23:4. I am a stranger and sojourner among you: give me the right of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead.
23:5. The children of Heth answered, saying:
23:6. My lord, hear us, thou art a prince of God among us: bury thy dead in our principal sepulchres: and no man shall have power to hinder thee from burying thy dead in his sepulchre.
23:7. Abraham rose up, and bowed down to the people of the land, to wit, the children of Heth:
Bowed down to the people… Adoravit, literally adored. But this word here, as well as in many other places in the Latin scriptures, is used to signify only an inferior honour and reverence paid to men, expressed by a bowing down of the body.
23:8. And said to them: If it please your soul that I should bury my dead, hear me, and intercede for me to Ephron the son of Seor.
23:9. That he may give me the double cave, which he hath in the end of his field: For as much money as it is worth he shall give it me before you, for a possession of a burying place.
23:10. Now Ephron dwelt in the midst of the children of Heth. And Ephron made answer to Abraham in the hearing of all that went in at the gate of the city, saying:
23:11. Let it not be so, my lord, but do thou rather hearken to what I say: The field I deliver to thee, and the cave that is therein; in the presence of the children of my people, bury thy dead.
23:12. Abraham bowed down before the people of the land.