Komentarz do Rodzaju 24:62

מבוא באר לחי ראי HE HAD JUST COME FROM THE WELL LACHAI-ROI— For he had gone there to bring Hagar back to Abraham that he might take her again as his wife (Genesis Rabbah 60:14).

AND ISAAC ‘BA MIBO’ (HAD JUST COME) FROM THE WELL LAHAI-ROI. Scripture states that Isaac had just now come from the well Lahai-roi, having returned from the well of Lahai-roi to which he had previously come. Had the verse stated, “Ba (he came) from the well of Lahai,” it would have appeared as if he lived there. Therefore, it was necessary to explain ba mibo as meaning that he returned to his city from the temporary visit that he had made to the well of Lahai-roi, for he abode in the south country and he was returning to his city.
It is possible that since the word mibo is an infinitive, it indicates that Isaac constantly went to that place since it was a place of prayer for him because of the revelation of the angel there,¹³³See above, 16:14. and he abode in the south country near there. And so did Onkelos translate it, “He came from his coming,” [thus indicating that he was in the habit of so doing].
In Onkelos’ opinion this was Beer-sheba for he translated both between Kadesh and Shur¹³⁴Above, 20:1. and between Kadesh and Bered¹³⁵Ibid., 16:14. as “Rekem and Chagra.”¹³⁶Thus it is obvious that Shur and Bered are synonymous. Now Shur is in Gerar (above, 20:1), and Beer-sheba is in the land of the Philistines near Gerar (see Ramban, above, 21:32). The well of Lahai-roi, which is between Kadesh and Bered (above, 16:14), is thus near Beer-sheba. If so, that place — the place of the tamarisk-tree of Abraham¹³⁷Above, 21:33. — was suitable for prayer. Now Isaac came from that well while he was on his way to another city which was on the same road as his city, and he went out towards eventide to converse in the field with his companions and friends who were there. He met the servant and Rebekah, whereupon they all walked together to the city, and Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent.¹³⁸Verse 67 here.

ויצחק בא מבוא, an expression meaning the same as Genesis 10,19 בואכה סדומה. On that day, the day that Eliezer arrived, Yitzchok arrived from his visit to באר לחי רואי.

בא מבוא לחי ראי, to articulate a prayer at the spot where the prayer of his mother’s servant maid Hagar had been answered.

ויצחק, now the Torah tells us that Yitzchok encountered them as if by coincidence. The fact is, of course, that G’d arranges matters for the benefit of those whom He loves without their even being aware of it at the time.

ויצחק בא מבוא לחי רואי, “Yitzchok was just returning from having visited the well named E-lohay ro-I by the angel who had predicted Ishmael’s birth to Hagar.” According to Ibn Ezra מבוא is the name of a place which was also known as באר לחי רואי. Nachmanides explains that Yitzchok only now returned from the place known as באר לחי רואי. If the Torah had not added the word מבוא but had written בא מבאר לחי רואי, we would have thought that this was where Yitzchok resided permanently. By adding the word מבוא it becomes clear that Yitzchok at this point was on the way home to the city where he resided permanently. His stay at באר לחי רואי had been strictly temporary. It is possible that he would go there for the purpose of offering up prayers seeing that it had been at that location that he had seen the angel (when he lay bound) but that he had a permanent residence far more to the south of Moriah He had reached another town situated on the route to his home town, and there he went out towards evening to have a chat with a friend who lived there. While on route, he encountered Eliezer and Rivkah. And they walked all together to his home town.

It is between Kadeish and Bered. Bered and Shur are the same place, as Onkelos translates both as חגרא. Since it is written about one of them, “To the land of the Negev” (20:1), and it is written about the other that the well was there (16:14), they derived that the land of the Negev [where Yitzchok lived] was close to that well.

