Commentaire de citation sur Les Nombres 26:44

דמשק אליעזר. It is possible that the letter י at the end of the word דמשק, i.e. דמשקי is missing here. If so, the meaning is “Eliezer, the man from Damascus, etc.” It would be similar to שבט המנשה being described in Deut 29,7 as שבט המנשי. We also have variations such as משפחת הימנה whereas in the same verse we have משפחת הישוי, with the letter י at the end instead of the letter ה. (compare Numbers 26,44) Onkelos also translates it in this sense when writing דמשקאה “from Damascus.” It is also possible that the servant’s name was Damessek when he came to Avram, and that his master changed his name to Eliezer, seeing that this is a Hebrew name. He was referred to by either name on different occasions. In that event, Avram was saying that if my heir were to be at least somebody belonging to my family it would not be so bad, but I will not even have an heir from my family, but a stranger from Damascus. Seeing that Avram felt that badly about such a prospect, he repeated, i.e. he continued harping on this subject still further in verse 3 saying:

משפחת החנכי THE FAMILY OF THE HANOCHITES — Because the heathen nations spoke slightingly of Israel, saying, “How can these trace their descent by their tribes? Do they think that the Egyptians did not overmaster their mothers? If they showed themselves master of their bodies, it is quite certain that they did so over those of their wives!”. On this account the Holy One, blessed be He, set His name upon them: the letter ה on one side of their name and the letter י on the other side (חנכיה), to intimate: I bear testimony for them that they are the sons of their reputed fathers (and not of the Egyptians) (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:12). This it is that is expressed by David, (Psalms 122:4) שבטי יה עדות לישראל: “that the tribes bear the name of the Lord (יה) is a testimony regarding Israel” — this Divine Name (יה) bears testimony regarding their tribes (i.e. that they rightly attach themselves to those tribes to which they claim to belong). On this account in the case of all of them it is written החנכי and הפלואי but in the case of ימנה (v. 44) it was not felt necessary to state “of the family of הימני”, because the Divine Name is already attached to it — the י at the beginning and the ה at the end (ימנה) (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 773).

חנוך משפחת החנוכי, “Chanoch the clan of the Chanochites.” According to Rashi, the reason for such detailed emphasis on the certainty of the Israelites’ paternity was necessary to counter the sneering comments by the Gentiles who ridiculed the claim that the Egyptians during their control of the Jewish people had not been able to sleep with their wives. The Torah therefore testifies by the manner these descendants are attributed to their respective fathers that there was never a doubt about an Israelite’s paternity, i.e. his being fathered by an Israelite. By appending the two letters of the Lord’s name ה and י respectively to the front and end of the respective names of these people, G’d testified that the people mentioned were sired by Jews. David proclaims this even more clearly when he speaks about the tribes of Israel being שבטי י-ה, “the tribes of G’d” (Psalms 122,4). The extra letters are absent only in the name ימנה of the tribe of Asher as the name as it is without prefix or suffix already features the letters י and ה, respectively (verse 44).