Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:

 

You wrote:  “Rebekah had to wait no more than 9 years for the "divine gift of fertility" at age 12.”

 

Let’s consider what the text says in that regard:

“²⁰ And Isaac was forty shanah old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.  ²¹ And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.  …²⁶ …[A]nd Isaac was threescore shanah old when she bare them [twin sons Esau and Jacob].”  Genesis 25: 20-21, 26

Isaac marries at age 40 shanah, and sires his twin sons at age 60 shanah.  If shanah is given the archaic meaning of “the turn of the year”, being a 6-month period, then all ages in the Patriarchal narratives make perfect sense on all levels.  Here, Isaac marries at age 20 years [in 12-month years];  Rebekah is barren for 10 long years [in 12-month years];  and then Rebekah finally bears the twins when Isaac is age 30 years [in 12-month years].

Note the following two key points:

1.  Rebekah is barren for 10 years [in 12-month years].

2.  If Rebekah were age 3, then as a little girl she wouldn’t be “barren”, and the text would not say:  “And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren”.  Rather, Isaac is worried because Isaac and Rebekah have been trying to have children for 10 long years, and Isaac worries that Rebekah, no longer very young in the ancient world for a first childbirth at age 25 years, may alas never bear him a son.

Note how all the nuances and overtones make complete sense, on all levels, if shanah has the archaic meaning of a 6-month period regarding the stated ages of all persons in the Patriarchal narratives, and if Rebekah is age 15 years [in 12-month years] when she marries Isaac.

All of the ages of all people in the Patriarchal narratives are reasonable.  No one is ever too old, or too young, to be doing what such person is portrayed as doing in the text, in the context of the ancient world.

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois