Genesis24chapter 24

This chapter is heard inside the fifth portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the death of Sarah and the buying of the cave (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). It is the longest chapter of Genesis, and a congregation hears the whole errand for a wife for Isaac at one reading. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

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

Radak reads the meeting at the well as an answer beyond what was asked. The first girl the servant spoke to "met all the qualifications he had stipulated". She was of the family of Abraham, she was fair to look at, she showed her character at once, and she was unmarried (Radak on Genesis 24:15:1).

Rashi comments on fifteen verses of this chapter in a version the corpus holds by reference alone, because the licence Sefaria reports for that English version keeps the text out. They run from Rashi on Genesis 24:1:1 on the blessing of Abraham in all things to Rashi on Genesis 24:24:1 on the answer of Rebecca about her father. They cover the oath under the thigh in the second verse and the rule against a wife from the daughters of Canaan in the third. They cover the sign the servant asked for in the fourteenth verse and the gold he gave her in the twenty second.

Ibn Ezra carries six comments the corpus holds the same way, at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 24:3:1, 24:4:1, 24:5:1, 24:6:1 and 24:12:1, and Malbim one, at Malbim on Genesis 24:13:1. The weight of those comments falls on the terms of the errand and on the prayer at the well.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty five under Midrash and five under Talmud. 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 second verse at 59:8, the fifth at 59:9, the sixth at 59:10 and the seventh at 75:4. It reads the eleventh verse at 59:12, the twelfth at 60:1, the thirteenth at 60:3 and the sixteenth at 60:5. It reads the twenty third verse at 60:9, the twenty eighth at 60:7 and the thirty second at 60:8.

Midrash Lekach Tov reads eight verses of the errand, at Genesis 24:3:1, 24:19:1, 24:20:1, 24:26:1, 24:30:1, 24:35:1, 24:36:1 and 24:40:1. Midrash Sekhel Tov reads the fourth, ninth, thirty seventh and thirty ninth verses at the locators of the same names. Aggadat Bereshit reads the first verse at 28:1, the tenth at 46:3, the fourteenth at 38:3, the twenty seventh at 18:1 and the thirty eighth at 37:4. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the seventeenth verse at 21:20, the twenty second at 20:23 and the twenty ninth at 10:5. Bereshit Rabbati reads the eighteenth verse at Parashat Chayei Sarah 15, the twenty fifth at Parashat Miketz 47 and the thirty third at Parashat Chayei Sarah 6.

The five Talmud locators are Kiddushin 61b:12 on the eighth verse, Avodah Zarah 29a:5 on the fifteenth and Avot DeRabbi Natan 8:8 on the thirty first. The other two are Bava Kamma 92b:6 on the thirty fourth verse and Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 1:8:2 on the twenty first.