בא מבא kommt in ganz תנ"ך nicht wieder vor, "kommt vom Kommen!" בא heißt eigentlich: Hinkommen, dahin, wo man hingehört, wo man sich heimisch und hingezogen fühlt. Er muss also irgendwo hingegangen gewesen sein, wo er sich heimisch, wohin er sich gezogen fühlte: מבא; und nun muss er wieder anderwärts hingegangen sein, wohin er nunmehr sich gezogen, wo er nunmehr sich heimisch fühlte. Und wohin war er gegangen? Nach באר לחי ראי! Wir kennen ja den Brunnen, den eine Standes- genossin Eliesers, durch Freiheitsdrang aus Abrahams Haus getrieben, also genannt, und dort erkannt hatte, dass auch dann und da, wann und wo alles auf Erden für uns erstorben ist, "ein Lebendiger uns schaut"! Und über dem älteren Bruder Jizchaks war da einer Dienerin des Hauses Abrahams Gottes Vorsehung und Waltung sichtbar geworden. Liegt es nicht unendlich nahe, uns zu sagen: während so Elieser, der Diener aus dem Hause Abrahams, ausgezogen war, um in Hoffnung auf Gottes wachende und waltende und fügende Vorsehung einen Schritt einzuleiten, der, wie kein anderer, für die ganze Zukunft Isaaks verhängnisvoll entscheidend sein sollte, also — wenngleich in freudiger Weise, doch in ganz paralleler Lage mit Hagar und Ismael — hatte derjenige, den alles dies am nächsten anging, hatte Isaak sich zu der Stätte hingezogen gefühlt, die ihn in der Zuversicht stärken sollte, dass Gott also für ihn, in seinem sich gestaltenden Geschicke, Elieser sichtbar nahe sein werde, wie er für den älteren Bruder Hagar sichtbar nahe gewesen. Darauf aber sehnte er sich wieder zurück nach derjenigen Stätte, wo ihm das Familienleben erblühen sollte. Der Brunnen lag ja am Rande der Wüste. והוא יושב בארץ הנגב. Es scheint, dass Jizchak bereits selbständig gewohnt und zwar בארץ הנגב. Während Abraham bereits seit mehreren Jahren mitten unter den anderen Völkern lebte, hatte er es für gut gehalten, Jizchak, der jetzt wieder am Anfange stand, in der Stille, wie zuerst er selbst, isoliert wohnen zu lassen. (Siehe zu Kap.20, 1.)

בא מבא באר לחי רואי, “he had returned from visiting b’eerlachay roi;” he did not literally return from that well but from the region’s outer boundary. The formulation in our verse is similar to Kings I 8,65: מלבא חמת, or from Genesis 25,18: בואכה אשורה, “all the way to Ashur.” It is as if the Torah had written: מן בא. The word בא is used here in the same sense as in Judges 1,24: הראנו נא את מבא כניסת העיר, “please show us the way to the entrance of the city.” The letter מ in the word: מבא is to be understood like the letter מ in Psalms 38,5: מתום which means תום, from תמים, pure, unadulterated, (in the spiritual sense. Ed.]

יושב בארץ הנגב FOR HE DWELT IN THE LAND OF THE SOUTH, near to that well, as it is said, (Genesis 20:1) “And Abraham journeyed from thence towards the land of the South and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur”, and the well was there, as is said, (Genesis 16:14) “behold it is between Kadesh and Bered’’.

והוא יושב בארץ הנגב, Yitzchok personally resided to the south of that location; he had gone there only to attend to his business affairs, not to establish a new residence.

יושב בארץ הנגב, the area in which the באר לחי רואי is located. (compare Genesis 16,7 על העין בדרך שור.) seeing that he had come from there on that day. This detail is related to show that Yitzchok continued the work of his father who had planted an orchard in that vicinity. (Genesis 20,1) He had gone there to supervise his workers who were supposed to tend the orchard.

בא מבוא, Yitzchok “happened” to come from that direction on that very day.

באר לחי רואי, he did not reside there, for he resided in Chevron with his father. This is the part known as ארץ הנגב, the southern part of the land. Yitzchok had either some herds or some other business which required him to travel to this place known as באר לחי רואי, from time to time. On the day that Eliezer was about to return to Chevron, he too was on the way there. The meaning of the word מבוא is “a place which one travels to from time to time.” Upon leaving באר לחי רואי on the way to Chevron, he would spend the night in one of the inns on the way from there to Chevron.