Genesis 23:18

Summary

The verse states that the field (referenced from the preceding verses) passed le-miqnah ("to a possession", H4736) belonging to Abraham, and that this transaction occurred le-einei ("to the eyes of", H5869) the sons of Heth — that is, in view of all who entered the gate of his city.

Key words

• mikNah ("a possession", H4736) — feminine singular noun, marked with the preposition le ("to", H9005), indicating the purpose/result of the transaction: the field becomes property belonging to Abraham.
• einei ("eyes of", H5869) — construct dual form, literally "the eyes of," used idiomatically to mean "in the sight of" or "witnessed by."
• venei ("sons of", H1121) — masculine plural construct, linking to Chet ("Heth", H2845) to form "sons of Heth," i.e., the group functioning as witnesses.
• ba'ei ("[those] entering", H0935) — Qal participle, masculine plural construct. As a participle it describes an ongoing/habitual action ("the ones who enter/go in"), here referring to the general population using the city gate, not a single completed event.
• sha'ar-iro ("gate of his city", H8179 + H5892 + suffix H9023) — construct chain ending in a pronominal suffix "his," anchoring the location to Abraham's counterpart (the seller), whose city this is.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is a chain of prepositional phrases without an explicit finite verb in this verse itself (the verb governing the clause appears in the preceding verse, v. 17, where the field "was established/confirmed"). Verse 18 elaborates on that action through a series of le-phrases: le-Avraham ("to Abraham", H0085), le-miqnah ("to a possession"), and le-einei venei-Chet ("to the eyes of the sons of Heth"). This structure emphasizes three aspects sequentially: the recipient (Abraham), the legal status of the object (a possession), and the social context (witnessed publicly).

The final clause, be-khol ba'ei sha'ar-iro ("among all who enter the gate of his city"), uses a construct chain culminating in a participle (ba'ei), which the Hebrew treats grammatically as continuous or generic — those who customarily pass through the gate — rather than a one-time crowd. The gate functions here as the public/legal space where transactions gain communal recognition, and the phrase sha'ar iro ("gate of his city") ties the location back to the seller (Ephron), whose city this is, marked by the pronominal suffix -o ("his", H9023).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew participle ba'ei ("entering") with a genitive participial phrase, tōn eisporeuomenōn ("of those entering"), preserving the ongoing/generic sense. The Vulgate uses qui intrabant ("who were entering"), an imperfect tense, which frames the action as a repeated or background occurrence in past time — a slightly different aspectual nuance from the Hebrew participle's more timeless, characteristic sense. The Hebrew le-einei ("to the eyes of") is rendered by the LXX as enantion ("before, in the presence of") and by the Vulgate as videntibus ("with [them] seeing"), both interpretive expansions of the idiom rather than literal renderings of "eyes."