Génesis 25:20 Comentario: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Chizkuni & Da'at Zekenim

“Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca” [25:20]. Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca to wife. Rashi asks a question here. How is it Isaac should go for so long without a wife? Our sages said that one should marry at eighteen. Rashi asks another question. What does the verse teach us that Isaac was forty years old? The explanation is that he could not take a wife before the age of forty. He had to wait until Rebecca was three years old, when she was appropriate for him to sleep with her.⁶Rashi, Genesis, 25:20. Isaac could not take a kosher wife except Rebecca, who was his wife from God. Therefore, the verse tells us that he was forty years old. That is, he waited until Rebecca was ready for him to sleep with her. From here we learn that anyone who lies with his sister or someone who is not permitted to him and she is three years old, he has committed a sin, since when she is three years old, she is a proper woman.⁷I could not find this discussion in the Toldot Yizhak.

“Daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban” [25:20]. Here Rashi asks a question. Why does the verse have to say that Rebecca was the daughter of Bethuel and the sister of Laban? We already know this. The explanation is that the verse says another time that Rebecca was Bethuel’s daughter and the sister of Laban because they were both evildoers, just like Rebecca was pious and did not learn from the deeds of the evildoers.⁸Rashi, Genesis, 25:20.

בן ארבעים שנה FORTY YEARS OLD — For when Abraham came from Mount Moriah he received the news that Rebecca was born (22:20). Isaac was then thirty-seven years old, because at that time Sarah died and from the birth of Isaac until the Binding — when Sarah died — there were 37 years since she was 90 years old when Isaac was born and 127 when she died, as it is said, (23:1) “And the life of Sarah was [one hundred and twenty seven years]” — thus Isaac was then 37 years old. At that period Rebecca was born and he waited until she was fit for marriage — 3 years — and then married her (Seder Olam).