Genesis21chapter 21

This chapter is heard inside the fourth portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the visit at the oaks and the binding of Isaac (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts).

The circumcision of Isaac on the eighth day stands in the fourth verse, and the corpus carries a ruling of practice on it. Radak reports that the sages read the wording as laying the duty on the father. The father is the one commanded to have his son circumcised (Radak on Genesis 21:4:1, referring back to Genesis 17:12). The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

The corpus holds the English text of six comments on this chapter and the reference alone for eighteen more. Radak is quoted from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Radak reads the fifth verse as a check on the reckoning. The age of Abraham at the covenant and the year named for the birth already give the number, and the text sets it down again so that the count is certain (Radak on Genesis 21:5:1).

He reads the two promises about Ishmael as words of comfort. The son of the servant will not perish away from the house, and God says "I will make him develop into a great nation" for his father's sake (Radak on Genesis 21:13:1). At the well he reads the word to Hagar as a command to hold on to the boy, since he will not die of thirst (Radak on Genesis 21:18:1). On the opening of her eyes he gives two plain readings. The well may have stood there all along under a covering that hid it, or it may have been some way off (Radak on Genesis 21:19:1).

Rashi comments on sixteen verses of this chapter, and the corpus holds the text of none of them, because the licence Sefaria reports for that English version keeps it out. They run from Rashi on Genesis 21:1:1 on the visiting of Sarah to Rashi on Genesis 21:23:1 on the oath with Abimelech. They cover the laughter of the sixth verse, the feast at the weaning in the eighth and the mocking in the ninth. They cover the sending away in the fourteenth verse and the crying of the boy in the seventeenth. Ibn Ezra stands on the third verse at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 21:3:1.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty seven under Midrash and three under Talmud, which is the lightest Talmud weight after Genesis 10. It carries the locator for each one with no text, so the references stand here and the sayings are read at the source.

Bereshit Rabbah reads the third verse at 53:7, the fourth at 60:5, the sixth at 53:8 and the eighth at 48:11. It reads the eleventh verse at 53:12, the fourteenth at 53:13, the twentieth at 53:15 and the twenty second at 54:1. It reads the twenty fourth verse at 54:3, the twenty seventh at 28:5 and the thirtieth at 54:5.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the first verse at 28:1 and 28:2, the second at 28:4 and 37:1, and the ninth at 61:2. It reads the tenth verse at 34:1, the twelfth at 22:2, the twenty first at 37:4 and the thirty third at 13:2. Bereshit Rabbati reads five places in Parashat Vayera and Parashat Lech Lecha, at 25, 23, 43, 22 and 19.

Bamidbar Rabbah reads the thirteenth verse at 19:3, the twenty third at 14:1 and the thirty first and thirty second at 9:47. Eikhah Rabbah reads the crying of the boy at 2:4. Midrash Sekhel Tov reads the eighteenth and thirty second verses at the locators of the same names, and Midrash Lekach Tov reads the third, twenty fifth and twenty sixth at theirs.

The three Talmud locators are Bava Metzia 87a:12 on the seventh verse, Avot DeRabbi Natan in its second recension at 47:6 on the sixteenth, and Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 4:5:19 on the well of the nineteenth.