Genesis 11:29
And Abram and Nachor married wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai: and the name of Nachor's wife, Melcha, the daughter of Aran, father of Melcha, and father of Jescha.
Open Genesis 11:29 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Duxerunt autem Abram et Nachor uxores : nomen uxoris Abram, Sarai : et nomen uxoris Nachor, Melcha filia Aran, patris Melchæ, et patris Jeschæ.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ⸂⸆⸃ καὶ ἔλαβον Ἀβρὰμ καὶ Ναχὼρ ἑαυτοῖς γυναῖκας· ὄνομα τῇ γυναικὶ Ἀβρὰμ Σάρα, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ γυναικὶ Ναχὼρ Μελχά, θυγάτηρ Ἁρράν, καὶ πατὴρ Μελχὰ καὶ πατὴρ Ἰεσχά.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּקַּ֨ח אַבְרָ֧ם וְנָח֛וֹר לָהֶ֖ם נָשִׁ֑ים שֵׁ֤ם אֵֽשֶׁת אַבְרָם֙ שָׂרָ֔י וְשֵׁ֤ם אֵֽשֶׁת נָחוֹר֙ מִלְכָּ֔ה בַּת הָרָ֥ן אֲבִֽי מִלְכָּ֖ה וַֽאֲבִ֥י יִסְכָּֽה
Haydock's commentary
Jescha, whom many confound with Sarai, as if both Nacher and Abram had married the daughters of their brother Aran. But why then does Moses mention Sarai before, and then call her Jescha in the same verse? It seems as if he intended to designate two different women. (Haydock)
In effect, Abram himself says, Sarai was truly his sister, born of the same father, chap. xii. 13. See chap. xx. 12, where we shall give the reasons that seem to prove that she was the daughter of Thare, and not Aran. (Calmet)
Jescha does not accompany her grandfather, preferring, perhaps, to stay with Nachor, or to marry in her own country; if she were not already dead when Thare departed from Ur, a city of the Chaldees. (Haydock)
This city is probably Ura, in Mesopotamia, not far from Nisibis, which the Scripture often mentions as a part of Chaldea. (Acts vii. 2, &c.) (Calmet)
It is not, however, certain that the rest of Thare's family remained behind; if they did, they removed soon after into the country about Haran, or Charræ, on the Chaboras. (Chap. xxix. 4; Josephus, Antiquities 1. 6.) (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, Of the Era in Abraham’s Life from Which a New Period in the Holy Succession Begins
Let us now survey the progress of the city of God from the era of the patriarch Abraham, from whose time it begins to be more conspicuous, and the divine promises which are now fulfilled in Christ are more fully revealed. We learn, then, from the intimations of holy Scripture, that Abraham was born in the country of the Chaldeans, a land belonging to the Assyrian empire. Now, even at that time impious superstitions were rife with the Chaldeans, as with other nations. The family of Terah, to which Abraham belonged, was the only one in which the worship of the true God survived, and the only one, we may suppose, in which the Hebrew language was preserved; although Joshua the son of Nun tells us that even this family served other gods in Mesopotamia. The other descendants of Heber gradually became absorbed in other races and other languages. …