The deal closes with a detail that tells you this verse was written by someone who knew markets. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 23:16, the Aramaic paraphrase describes the silver Abraham weighs out: four hundred sileen of silver, good, passing at every table, and receivable in all transactions.
The Hebrew says the silver was over lasocher — acceptable to the merchant. The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan expands the phrase into two precise economic terms: tav (good quality) and naphek b'kol shulchan (passing at every exchange counter). This is full-weight, assay-ready silver, usable from Hebron to Damascus without question.
Four hundred shekels was an enormous price. By comparison, in Jeremiah 32:9, the prophet buys a field in Anathoth for only seventeen shekels of silver. Ephron has charged Abraham roughly twenty-four times what the property would normally command.
Abraham pays without haggling. The price is not the point. The deed is the point. The Targum's economic precision — silver of assayed quality, recognized at every exchange — is the ancient equivalent of a notarized wire transfer.
The Maggidim noticed the quiet heroism in this verse. Abraham, grieving, still walks through the full legal ritual. The takeaway: even in grief, complete the paperwork. Some love letters are written in silver coin, witnessed at the gate.