Efron and Chevron

A strange thought passed through my mind during kriat ha'Torah today: What if Chevron was named after Efron?

Explanation: The Hebrew letters Ayin (ע) and Chet (ח) sometimes get mixed up in variant Semitic dialects, including Hebrew and Aramaic. So, for example, the midrash notes that in the Galilee people pronounced the proper noun Chivim (חויא, Hivites) as Ivim (עויא, Ivites) (this midrash is originally in Beresheet Rabbah, however the version brought in Sefaria is distorted and has אויא with an Alef instead of עויא). Similarly, the letters Peh (פ) and Bet (ב) also get mixed up. For example, in Bavli Shabbat 57b a braita is quoted, where it says that a woman may go out with a סבכה (hairnet) on Shabbat. However, in the parallel Tosefta, it says a woman may go out with a ספכה (link). And there are many other examples for both, and from different time periods.

So, if we change the letters Ayin and Peh (well, Pheh in this case) in Efron (עפרון) with Chet and Bet (Vet in this case), it turns out that we get Chevron (חברון)! Fascinating. I don't know what this means exactly, though. Did Efron play a key part in the construction of the city?

Then it occurred to me that we also know Efron's father's name, which is Tzochar (צחר). That has a Chet. If we change that with an Ayin, i.e., reverse of what we did with Efron, we get: Chevron ben Tzo'ar. That's curious, because Tzo'ar is also a town in Eretz Yisrael that has some note in Avraham's story, being the only one of the five plain cities that survived the destruction, and where Lot and his daughters originally escaped to. We don't know much about Efron, other than that he originally owned the Machpelah Cave, lived in Chevron, was a Chiti (Hittite) and seems to have been wealthy. Does his being perhaps a "ben Tzo'ar" mean that he was originally from there? Was he just barely an escapee of Hashem's wrath? Does the buying of the Machpelah Cave have anything to do with Lot having passed through the town while fleeing Sodom?

It should be noted, however, that there was a place with a similar name near Chevron: Tzi'or (ציער) (Yehoshua 15:54), so it's possible that Efron was from there instead.

This is definitely a topic I'd like to think more about and hopefully return to in the future. Some food for thought as we approach Sefer Beresheet once again.

In the meantime, mo'adim le'simcha.

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