8. But Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, died. Here is inserted a short narration of the death of Deborah, whom we may conclude to have been a holy matron, and whom the family of Jacob venerated as a mother; for the name given in perpetuity to the place, testifies that she was buried with peculiar honor, and with no common mourning. Shortly afterwards the death and burial of Rachel are to be recorded: yet Moses does not say that any sign of mourning for Deborah was transmitted to posterity; (124) therefore it is probable that she was held by all in the place of a grandmother: But it may be asked, how she then happened to be in Jacob’s company, seeing that he had not yet come to his father; and the age of a decrepit old woman rendered her unfit for so long a journey. (125) Some interpreters imagine that she had been sent by Rebecca to meet her son Jacob; but I do not see what probability there is in the conjecture; nor yet have I anything certain to affirm, except that, perhaps, she had loved Jacob from a boy, because she had nursed him; and when she knew the cause of his exile, she followed him from her regard for religion. Certainly Moses does not in vain celebrate her death with an eulogy so remarkable.
(124) The meaning, perhaps, is, that no monumental pillar was raised to Deborah, as was done to Rachel; the probable reason given for the fact, namely, that she was regarded as a grandmother, does not seem very intelligible. — Ed.
(125) It appears, from a calculation of the ages of Rebekah, of Jacob, and of Rachel, that Deborah must, at this time, have lived far beyond the common term of human life. “Jacob was then about one hundred and seven years of age. Isaac had been sixty years old when Jacob was born; he married Rebekah when he was at the age of forty, and she could not be less than twenty at the time of her marriage; it will follow that she bore twins in, or after, the fortieth year of her age. If these forty years be added to the one hundred and seven of Jacob’s life, this will make one hundred and forty-seven. Supposing Deborah to have been twenty-five when she was given as a nurse to Rebekah, she could not now be less than one hundred and seventy years old” — See Rivetus, p. 701. — Ed.