Bible Synapse
Did Abraham or Jacob buy the tomb at Shechem?
Hard question · Creation, the flood and the patriarchs · raised by 4 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Stephen says Jacob and “our fathers” died in Egypt and were laid at Sychem in the tomb “that Abraham bought” from the sons of Emmor (Hamor).
So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.
Abraham buys the field and cave of Machpelah, near Hebron, from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred shekels of silver.
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. And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure
Jacob buys a plot of ground at Shechem from the children of Hamor for a hundred pieces of money.
And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred pieces of money.
Joseph’s bones are buried at Shechem in the ground Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor.
And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.
Jacob is buried in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought.
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.
Abram’s first stop in Canaan is the place of Sichem, where God appears to him and he builds an altar.
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
The objection
Stephen says the patriarchs were laid at Shechem in the tomb “that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor” (Acts 7:16). But Genesis says Abraham bought a cave near Hebron from Ephron the Hittite, and that it was Jacob who bought the ground at Shechem from the sons of Hamor (Genesis 33:19; Joshua 24:32).
The answer
Stephen was making a speech, not writing a chronicle, and in verses 15–16 he compresses the burials of two generations, in the family’s two graves, into one sentence. Jacob was carried back from Egypt and buried in the cave at Machpelah that Abraham had bought (Genesis 50:13). Joseph’s bones, and by Stephen’s account those of his brothers, were later buried at Shechem in the ground Jacob had bought from Hamor’s sons (Joshua 24:32). Stephen names both purchases, the tomb Abraham bought and the plot bought from the sons of Hamor, in a single sweep. John Gill read the verse this way: the words refer to both places and both purchases.
This fits the point of Stephen’s speech. He has just said that God gave Abraham “none inheritance in it” (Acts 7:5): in the land God had promised them, the fathers were buried in ground they had to buy. His hearers knew Genesis well, and the speech assumes the details rather than retelling them.
Other answers Christians give
Abraham also bought ground at Shechem
Abraham’s first altar in Canaan was at Shechem (Genesis 12:6–7). Some suggest that he bought the ground there, as he later bought Machpelah, and that generations later Jacob had to buy it again from Hamor’s family, much as Isaac had to dig again the wells Abraham had dug (Genesis 26:18). Genesis records no such purchase, but it does not rule one out.
A copyist’s addition
Calvin thought the name ‘Abraham’ must be a slip, and Bishop Pearce (quoted by Adam Clarke) suggested that Luke wrote only ‘which he bought’, meaning Jacob, and that a copyist supplied the wrong name. Gill notes that no copy of Acts can be produced without the name, so this remains a conjecture.
Luke records Stephen faithfully
Some hold that inspiration guarantees that Luke reported accurately what Stephen said, without guaranteeing every detail of Stephen’s own words. Most who hold to inerrancy prefer one of the explanations above, since Luke presents Stephen as a man “full of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:55).
Still open
Christian scholars agree that Stephen compresses a long history into a few sentences, but they still differ on how verse 16 is best read.
From the classic commentators
what best seems to remove the difficulty is, that the words refer to both places and purchases; to the field of Machpelah bought by AbrahamJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Acts 7:16