The Troublesome Life of a Patriarch
The Eternal told Avraham to leave his homeland and to go to an unknown land he would inherit. He promised Avraham to make him a father of many nations, innumerous as the stars. But as Avraham entered the promised land, he was wandering childless for twenty-four years. Then, Avraham was promised he would have a son, only one son. A year later Yitschak the promised son was born. At the age of thirty-seven, Yitschak was still childless, not even married, when the Eternal ordered Avraham to slaughter him, his only son: and all of this in order to test his righteousness, as if the Omniscient One needed to learn something He did not know?! There are questions to be asked here. What was the point of testing of Avraham’s faith, if the Omniscient already knew that Avraham would pass the test?! And why was there the need for the Eternal Elohim to test Avraham’s righteousness, when He had already declared him righteous many years before the test?! When Sarah heard that her only child had almost died from the hand of his own father, it was too much for her to bear, and her soul departed untimely. Sarah died at the age of 127 years.
So, what was the reason to test Avraham? For this indeed does not make a lot of sense to the careful reader. Can we rethink this whole story one more time?
These problematic thoughts compel us to search for sound answers. In the article “Did YHVH Tell Abraham to Sacrifice Isaac?”, we needed to posit another way to look at this episode, specifically in reference to the call to Avraham arguing that neither had the Eternal demanded Yitschak’s, life nor had He meant it at all as a test. It was only possible to come to this conclusion when we explored this issue according to what the Hebrew text indeed reads. This moral and theological problem calls aloud for further research in the story, for it is incomprehensible and it should not occur to us that the Eternal desired a human sacrifice: something that might come to the reader’s mind. Let it not be!
With that said we will now turn to continue what we commenced to explain in the aforesaid article, which we suggest the reader review again before proceeding here. The matter will become clear once we understand how the patriarch’s life transpired from the incident at the altar until the end of his days. We will now remove all the difficulties.
Torah sees fit and proper to inform the reader that Milkah, the wife of Avraham’s brother Nachor, too had borne children, one of whom is Rivkah the future wife of Yitschak and the second matriarch. It is not accidental that this news is presented just between the incident on the mountain and the death of the matriarch Sarah (see Gen 22:20-24). This does not mean at all that Rivkah was born sometime after Yitschak was offered on the altar, as this will become clear in our presentation. But it is possible that this was written right there in order to make known the genealogy of Avraham’s brother Nachor, namely, Rivkah. It was with reference to Rivkah that Avraham said to his servant: “Go to my land and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Yitschak”.
And Sarah was alive one hundred year and twenty year and seven years. These were the years of the lives of Sarah. (Gen. 23:1)
Some details of the language employed here suggest that this literal translation of the verse carries an enigmatic meaning, which requires explanation, for the Torah tries to tell us something beyond what is immediately obvious, namely, the death of the matriarch. Sarah is the only woman whose age is mentioned in the Scriptures, perhaps because she was the mother of the promised seed. But why is it said of her life one hundred “year”, and not “years”, likewise twenty “year”, not “years”? And why is it said seven “years”, and not seven “year”, like in the other two cases? And the word חַיִּים chayyim, “life”, always appears in the plural, “lives”, never in the singular, as in “these were the years of the lives (plural) of Sarah”. Why is this strange way to describe the life of the matriarch? We do not know and will leave it unexplained. Yet, the tradition explains that the word shnei can mean two things: either it can mean “the years of”, or it can also mean “two”, i.e., “Sarah had two lives”. The commentaries also explain the unusual breaking the 127 years of her life like this: at one hundred Sarah was like twenty in beauty, and at twenty she was like seven in righteousness. Sarah gave birth to Yitschak when she was 90 (Gen 17:17) and died when she was 127 (Gen 23:1), thus she lived for 37 years after Yitschak was born. Therefore, if we accept the interpretation “Sarah had two lives”, which appears to us to be correct, the life of Sarah was broken down into two parts: before and after the binding of Yitschak on the altar, as this will made clear in the following.
And Sarah died in Kiryat Arba, that is Hevron, in the land of Kana’an, and Avraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. (Gen 23:2)
Word reached Sarah about the binding of Yitschak, and she died of grief over Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of her only son. She died in Hevron, where Avraham and Sarah had settled initially (Gen 13:18). But why did Sarah die in Hevron when she lived in Beersheba? Avraham heard of his wife’s death and came to bury and to mourn for Sarah. But where did he come from? He came from Be’ersheva (see Gen 22:19). We recall that Avraham alone returns to his servants after the incident on the mountain and how they headed to Be’ersheva where they settled in. Yitschak’s absence in this scene, and Sarah’s death immediately afterwards, raise questions.
