Pensamento Judaico sobre I Reis 12:26

(1) Since only Isaac and his descendants are called Abraham's seed par excellence, the Torah sees fit to restate Isaac's ancestry, stressing that it did not go back further than to Abraham. Anyone prior to Abraham could not claim a share in Isaac as his descendant. In Jewish law, we have the principle that upon conversion to Judaism, a proselyte's family ties are severed, he ceases to have legal family ties, and is considered like a totally new creature. Abraham having become the first Jew, his children's ancestry was rooted in him and in him only. (2) Isaac married at forty, having attained the mental maturity to found a family, as discussed in Chapter 22. Bethuel was called an Arami since he was deceitful, as implied by that word. For that reason, the two have to be mentioned separately. (3) Rebecca had no hope to have children until Isaac's prayer had been answered, otherwise we might have attributed her pregnancy to the blessing that had been given her by her brother Laban prior to her departure from home (Bereshit Rabbah 63). The meaning of the verse "the Arami was about to cause my father's destruction" (Deut.26,5) could be "the latent traits of deceit and treachery inherited from Laban almost led to my destruction." Isaac's prayer was solely for the benefit of Rebecca, since he as an olah temimah, a flawless offering, and could not have served as such if he had been physically blemished. The word lenochach used to describe Isaac's stance during prayer, means that he concentrated on a single objective. A similar use of that word occurs in Proverbs 4,25-27. (4) Perhaps the reason that we are told that Isaac loved Esau who brought venison to him is to point out that Rebecca possessed enough independence of spirit to love Jacob, whose behavior warranted this, and in whose character she could see the promise of the prophecy that had been revealed to her prior to the birth of the twins that in time the older one would become subservient to the younger one (Genesis 25,23). (5) Jacob's holding on to the heel of Esau may symbolize that values which Esau would stamp his foot on would be the very ones Jacob would cherish.