Kejadian 25:19-20

Jacob and Esau

25:19 This is the account of Isaac, ¹  the son of Abraham.

Abraham became the father of Isaac. 25:20 When Isaac was forty years old, he married Rebekah, ²  the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. ³ 

Kejadian 25:26

25:26 When his brother came out with ⁴  his hand clutching Esau’s heel, they named him Jacob. ⁵  Isaac was sixty years old ⁶  when they were born.

[25:19]  ¹ sn This is the account of Isaac. What follows for several chapters is not the account of Isaac, except briefly, but the account of Jacob and Esau. The next chapters tell what became of Isaac and his family.

[25:20]  ² tn Heb “And Isaac was the son of forty years when he took Rebekah.”

[25:20]  ³ sn Some valuable information is provided here. We learn here that Isaac married thirty-five years before Abraham died, that Rebekah was barren for twenty years, and that Abraham would have lived to see Jacob and Esau begin to grow up. The death of Abraham was recorded in the first part of the chapter as a “tidying up” of one generation before beginning the account of the next.

[25:26]  ⁴ tn The disjunctive clause describes an important circumstance accompanying the birth. Whereas Esau was passive at birth, Jacob was active.

[25:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “And he called his name Jacob.” Some ancient witnesses read “they called his name Jacob” (see v. 25). In either case the subject is indefinite.

[25:26]  sn The name Jacob is a play on the Hebrew word for “heel” (עָקֵב, ’aqev). The name (since it is a verb) probably means something like “may he protect,” that is, as a rearguard, dogging the heels. It did not have a negative connotation until Esau redefined it. This name was probably chosen because of the immediate association with the incident of grabbing the heel. After receiving such an oracle, the parents would have preserved in memory almost every detail of the unusual births.

[25:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “the son of sixty years.”