There are two possible scenarios of what might have happened. The first scenario is: Avraham and Yitschak departed Be’ersheva, and Sarah might have gone about to seek where Avraham had gone with her son until she came to Hevron. Perhaps, there in Hevron, she learned what had happened to her son, and when she heard it she died. Or the second scenario: After Moriyah, Avraham alone returned to Be’ersheva and told Sarah about how he could have killed his son. Upon hearing that, Sarah left him and moved to Hevron where she died in grief. Avraham came to Hevron and there he buried his wife in a burial-site which he bought from the sons of Heth at a very high price. In this grave Avraham was buried; there Yitschak and Rivkah were buried; and there Ya’akov buried Leah; and in the same burial-site Ya’akov himself requested from Yoseph that he might be buried, when he died in Egypt. Which one of these scenarios is the actual one, we cannot tell with certainty, for it is not clear from the records we have in the Torah.
Three years passed by when Abraham advanced in age decided it was time for Yitschak to marry. By this time, the Eternal had blessed Avraham with everything, i.e. with a son, for Yitschak was “everything” to Avraham. And Avraham said to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over his household,
Please, put your hand under my thigh, so that I make you swear by the Eternal, the Elohim of the heavens and the Elohim of the earth, that you do not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Kana’anites, among whom I dwell, but to go to my land and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Yitschak. (Gen 24:2-4)
Avraham might have thought in himself: “If I had slaughtered Yitschak, he would have died childless, and the promise of the Covenant would not have been fulfilled. It is time for me to marry him off”. But since they separated from each other, it was his wish to dispatch someone to his family. Avraham made his servant swear to do so. But the servant said to him,
What if the woman refuses to follow me to this land? Do I then take your son back to the land from which you came? (Gen 24:5)
Perhaps, Eliezer had a daughter of his own and suggested that Abraham consider her as a wife for Yitschak , rather than considering a daughter of a stranger. In Avraham’s response to the servant, we encounter a strange warning to him,
Beware lest you take my son back there! (Gen 24:6)
Why did Avraham say these words?
It is not accidental that Avraham made Eliezer take an oath (in Gen 24:7) referring to the messenger of the Eternal who would accompany him on his journey to the far land. This was perfectly appropriate since an angel’s function was to assure the servant’s mission success in fulfilling the Covenant that Avraham would have descendants who would inherit the Promised Land. Avraham reminded Eliezer this saying: “who (the Eternal) spoke to me and swore to me, saying, ‘To your seed I give this land'”. For the meaning of this verse referring to the messenger of YHVH, we will depend on the opinion of the 17th-century Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi Horowitz who offers a compelling interpretation of the passage in Shenei_Luchot_HaBerit, Torah_Shebikhtav, Chayei_Sara, Torah_Ohr.48-54. According to him, this messenger who accompanied Eliezer on his journey was the agent Metatron. We read thus in Shenei Luchot HaBerit (Shelah), “We perceive Eliezer setting out on his mission with Metatron hovering over him, invisibly”. Avraham said to his servant that the Eternal would send a messenger before him to assure that the Eternal through His angel would bring a wife to his son, but the narrator of the story to Mosheh did not find it necessary to inform us of such a conversation between the Eternal and Avraham.
The oath Eliezer took covered two moments: (1) that he should not take for Yitschak a wife from Kana’an, and (2) that he should go to his family. In case the family refused, he would be free from the second oath, but not from the first oath, which should always remain in effect. But, despite all this, if the woman would not wish to follow him, then Eliezer would be released from the second oath and should seek a wife for Yitschak from among the daughters of the locals of that land. Here in Gen 24:8, we again encounter the same strange warning to his servant, as in Gen 24:6: “only, do not take my son back there”. Either way, the servant was not to bring Yitschak there. Why was there the necessity to repeat the warning? Perhaps, Avraham was uncertain whether his servant would return in his lifetime or after his death. Or the reason was that Avraham and Yitschak lived separated, as we argued in the article “Avraham gained righteousness but lost a son”. It appears to us that the former supposition seems to be the case, since we do not see Avraham present upon the return of his servant, as we will see at the end of the story. Either way, the concerned father invoked an angel of the Eternal to go before his servant in such a mission as this.
To sum up, before taking the oath, the servant asks whether, in case no woman of Avraham’s kindred would follow him to Kana’an, Yitschak was to be accompanied to the land of his father (verse 5). Avraham rejected the proposal and discharged the servant from the oath which he had taken, if that should be the case. The assurance of that would be that the Eternal through His angel would bring a wife to his son from there.
Then the servant put his hand under Avraham’s “thigh” and swore to him concerning this matter (Gen 24:9). The Hebrew for yareik is commonly translated as “thigh”, but this rendition is not faithful to the Hebrew text. What exactly Eliezer did by putting his under Avraham’s “thigh” we explained in the article “Jacob Wrestled with an Angel. The Consequence of Struggling with YHVH“, wherein we translated the word yareik as “loins“, the lower part of the abdomen or the external genital organs, not “thigh”. Similar is the application of this word in other verses where it is used with its literal meaning, such as in Exo 28:42 and elsewhere. The language of the verse fits in well with our explanation in the aforesaid article. The servant took ten of his master’s camels and made his way to Aram Naharayim [“Aram of the Two Rivers”, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates], to Charan, the city where Nachor, Avraham’s brother, had settled (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4).
