We Asians often think of Abraham and other Biblical figures as “westerners”, but this passage shows that they’re really Asians!
In this passage, Abraham has a long protracted back-and-forth negotiation with Ephron the Hittite for the purchase of his field and cave to bury Sarah. There is no word in English to express this kind of interaction, but for me, there is a very apt word in my mother tongue, Hokkien: khek4khi3. There is a similarly apt word in Cantonese, haak3hei3 and Mandarin,客气.
This word is sometimes translated into English as “polite”, “formal”, “kind”, “courteous”, or “modest”, but none of those words really convey the meaning it has for us Asians. In fact, I cannot think of any English word or even short phrase that would express this concept. This is a cultural concept quite alien to Westerners, I think.
When an Asian comes to your home, if you ask them, “Would you like a drink?” they would always say “no”, even if they’re dying of thirst. This is khek4khi3. If you praise them, they would always deny the praise. This is khek4khi3.
Sometimes, when you share about Jesus to an Asian, they might say, “That’s the Europeans’ god. Nothing to do with us.”† But that’s not really true. Abraham was an Asian. Moses was an African of Asian descent. Jesus was an Asian. YHWH is God of all, not just of Europe and America.
† This is getting less common as it has become more common for Asians to be Christians since the end of the European colonial period. It was a common concept during my great-grandmother’s time and my grandmother’ time, but is much less so these days.
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