Listen to how Ephron performs generosity. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 23:11, the Hittite landowner makes his first move: the field I give thee, and the cave which is in it, to thee I give it, as a gift before the sons of my people I give it to thee; go, bury thy dead.
The Aramaic preserves the Hebrew's triple repetition of the verb give. Ephron uses the word three times in one sentence. This is not generosity; it is theater.
The rabbinic tradition (Bereshit Rabbah 58:7, compiled in the Land of Israel c. 300–500 CE) reads Ephron as the prototype of the merchant who talks expansively and charges exorbitantly. Ancient Near Eastern bargaining conventions meant that the offer of a gift was the opening move of a sale. The more elaborate the supposed generosity, the higher the final price would be.
The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan does not spell this out, but it does preserve Ephron's patronymic — bar Zochar — making the record legally airtight. Abraham will not accept the gift. He knows what the three-fold I give actually means.
The verses that follow will confirm Ephron's true figure: four hundred silver shekels, a massive sum.
The Maggidim read this as a lesson in seeing through flattery. The takeaway: when someone offers you something three times before you have asked, name the price anyway. Write the check. A gift without an invoice is a negotiation you have not yet begun.