Genesis 23:8 and 25:9 speak of Ephron of the Beney Chet (Hittites), son of Tso'ar, who sold the sepulchre-cave of Machpelah to Av-Raham for three hundred shekels so that he could bury Sarah.
Tso'ar (צער), we know from Genesis 14:2, is a synonym for Bela, king of Edom, which is itself a mis-writing of Ba'al (בעל). Thus we can make a simple chain of identifications between Ephron and Ba'al; given that Tso'ar means "little" and Ram means "big", we will shortly also be able to see how Ephron and Av-Raham are linked, literally as Big El and Little El: the father god and his son, the precise relationship that Zeus had to Chronos (Kronos, Cronus; the spellings in English are mutliple) in the Greek myths.
What in fact is being recorded in the sale of the Cave of Machpelah is considerably more complex than at first seems, and is one of the most revealing hints as to the real nature of the Yisra-Eli myths. As my notes on both Epher and Ephrat(ah) make clear, the root of the name Ephron (עפרון) is Epher (עפר), meaning "a young cow". This allows us to recognise in Ephron the Hittite cow-god Phoroneus, who was the brother of Io, cow-goddess to the Phoenicians, and the goddess whose name would be given to the sea separating Greece from Phoenicia and Kena'an (Canaan): the Ionian. Phoroneus was an alternate name for, or probably a title of Chronos, the crow-god who fathered Zeus, and thus in Yisra-Eli terms he is the equivalent of El as principal deity.
Phoroneus' sacred tree was the alder, as it was of the Celtic god Bran Fendigaid or Bendigeitvran, elsewhere known as Bran the Blessed. Phoroneus is recorded as being the first man to found a market-town (Argos, which later, significantly, became the capital of the Dana'ans), and this may well be the source of the intense bartering between himself and Av-Raham before the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah was agreed. His own parents were the river-god Inachus, for whom see my notes to Av-Ram's brother Nachor; he himself was the son of Iapetus - who in the Yehudit is Yaphet (יפת - Japhet), one of the three sons of No'ach - and the Nymph Melia.
Phoroneus was said to have discovered the use of fire, after Prometheus had stolen it. His sons were Pelasgus (the Pelasgian Greeks whom the Dana'ans conquered), Iasus and Agenor, the latter of whom, according to Herodotus, is Hurrian Khnas, which is Yehudit Kena'an (Canaan). Phoroneus' wife was Cerdo (meaning "weasel"); it was she who was said to have introduced the cult of Hera into the Peleponnese. The Celtic gods Bran and Fearn are variants upon Phoroneus. Interestingly, the Greeks did not recognise Phoroneus' Hittite origins, except indirectly through the conquest of Argos by the Dana'ans; it is only through the Av-Raham story that we can complete that picture.
Io, Phoroneus' sister, appears in the Yisra-Eli texts as Yah (יה), the deity most often referred to in the Psalms - to the point, indeed, that we should read the Psalms as her liturgy transformed by the Rabbis into the liturgy of YHVH (יהוה), just as she herself was masculinised through the change of name to Yahu in the latter books of scripture. She was a priestess of Argive Hera. Zeus turned her into a white cow (Robert Graves tell the story in full in chapter 56 of his Greek Myths). It was Io who founded Eshet (Isis) worship in Mitsrayim (Egypt) and Demeter worship in Greece. Her son, by Zeus, was called Epaphus, who appears in Egyptian mythology as the bull-god Apis and in Yehudit as the underworld god Ephes (אפס). Elsewhere, however, Apis is said to be the son of Phoroneus. The area of Greece known as Ionia, including the Ionian Sea, is named after her. She was worshipped primarily as the moon-goddess, her cow-horns representing her waxing and waning crescents.
Genesis 49:31 lists those who were buried at the Cave of Machpelah. They were: Av-Raham, Sarah, Yitschak, Rivkah, Ya'akov and Le'ah - the full Yisra-Eli "Trimurti" save only Rachel, which may well suggest that Rachel was an entirely different cult, appended later on (and her sons Ben-Oni and Yoseph being Egyptian adds weight to that). That all the "Judaic" patriarchs should be claimed to be buried there is logical, but should not be taken at face value. In Genesis 49:29 Ya'akov gives specific instruction to his sons to bury him at Machpelah, though and strangely he describes it as if it were still owned by Ephron, rather than now owned by his own family through Av-Raham's purchase; Genesis 50:13 corrects this.
With Machpelah (the name means "double-cave" though archaeology has found rather more than two) we are dealing with an ancient burial ground, linked to the god Phoroneus in this tale but clearly used for millennia before the arrival of the Beney Chet, surrounded by a sacred forest, probably, by Av-Raham's time, of deliberately-planted alder trees - and most likely the alnus glutinosa rather than the alnus cordata - see the illustration at the top of the page.
The names Ephron (עפרון), Ephrayim (אפרים), Epher (עפר), Ephrat (אפרת) and Ephratah (אפרתה) have caused much confusion among the translators and the non-Yehudit speaking commentators down the centuries, mostly because they sound very similar in English, and contain some identical letters in the Yehudit. Ephron and Epher, however completely different roots and meanings from the other three - note the first-letter Aleph (א) rather than Ayin (ע). Ephrat and Ephratah are the mascuine and feminine forms of the same word in Yehudit.