Eliezer found a wife for his master’s son, as he was bidden, from the house of his kindred. She was Rivkah, the daughter of Bethu’el, Milkah’s son, whom she bore to Nachor, Avraham’s brother. Rivkah thus became the second matriarch of the family after the death of Sarah. Eliezer, Rivkah and her maids arose and headed back to the land of Kana’an. Meanwhile, when the caravan arrived in Kana’an with Rivkah, Yitschak had just come from going to the well “Lahai-Roi”, as he was then living in the south country (Gen 24:61-62). It is impossible to determine why Yitschak had been to the well of Hagar named as such when Hagar was fleeing from her mistress Sarah (see Gen 16:14), but he now moved to Hevron. Upon seeing him, Rivkah asked Eliezer, “Who is this man walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “That is my master”. He did not say “this is my master’s son“. This suggests that Eliezer was now Yitschak’s servant. She then took her veil and covered herself, as it was the custom. The servant then told Yitschak all the matters he had done in his journey. The reason why we find this important to emphasize will be made clear further on. And Yitschak brought Rivkah into his mother’s tent, and she became his wife, and he loved her. Thus, Yitschak was comforted after his mother’s death (Gen 24:67). Yitschak was forty years old when he married Rivkah.
However, an obvious question presents itself to the studious reader. The servant related to Yitschak all the matters he had done, but where was Avraham? Should we not expect to read, “And the servant told Avraham all the matter he had done”, for it was Avraham who had sent him on a mission to find a wife for Yitschak? But verse 65 clearly indicates that Yitschak was now the master over his father’s servant, for in order to make this clear to the reader, the Torah said, “That is my master”, which suggests that Yitschak was now the new master of Eliezer and that Avraham was not there to meet his daughter-in-law and to bless the new family which he so much desired to see. We will keep on forwarding the time further.
At this point in the life of Avraham, it is necessary to understand the following episode in which the patriarch took to himself another wife, after the death of Sarah. The Torah informs us that her name was Keturah and that she bore Avraham six sons. The Book of Jubilee 19:11 also informs us that Keturah was the third wife of Avraham, whom he took “from among the daughters of his household servants, for Hagar had died before Sarah”. And she bore him six sons in the “two weeks of years” (fourteen years). In addition, he took concubines from whom he had sons. If we accept all these events were written in chronological order, we would have Avraham now at hundred and forty having six children with his new wife Keturah, and other children from concubines. Avraham gave all that he had to Yitschak, but close to the end of his life to the sons of Keturah and of the concubines he gave gifts and sent them away from his son Yitschak to the land of the east. Avraham lived one hundred and seventy-five years (Gen 25:5-7).
This brief episode appears between Yitschak being comforted after his mother’s death in Gen 24:67 and the death of his father in Gen 25:7. Why would the Torah interrupt in the middle of one subject to speak about the marriage of the patriarch? What is the intention of this interruption? In our opinion, it is possible that the explanation of these verses is best understood when we understand what the Torah has in mind. We will best understand this by recalling that Avraham, after Sarah’s death and after having secured the continuation of the line of succession with Yitschak’s marriage, and giving him even his servant, remained alone isolated from the family because of the misunderstood call to sacrifice his son and the death of his wife which followed.
In conclusion, it is perfectly obvious from our analysis above that not all details are given in the historical account of the events referred to in the lives of the patriarchs. But for this reason, it behooves us to acquire as much insight into the subject, for what is not obvious on the surface may be found deep in the text.
So, what happened in our story? We will now return to complete what we commenced to explain in the beginning.
Avraham lived to the age of 175 (Gen 25:7) and 100 years old when Yitschak was born (Gen 21:5), which means that Yitschak was 75 years old when his father died and 37 years when Avraham offered him on the altar. And since Yitschak was 37 years old when Avraham (137) offered him and 40 years old when he got married, three years passed until Avraham sought a wife for his son. And since Avraham was 137 when he offered him as a sacrifice and 140 years old when Yitschak was married and Yitschak was 60 when Esav and Ya’akov were born, Avraham had 35 years to spend with his son and daughter-in-law, and 15 years with his grandsons. But had he? He married Keturah and started a new family. Towards the end of our story, the Torah states, “After the death of Avraham, Elohim blessed his son Yitschak” (Gen 25:11). But why it was the Eternal, and not Avraham, who blessed Yitschak? Perhaps, we may conclude, there had been a division for 38 years between father and son, and Avraham was not there to enjoy in his old age a family life and to bless his son before he closed his eyes.
When Avraham died, his sons Ishmael and Yitschak buried him in the burial-site where Avraham buried Sarah, and they reconciled their animosities at their father’s grave. But nowhere do we read about any reconciliation between father and son. Avraham lived his life and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years.
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