Commentaire de citation sur La Genèse 25:9

The Talmud states that Yishmael repented and became a righteous man (Baba Batra 16b), and the proof text for this is quite telling. The rabbis point to the fact that Avraham was buried by “Yitzchak and Yishmael” (Bereshit 25:9). This is compared to Yitzchak’s burial, which was performed by “Esav and Yaakov” (Bereshit 35:29). In the first case, the text lists the younger brother first, whereas in the second the older brother comes first. The rabbis extrapolate from the order of the names that by the time Avraham was buried, Yishmael recognized his own inferiority to Yitzchak. On the face of it, that does not make someone into a righteous man. One could be a murderer, a thief or all sorts of other things and still recognize the superiority of a Yitzchak. Apparently, however, this act of subordination is what determined Yishmael’s righteousness.

And there they became a great nation – this indicates that the Israelites were distinguishable there: How did they become distinguishable from the Egyptians? According to the Midrash, they did not adopt the Egyptian language or the Egyptian way of dress.¹³⁵Mekhilta Parshat Bo, chapter 9 It is my opinion that the children looked exactly like their fathers, thus the Egyptians could not say that they ruled over their women. We find another example of this idea: “Abraham begot Isaac.” ¹³⁶Genesis 25:9 The commentaries explain that people might have claimed that Abraham was not the natural father of Isaac since he was so old – therefore God made Isaac look exactly like his father. This can help us understand the verse, “I let you grow as numerous as the plants of the field…and you came in herds.”¹³⁷Ezekiel 16:7 I have translated this verse as it is understood in BT, Sotah 11b and not according to its literal meaning. According to the Talmud, after seducing their husbands the women gave birth in the field where the children were hidden until they were old enough to return to their family. Miraculously, every child knew his parents. One might argue that there was confusion, and the children did not return to the correct parents. A further miracle happened – since the children resembled their fathers, one knew that the parents and children were reunited. In this way the scoffers could not claim that the wrong parents were raising children.

עשו ויעקב, they are mentioned in this order, a) because Esau was the firstborn, and, b) Yaakov deferred to him according him this honour. When the Torah described Avraham’s funeral, Yitzchok, the younger, was mentioned first seeing that Yishmael was the son of a slave-woman.