Genesis25chapter 25

This chapter is cut in two by the annual cycle, and the cut falls between the eighteenth verse and the nineteenth (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The sons of Keturah, the death of Abraham and the line of Ishmael close the fifth portion of the year. The generations of Isaac open the sixth portion on the Sabbath after it, and with them the birth of Jacob and Esau and the selling of the birthright. A congregation therefore hears the two halves of this chapter a week apart. The card above carries both portions and the prophetic reading set beside each.

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

Sforno reads the sons of the second verse as sons raised in the house rather than fathered there. He writes of the sons of Keturah that "she raised them in his house". He sets the case beside the five sons of Michal, who raised the children of her sister, and he holds that Abraham himself fathered Ishmael and Isaac alone (Sforno on Genesis 25:2:1).

Radak reads the naming of the field at every burial as a tribute to Abraham. The whole land had been promised to him, and he could bury his own wife in it only after buying a plot, and he never once questioned God about it (Radak on Genesis 25:10:1). On the line of Ishmael he gives two reasons for its being written at all. It honours Abraham, whose firstborn Ishmael was, and it shows the twelve princes promised for him (Radak on Genesis 25:12:1).

Rashi comments on twenty 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 25:1:1 on Keturah to Rashi on Genesis 25:27:1 on the two boys growing up. They cover the gifts to the sons of the concubines in the sixth verse and the burial by both sons in the ninth. They cover the prayer of Isaac in the twenty first verse, the struggle in the womb in the twenty second and the word about two nations in the twenty third. Ibn Ezra stands on the eighth verse at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 25:8:1.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty one under Midrash and nine 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 third verse at 66:4, the fifth at 61:7, the seventh at 58:9 and 62:1, and the tenth at 62:2. It reads the thirteenth verse at 45:9, the fifteenth at 98:15, the twenty second at 63:6 and the twenty fifth at 63:12. It reads the twenty eighth verse at 37:2 and the thirty fourth at 63:14.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the eleventh verse at 33:1, the twelfth at 37:4, the nineteenth at 37:1, the twentieth at 71:3 and the twenty first at 52:1. It reads the twenty sixth verse at 49:3 and the thirtieth at 82:1. Midrash Sekhel Tov reads the second verse at Bereshit 25:2:1 and 25:2:2, and the sixteenth at Bereshit 25:16:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the first verse at 11:2 and the thirty first at 4:8, and Bereshit Rabbati reads the thirty second at Parashat Chayei Sarah 22.

The Talmud is cited at Bava Kamma 92b:9 on the first verse, Zevachim 62a:14 on the fourth and Bava Batra 16b:16 on the seventeenth. It is cited at Avodah Zarah 11a:6 on the word about the two nations and at Berakhot 5b:24 on the twenty fourth verse. It is cited at Bava Batra 16b:11 on the twenty ninth verse and at Berakhot 7b:6 on the selling of the birthright. Avot DeRabbi Natan reads the death of Abraham at 25:1 and the twenty seventh verse at 2:5.