Living with Moshiach: Chayei Sarah II

A chomer of barley is equivalent to the measure of thirty seah. The Talmud (Eruvin 23b) states that the area for planting two seahs is 100x50=5000 square cubits. Thus 75,000 square cubits are needed for a chomer of barley, and that size area requires fifty shekels of silver for redemption. The value of 400 silver shekels, therefore, would redeem an area eight times larger, i.e., 600,000 square cubits. It follows, then, that the 400 silver shekels that Abraham paid for the field which contained the Cave of Machpelah sufficed to redeem 600,000 square cubits-one square cubit for each of the 600,000 root-souls of Israel (the number of Jews who were freed from Egypt and received the Torah).