Genesis 11:29 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Such marriages of uncles and nieces being permitted then, Exodus 6:20, (as in the beginning of the world the marriages of brethren and sisters were), though afterwards, the church being very much enlarged, they were severely forbidden, Leviticus 18:12,14. Iscah is either Sarai, as the Jews and many others think, or rather another person. For,

1. Why should Moses express Sarai thus darkly and doubtfully? Had he meant her, he would have added after Iscah, this is Sarai, according to his manner in like cases, Genesis 14:2,7 Genesis 35:6.

2. He elsewhere calleth her, the daughter, not of his brother, as he should have done, had she been Iscah, but of his father, by another mother.

Genesis 11:29

29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.