Isaac was the counterpart of his father in body and soul. He resembled
him in every particular—"in beauty, wisdom, strength, wealth, and noble
deeds."[1] It was, therefore, as great an honor for Isaac to be called
the son of his father as for Abraham to be called the father of his
son, and though Abraham was the progenitor of thirty nations, he is
always designated as the father of Isaac.[2]
Despite his many excellent qualities, Isaac married late in life. God
permitted him to meet the wife suitable to him only after he had
successfully disproved the mocking charges of Ishmael, who was in the
habit of taunting him with having been circumcised at the early age of
eight days, while Ishmael had submitted himself voluntarily to the
operation when he was thirteen years old. For this reason God demanded
Isaac as a sacrifice when he had attained to full manhood, at the age
of thirty-seven, and Isaac was ready to give up his life. Ishmael's
jibes were thus robbed of their sting, and Isaac was permitted to
marry. But another delay occurred before his marriage could take place.
Directly after the sacrifice on Mount Moriah, his mother died, and he
mourned her for three years.[3] Finally he married Rebekah, who was
then a maiden of fourteen.[4]
Rebekah was "a rose between thorns." Her father was the Aramean
Bethuel, and her brother was Laban, but she did not walk in their
ways.[5] Her piety was equal to Isaac's.[6] Nevertheless their marriage
was not entirely happy, for they lived together no less than twenty
years without begetting children.[7] Rebekah besought her husband to
entreat God for the gift of children, as his father Abraham had done.
At first Isaac would not do her bidding. God had promised Abraham a
numerous progeny, and he thought their childlessness was probably
Rebekah's fault, and it was her duty to supplicate God, and not his.
But Rebekah would not desist, and husband and wife repaired to Mount
Moriah together to pray to God there. And Isaac said: "O Lord God of
heaven and earth, whose goodness and mercies fill the earth, Thou who
didst take my father from his father's house and from his birthplace,
and didst bring him unto this land, and didst say unto him, To thee and
thy seed will I give the land, and didst promise him and declare unto
him, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand of
the sea, now may Thy words be verified which Thou didst speak unto my
father. For Thou art the Lord our God, our eyes are toward Thee, to
give us seed of men as Thou didst promise us, for Thou art the Lord our
God, and our eyes are upon Thee."[8] Isaac prayed furthermore that all
children destined for him might be born unto him from this pious wife
of his, and Rebekah made the same petition regarding her husband Isaac
and the children destined for her.
Their united prayer was heard.[9] Yet it was chiefly for the sake of
Isaac that God gave them children. It is true, Rebekah's piety equalled
her husband's, but the prayer of a pious man who is the son of a pious
man is far more efficacious than the prayer of one who, though pious
himself, is descended from a godless father.
The prayer wrought a great miracle, for Isaac's physique was such that
he could not have been expected to beget children, and equally it was
not in the course of nature that Rebekah should bear children.[10]
When Rebekah had been pregnant seven months,[11] she began to wish that
the curse of childlessness had not been removed from her.[12] She
suffered torturous pain, because her twin sons began their lifelong
quarrels in her womb. They strove to kill each other. If Rebekah walked
in the vicinity of a temple erected to idols, Esau moved in her body,
and if she passed a synagogue or a Bet ha-Midrash, Jacob essayed to
break forth from her womb.[13] The quarrels of the children turned upon
such differences as these. Esau would insist that there was no life
except the earthly life of material pleasures, and Jacob would reply:
"My brother, there are two worlds before us, this world and the world
to come. In this world, men eat and drink, and traffic and marry, and
bring up sons and daughters, but all this does not take place in the
world to come. If it please thee, do thou take this world, and I will
take the other."[14] Esau had Samael as his ally, who desired to slay
Jacob in his mother's womb. But the archangel Michael hastened to
Jacob's aid. He tried to burn Samael, and the Lord saw it was necessary
to constitute a heavenly court for the purpose of arbitrating the case
of Michael and Samael.[15] Even the quarrel between the two brothers
regarding the birthright had its beginning before they emerged from the
womb of their mother. Each desired to be the first to come into the
world. It was only when Esau threatened to carry his point at the
expense of his mother's life that Jacob gave way.[16]
Rebekah asked other women whether they, too, had suffered such pain
during their pregnancy, and when they told her they had not heard of a
case like hers, except the pregnancy of Nimrod's mother, she betook
herself to Mount Moriah, whereon Shem and Eber had their Bet
ha-Midrash. She requested them as well as Abraham to inquire of God
what the cause of her dire suffering was.[17] And Shem replied: "My
daughter, I confide a secret to thee. See to it that none finds it out.
Two nations are in thy womb, and how should thy body contain them,
seeing that the whole world will not be large enough for them to exist
in it together peaceably? Two nations they are, each owning a world of
its own, the one the Torah, the other sin. From the one will spring
Solomon, the builder of the Temple, from the other Vespasian, the
destroyer thereof. These two are what are needed to raise the number of
nations to seventy. They will never be in the same estate. Esau will
vaunt lords, while Jacob will bring forth prophets, and if Esau has
princes, Jacob will have kings.[18] They, Israel and Rome, are the two
nations destined to be hated by all the world.[19] One will exceed the
other in strength. First Esau will subjugate the whole world, but in
the end Jacob will rule over all.[20] The older of the two will serve
the younger, provided this one is pure of heart, otherwise the younger
will be enslaved by the older."[21]
The circumstances connected with the birth of her twin sons were as
remarkable as those during the period of Rebekah's pregnancy. Esau was
the first to see the light, and with him all impurity came from the
womb;[22] Jacob was born clean and sweet of body. Esau was brought
forth with hair, beard, and teeth, both front and back,[23] and he was
blood-red, a sign of his future sanguinary nature.[24] On account of
his ruddy appearance he remained uncircumcised. Isaac, his father,
feared that it was due to poor circulation of the blood, and he
hesitated to perform the circumcision. He decided to wait until Esau
should attain his thirteenth year, the age at which Ishmael had
received the sign of the covenant. But when Esau grew up, he refused to
give heed to his father's wish, and so he was left uncircumcised.[25]
The opposite of his brother in this as in all respects, Jacob was born
with the sign of the covenant upon his body, a rare distinction.[26]
But Esau also bore a mark upon him at birth, the figure of a serpent,
the symbol of all that is wicked and hated of God.[27]
The names conferred upon the brothers are pregnant with meaning. The
older was called Esau, because he was 'Asui, fully developed when he
was born, and the name of the younger was given to him by God, to point
to some important events in the future of Israel by the numerical value
of each letter. The first letter in Ya'akob, Yod, with the value of
ten, stands for the decalogue; the second, 'Ayin, equal to seventy, for
the seventy elders, the leaders of Israel; the third, Kof, a hundred,
for the Temple, a hundred ells in height; and the last, Bet, for the
two tables of stone.[28]