Dear Noah-Ham,
Some days you think you understand your customers the moment they walk in your store. Well, I thought I got what was going on when this guy Abraham walks in speaking with a Mesopotamian accent and looking older than the hills. He walks in with his son, who looked about a hundred years younger, and they're screaming at each other because... well, I dunno, something about a mountain and a ram, I wasn't getting in the middle of that. Once they were done I immediately tried to butter them up and told the old guy he was obviously spry and vibrant for his age to get that animated, and this guy Abraham boasts that he's a hundred thirty-seven and it's all in the genes because he has relatives in his family who live a lot longer. So I'm thinking this guy's senile and getting these guys to pay up was gonna be even easier than I thought. What's the oldest person you ever heard about? Forty- seven?
Anyway, the son explains to me that the carcass of the old guy's wife is parked out back and they need a cave to bury her. Well, did he come to the right place! I explain we have a great sale this week on caves and ask where they heard about Ephron's low low prices. The son says they didn't hear anything about it. They were just wandering through Canaan like hobos, trying to find a place to dump the body and they saw that billboard you told me not to get. They don't look like much, just a regular middle class family and considering the way they argued, I figured they were lower middle class and the stress of money worries made them fight. Still, I bet myself I could squeeze them for a couple hundred shekels.
Apparently in the last sixty years this old guy's tried to live in Shechem, East Bethel, Mamre, and Gerar, plus extended stays in towns all around the region. So I know what kind of difficult guy I'm dealing with - guy makes a stink everywhere he goes and the homeowners association throws him out. But if he's even a third the age he claims he can't have more than a year left, can he? So I figure I have him exactly where I want him. A guy like that is probably sonofabitch enough that he deserves whatever he gets, right?
But at the same time, I'm feeling kinda sorry for the guy. He's just lost his wife and he's got tears in his eyes while he explains he just wants a place he can bury his wife in that he doesn't live close enough to spend all his time visiting her, and eventually he'll be buried along with her. Who wouldn't respond to a story like that? And it's not like a guy that old would ever come back to live on the land.
So I tell him a guy who has intentions as noble as that must a prince. We'll let you look at a catalogue of all our caves and you can have your pick. I should have known something was up when he gave me the Heth ceremonial bow, and then even asked me to bring my kids in so he could bow to them too.
Anyway, he chose Machpela, you remember that out of the way piece of crap on the outskirts of town closest to the Jebusite border. And I told him I would give him the Machpela cave for four hundred shekels, even though it was worth half that. What was the big deal? I told him I had nothing to conceal from him, and he didn't even haggle. He made the whole downpayment site unseen. The only thing I was concealing was that compared to the deals I had on some caves I didn't show him, Machpela's a piece of shit.
Anyway, what I didn't realize, or at least I forgot, was that under Heth law, if I give the cave in the presence of my children, I can never take it back. I was going to have him and his wife moved to a corner and use the other wings for storage. But this guy now has a binding deed on Heth land and the Heth HOA sued me. The elders have to decide if I deliberately gave this guy a permanent piece of our territory, which would mean I committed treason. My lawyer tells me they have no case and I'm sure you understand just from reading this that some busy Betsys are making a huge deal out of nothing. It's just a fucking cave, it's 350 cubits! Anyway, my lawyer thinks I can get a plea bargain on an ignorance claim and I'll just get a hand chopped off.
Anyway, I went to the burial with them, just to make sure it was an actual burial and they weren't dumping evil spirits. And if I didn't realize anything fishy was happening, I absolutely should have known then. There were ten mourners, they all chanted some words to themselves, they sang a few songs, they bowed down a few times and swayed back and forth a bunch, but... where were the idols? All of their songs were addressed to the same god with an unpronouncable name, and one of their songs had the line "the lord is one". And still I didn't get what was happening....
It honestly was only when I got served papers that I found out who this guy was. I don't know how I didn't recognize him but it was Abram-bar-Terah, THAT Abraham! The guy with the invisible god who blesses whatever he does! I looked up his corporate portfolio and it has everything! Livestock, silver, gold, a staff of 300, most of them slaves! Not only is he the eighteenth-richest guy in Canaan, but his nephew, who used to be his business partner until they divided the company, was twice as rich as his uncle! Of course then all his investments in Sodom went belly up...
You know how many Abrahams there are in Canaan, he might as well be named Abraham Smith! How was I supposed to know it was the Abraham with the covenant? You'd think a guy like that would go around wearing golden raiment! If I had known who this was, I could have sold him the whole store and half the caves! I could have pitched him a hundred different business ideas! Apparently he insists that all his business partners get their schmucks pierced as collateral, but I wouldn't have cared. I'd be very happy to be a rich guy with half a dick! Now I'm going to have one hand and still be working as a small-time putz.
Anyway, no matter what happens in court, the elders tell me this is not the last we've heard from Abraham With the Invisible God. Maybe next time he's down here I can pitch him my idea about breeding a horse with a donkey.
May Teshub bless your crops,
Ephron
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