Sealing the Deal

When my parents and I first visited my husband’s family in the Middle East, one of the hardest adjustments was learning to navigate the cultural protocol for accepting or rejecting something that was offered. Generally speaking, Americans are a very straightforward people. We like to be direct and get to the point. Middle Easterners, on the other hand, tend to be more circular in their thinking and communication, as I’ve written about in a previous post.

One of the main arenas where this difference plays out is hospitality. Middle Easterners are an incredibly hospitable people. When you visit them at their home, they will offer you all manner of refreshments. But when it comes to receiving such things, they consider it more polite to refuse the first time it is offered. Only after the second or perhaps third offering of “Would you like such-and-such?” is it considered polite to accept something. This means even if you really want that cup of coffee or piece of baklava, you turn it down the first time it’s offered, knowing it will be offered again—and again. It also means that if you really don’t want it, you’ll have to refuse it several times before the refusal is recognized as your genuine wish. Americans, by contrast, have no qualms about stating their true desires from the outset. “No, thank you” really means “No, thank you.” In the same way, when Americans offer something to their guests and are met with that “No, thank you,” they take it at face value and usually don’t offer again.

You can imagine the cultural clash that occurs when an American visits a Middle Eastern home or vice versa. In the first setting, Americans can easily come across as rude or can feel pressured by the repeated offers and finally give in, taking something that they really didn’t want in the first place. In the second, Middle Easterners are in danger of going hungry or thirsty if they don’t realize that a refusal on their part most likely won’t be met with a repeated offer from their host.

In our culturally-blended family now, when we say, “No, thank you,” we joke that it’s either “an American no” or “an Arab no.” And thankfully, my in-laws have come to understand that I’m not being rude when I say “yes” the first time, and I’m slowly learning to keep offering, even when my first offer is met with a “no.”

This cultural dynamic can also affect the process of buying and selling something. In the Middle East, Person 1 may ask how much something is, and Person 2 might say, “Oh, you can have it. No need to pay.” At which point, Person 1 will understand that Person 2 is being polite and avoiding the appearance of greed by not disclosing the price right away. Person 1 will then ask again and insist that he be allowed to pay. This cycle can go on and on for some time before Person 2 finally feels it appropriate to state the price.

It wasn’t until I moved to the Middle East that I really began to understand how deeply rooted this pattern of etiquette is, and it was then that I gained understanding of a passage in the Bible that had always confused and amused me. In Genesis 23, Abraham’s wife Sarah had just passed away, and he was looking for a place to bury her. He approached the Hittites, the people living in the area, and we pick up with him in verses 8-9 (ESV):

“And he said to them, ‘If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field.’” At first, with this translation, it appears that Abraham is asking to be given the cave for free, but we see from his next statement in verse 9, that he is really offering to pay: “‘For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.’” So what did Ephron do? American readers like myself might expect him to simply state the price, which is why we are surprised and a bit confused to see he didn’t. Instead, he said in verse 11, “‘No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” Ephron was clearly offering to give not only the cave but also the entire field to Abraham at no charge. Again, we American readers might expect Abraham to respond with something like, “Really? That’s so kind of you. Thank you so much” and accept the offer. But he didn’t. In verses 12-13, “Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, ‘But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.’” So Abraham repeated his offer, and what Ephron did next presents another surprise.

“Ephron answered Abraham, ‘My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead’” (vv. 14-15). Here Ephron still appeared to be offering the land to Abraham for free, but he slipped in there the value of the property. In my American mindset, I always thought that either he never intended to make Abraham pay for the land or he had been genuinely not wanting to charge Abraham at first, changed his mind because of Abraham’s insistence, but still felt bad about naming a price. After learning how Middle Eastern negotiation works, though, I see now that Ephron always had the intention of selling the land to Abraham for the full price. It just took going through the culturally appropriate process to get there.

So “Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants” (v. 16). They closed the deal, and everyone was happy. Ephron and Abraham were living and acting in the context of their culture—a culture that is still in existence today. And suddenly what seemed an oddity in Scripture made perfect sense.

This is just one example of how learning the nuances of a culture different from our own can increase our understanding and how, when it comes to studying Scripture, knowing the context of the place in which its events occurred helps us avoid misinterpretation. For more examples like this one, see other posts with the Cross-Cultural label here on An Iris Awaits.

PC: Rose Creger Tankard. Used with permission.