Comentário sobre Gênesis 24:39

אלי לא תלך האשה PERADVENTURE THE WOMAN WILL NOT FOLLOW ME —The word אולי perhaps is written without ו so that it may be read אֵלַי unto me. Eliezer had a daughter and he was endeavouring to find some reason why Abraham should say that he must appeal to him (Eliezer) that he should give his daughter in marriage to Isaac. Abraham said to him, “My son is blessed and you are subject to a curse. One who is under a curse cannot unite with one who is blessed” (Genesis Rabbah 59:9).

ואמר... אלי, the word veulai is spelled with the letter ו missing, something which gave rise to an interesting aggadic interpretation mentioned already by Rashi. Accordingly, Eliezer himself had hoped to have his daughter marry Yitzchok in the event that the woman he found in Aram Naharyim would be unwilling to relocate in the land of Canaan. This is why he had referred to this possibility with the words אלי, לא תלך האשה אחרי, “to me (if) the woman will not follow me (to the land of Canaan).” The truth is that Eliezer related all the events exactly as they had occurred. We are not able to provide conclusive reasons why the Torah sometimes chose to write certain words defectively, (with a letter missing) or by adding a letter which could have been omitted. There are too many such instances for us to find satisfactory explanations for all of them. Eliezer related the events that had occurred to him in his conversation with his master as well as how G’d had arranged things after he had set out on his mission. His sole purpose was to demonstrate from the course of events that G’d loved Avraham so much that He had made his mission so spectacularly successful up to this point. G’d had responded even to his own prayer in exactly the manner in which he had hoped he would. As a result, the very idea of denying his request would appear out of the question, seeing that it was so clear that the entire sequence of events must have been engineered by G’d, personally. If we find some different nuances here and there in the events as reported by the Torah and as related by Eliezer, this is meaningless, just as different nuances in the wording of the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy are not meant to raise concerns as to their authenticity of either version. Everything until the word ועתה in verse 49 is quite clear.

אלי לא תלך, “maybe she is not willing to go, etc.” the word “perhaps,” אולי, is spelled here without the customary letter ו, which prompts Rashi to suggest that Eliezer had a daughter whom he would have liked to be married to Yitzchok.. Since he did not dare suggest this to Avraham, the first time the word אולי appears in this connection it is spelled in the ordinary manner; only now when Avraham was not present, and the whole matter was hanging in the balance, did the Torah hint to the reader about Eliezer’s secret aspirations.