listen to me and do as I ask.

אך אם אתה לו שמעני, “if only you would be good enough to listen to me! Please accept the money from me so that I can proceed with the burial.”

נתתי כסף השדה, I have already prepared the money for the field, if you’ll accept it you will be doing me a favour,

And I wish that I had already given it to you. [Rashi makes this comment] because here it is speaking of money, which must be actually handed over [to validate the transaction]. However [in v. 11 it speaks of] land, which is at one’s disposal [one can say] “as though I have already given it to you.” This is because land [is readily available and] doe need to be collected. (Maharshal) But R. Meir Stern writes: Here it says נתתי כסף, past tense, although it should have used future tense and said: “I will give you the money.” And Rashi explains it as: “I wish that I had already given it to you.” And also in v. 11 it said השדה נתתיה, past tense, although it should have used future tense. Yet, Rashi explained it as: “As though I have already given it to you.” Why does Rashi explain it differently? [The answer is:] Here, Avraham said afterward: “Take it from me.” If נתתי כסף meant, “As though I have already given it to you,” he would not then say, “Take it from me.” If he already “gave” Ephron the money, then Ephron already “received” it, since by definition, giving entails receiving. That is why Rashi explains it as: “I wish that I had already given.” Then it understandable for Avraham to say: “Therefore, now, take it from me.” But on v. 11, Rashi could not explain as he does here, because here it is written לו שמעני נתתי, and לו means “if only.” Here, לו can refer both to שמעני, “If only you would listen to me,” and to נתתי, “If only I had already given.” But in v. 11 it does not [say לו]. However, if it were not written here, “Take it from me,” we would not be forced to say that לו refers also to נתתי; we would say it refers only to שמעני. And we would rather have explained נתתי as in v. 11: [“As though I have already given it to you.”].

נתתי כסף השדה, "I have given the money for the field." Even if Efron had decided to give him the field as a gift, Abraham begged Efron to accept the money from him. If so, Abraham would accept the field as a gift.

נתתי I GIVE (perfect with present sense) old French donne; English I give. I have the money ready and I only wish that I had already given it to you.

ואקברה, and I will proceed to bury, as the matter does not permit further delay.