Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Christine Bass" <christinebass AT home.com>]

One other response from Argentina----and I will let Rebekah rest in peace,
however old she was when she married.

Shalom:
I checked this issue in our shul with a very much knowledgeable man. I also
asked him what was the point for Rashi to "demonstrate" that Rivka was only
three years old when was married to Itzhak. He told me that this calculation
is not made by Rashi alone, he takes it from the Talmud, and is not
supported by many sages. He also taught me that one of Rashi's grandsons,
the Rashbam, corrects many of Rashi's interpratation of Torah (He begins his
work telling that he heard his grandfather Rashi expresing his desire to
revise his interpretation)

The point is that Abraham receives the news about his family in Padam Aram
after the Akeda. Of course, this does not mean that the events told to him
have just happened.

My point of view is that Abraham did not need to know about his family
before these events, so no new came to him. But when he really needed to
know, perhaps because he did not want his son marry with a woman of the
sorrounding caananites tribes, then the news came to him.