Commentaire sur La Genèse 11:29

יסכה JISCAH — This was Sarah; she was also named Jiscah (from a root meaning “”to see”, “to look”) because she could see the future by holy inspiration, and because everybody looked (gazed) at her beauty (Megillah 14a). The name Jiscah also has reference to princely dignity (נסיכות) just as the name Sarah (שרה) has an allusion to “ruling’’(שררה).

ויקח ארם ונחור, the singular mode here where we would have expected a plural mode, seeing that each of the brothers took himself a wife, is similar to the singular mode used by the Torah in Exodus 7,10 ויבא משה ואהרן, “Moses and Aaron came,” where we would have expected the plural mode, seeing that two people came. The Torah mentioned the names of the wives in honour of Avram. G’d changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. Seeing that Rivkah was the granddaughter of Milkah and became the wife of Yitzchok they were deserving of mention by name.

This was Sarah. You might ask: How does Rashi know this? Furthermore: What does it matter that Yiskah is Sarah? The answer is: Rashi knows this because before it is written that Haran was “the father of Milkah and Yiskah,” and it lists Haran’s [female] offspring. If so, why does it not mention Sarah as well, who was a daughter of Haran? Perforce, Yiskah is Sarah. Furthermore, Sarah is בג"ץ in the alef beis ofא"ת ב"ש , [in which א equals ת, and ב equals ש, etc]. And בג"ץ has the same numerical value as יסכה. Rashi offers three explanations for the name Yiskah because [the name hints to all of them, so] which one should be ruled out? Alternatively, it is because Sanhedrin 69b mentions two of them. And Rashi added a third, “princely”, because he is answering the question: Why was she not called by her actual name, שרי? It must be that יסכה means “princely,” and is thus similar to שרי, which means “ruling”. (source unknown)

יסכה, according to Rash,i this is another name for Sarah. If So, Haran must have sired her when he was only 6 years old, according to the list of the names of Terach’s children. Avraham was supposed to have been a year older than Nachor, whereas Nachor was a year older than Haran, which means that Avraham was two years older than Haran. When we allow a year until Milkah and her sister Yiskah each were born, and we know that Avraham was 10 years older than Sarah from the Torah’s own report, it follows that Haran could not have been older than 8 years when Sarah was born. Allowing for the pregnancies preceding the birth of Milkah and Yiskah, Haran could not have been older than 6 years when he slept with his wife. (B’reshit Rabbah 38,14) Other examples of products of such early unions are Betzalel and Bat Sheva, as well as Er and Onan, sons of Yehudah, son of Yaakov. (Compare Sanhedrin 69)

בת הרן אבי מלכה ואבי יסכה. This is an unusual sequence the daughter being referred to before the father. Seeing that the Torah had written earlier that Haran had begotten Lot, (verse 26) I might have formed the impression that he had not fathered any other children. To make sure we do not make such a mistake, the Torah, after telling us the names of these girls, reminds us that Haran also fathered these two girls. Our sages in Megillah 14 state that Yiskah was identical with Sarai. This is very plausible, seeing that in 20,12 Avraham refers to her as “my sister the (grand)daughter of my father. From these words of Avraham it is clear that Sarai was Haran’s daughter. Still, it is surprising that the two daughters of Haran are not described as בנות הרן in the plural mode, but each one is referred to separately as בת הרן, a daughter of Haran (singular mode). Perhaps, Sarai was the daughter of a daughter of Terach, although the Torah had not mentioned specifically that Terach had fathered daughters.