What in fact is being recorded in the sale of the Cave of Machpelah is considerably more complex than at first seems, and is one of the most revealing hints as to the real nature of the Yisra-Eli myths. As my notes on both Epher and Ephrat(ah) make clear, the root of the name Ephron (עפרון) is Epher (עפר), meaning "a young cow". This allows us to recognise in Ephron the Hittite cow-god Phoroneus, who was the brother of Io, cow-goddess to the Phoenicians, and the goddess whose name would be given to the sea separating Greece from Phoenicia and Kena'an (Canaan): the Ionian. Phoroneus was an alternate name for, or probably a title of Chronos, the crow-god who fathered Zeus, and thus in Yisra-Eli terms he is the equivalent of El as principal deity.
Phoroneus' sacred tree was the alder, as it was of the Celtic god Bran Fendigaid or Bendigeitvran, elsewhere known as Bran the Blessed. Phoroneus is recorded as being the first man to found a market-town (Argos, which later, significantly, became the capital of the Dana'ans), and this may well be the source of the intense bartering between himself and Av-Raham before the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah was agreed. His own parents were the river-god Inachus, for whom see my notes to Av-Ram's brother Nachor; he himself was the son of Iapetus - who in the Yehudit is Yaphet (יפת - Japhet), one of the three sons of No'ach - and the Nymph Melia.
Phoroneus was said to have discovered the use of fire, after Prometheus had stolen it. His sons were Pelasgus (the Pelasgian Greeks whom the Dana'ans conquered), Iasus and Agenor, the latter of whom, according to Herodotus, is Hurrian Khnas, which is Yehudit Kena'an (Canaan). Phoroneus' wife was Cerdo (meaning "weasel"); it was she who was said to have introduced the cult of Hera into the Peleponnese. The Celtic gods Bran and Fearn are variants upon Phoroneus. Interestingly, the Greeks did not recognise Phoroneus' Hittite origins, except indirectly through the conquest of Argos by the Dana'ans; it is only through the Av-Raham story that we can complete that picture.
Io, Phoroneus' sister, appears in the Yisra-Eli texts as Yah (יה), the deity most often referred to in the Psalms - to the point, indeed, that we should read the Psalms as her liturgy transformed by the Rabbis into the liturgy of YHVH (יהוה), just as she herself was masculinised through the change of name to Yahu in the latter books of scripture. She was a priestess of Argive Hera. Zeus turned her into a white cow (Robert Graves tell the story in full in chapter 56 of his Greek Myths). It was Io who founded Eshet (Isis) worship in Mitsrayim (Egypt) and Demeter worship in Greece. Her son, by Zeus, was called Epaphus, who appears in Egyptian mythology as the bull-god Apis and in Yehudit as the underworld god Ephes (אפס). Elsewhere, however, Apis is said to be the son of Phoroneus. The area of Greece known as Ionia, including the Ionian Sea, is named after her. She was worshipped primarily as the moon-goddess, her cow-horns representing her waxing and waning crescents.
Genesis 49:31 lists those who were buried at the Cave of Machpelah. They were: Av-Raham, Sarah, Yitschak, Rivkah, Ya'akov and Le'ah - the full Yisra-Eli "Trimurti" save only Rachel, which may well suggest that Rachel was an entirely different cult, appended later on (and her sons Ben-Oni and Yoseph being Egyptian adds weight to that). That all the "Judaic" patriarchs should be claimed to be buried there is logical, but should not be taken at face value. In Genesis 49:29 Ya'akov gives specific instruction to his sons to bury him at Machpelah, though and strangely he describes it as if it were still owned by Ephron, rather than now owned by his own family through Av-Raham's purchase; Genesis 50:13 corrects this.
With Machpelah (the name means "double-cave" though archaeology has found rather more than two) we are dealing with an ancient burial ground, linked to the god Phoroneus in this tale but clearly used for millennia before the arrival of the Beney Chet, surrounded by a sacred forest, probably, by Av-Raham's time, of deliberately-planted alder trees - and most likely the alnus glutinosa rather than the alnus cordata - see the illustration at the top of the page.
The names Ephron (עפרון), Ephrayim (אפרים), Epher (עפר), Ephrat (אפרת) and Ephratah (אפרתה) have caused much confusion among the translators and the non-Yehudit speaking commentators down the centuries, mostly because they sound very similar in English, and contain some identical letters in the Yehudit. Ephron and Epher, however completely different roots and meanings from the other three - note the first-letter Aleph (א) rather than Ayin (ע). Ephrat and Ephratah are the mascuine and feminine forms of the same word in Yehudit.
Among the oft-repeated errors (the link is to a parallel text on each occasion so that you can the Yehudit for yourself):
a) 2 Samuel 18:6 - your translation may well give "the forest of Ephron" where Av-Shalom (Absalom) fought a battle with David. In fact it was "the wood of Ephrayim" (יַעַר אֶפְרָיִם)
b) 2 Chronicles 13:19 - Avi-Yah captured a city by this name from Yerav-Am (Jeroboam) ; this one is more complex because even the most orthodox Hebraists can see that the Masoretic text does indeed say Ephron (עפרון), about which they are sceptical, and so add a correction in parenthesis; but not sufficiently sceptical to go all the way and correct Ephron to Ephrayim (אֶפְרָיִם), preferring the still-more-confounding half-way-house of Ephrayin (עֶפְרַיִן), of whose existence even they cannot claim to be aware, unless they are going to try and persuade us that Ephrayin was the local spelling used by the Aramaic-speaking Samaritans (which it would have been, but not yet at the time of Yerav-Av), which was two hundred years before their arrival.
c) Joshua 15:9 speaks of "the cities of Mount Ephron" on the borders of Yehudah and Bin-Yamin, which again vindicates the translators, but not the commentators, who should have been able to point out that it is correctly identified as Mount Ephrayim (אפרים) in Joshua 17:15, 19:50 and 20:7, corroborated by Judges 2:9 and Jeremiah 50:19.
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