One question is who is Devora? When Rivka left Haran to marry Yitzhak, 24:59 records that a nurse accompanied Rivka on the journey, but then the Torah does not specify her name. Could this be the same person? Yaakov was approximately 91 year old at this time, and we know that Yitzhak and Rivka were married for twenty years before Yaakov was born, but we do not know how old Rivka was when she married nor how old her nurse was. According to the Midrash, Rivka was three when she got married, which is quite difficult, but even accepting this figure, the nurse who accompanied Rivka from Haran would have been 130 years old.
The patriarchs and Yishmael lived to more than 130, but was their life spans unique or did everybody live such long lives? Clearly, it is simpler to understand that they were exceptions since even today people do not live such long lives, but still maybe Devora was also one of the exceptions. Ramban (end of comments on 35:8) writes that it is possible that this was a different nurse than the one who accompanied Rivka from Haran. Yet, this would still not solve the age problem, since the woman still had to have been alive and been able to nurse when Rivka was born. Thus, probably Devora was the same woman who accompanied Rivka when she came to Haran and she lived a long life. However, why did the Torah did not refer to her as Devora initially? Maybe, this was not to remove the focus from Rivka who was then the new bride.
A second question is what was Devora doing with Yaakov and his entourage? One possibility (see Rashi, Bekhor Shor) is that when Rivka told Yaakov to go to Haran, she said that she would send for Yaakov, 27:45. Accordingly, maybe during the twenty years that Yaakov stayed in Haran, Rivka had sent Devora as a messenger to Yaakov. However, the Torah does not record that Yaakov received any messages from Rivka, and his return home is not connected to any such message, see 31:1-17. Did Yaakov receive the message and ignore it? (It is possible to understand Rashi that Devora was only now going on the mission, but then Rivka would have been alive at this time. Silbermann and Rosenbaum, 1934, p. 170, explicitly write in their translation of Rashi that she died on the return journey.) Instead it is more likely, that Devora heard that Yaakov had returned to the land of Israel, and then she went to greet him, see comments of Yehuda Keel, 2000, p.483.
Why would Devora have gone to visit Yaakov and not Yitzhak and Rivka? We now that Yitzhak was alive, 35:27, but maybe he was too sick or maybe he was still upset about Yaakov fooling him, that he preferred to wait for Yaakov. With regard to Rivka, the Torah does not state whether she was alive or not at this point. Bereshit Rabbah (81:5, quoted by Rashi on 35:8) writes that at this time (but not apparently from Devora) Yaakov learned that Rivka died. Ramban and Hoffmann (on 35:8) note that as 35:27 only records that Yaakov returned to Yitzhak, which implies that Rivka had died. My guess is also that Rivka was dead since Devora would not have abandoned Rivka even for a short while, and hence if she went to visit Yaakov, it must be that Rivka had died.
A third difficulty with 35:8 is why is Devora’s death recorded in the Torah? Rivka’s death is not recorded, why should her nurse’s death be recorded? Furthermore, this mention of her death is smack in the middle of Yaakov building an altar, and G-d blessing him. It seems that she died in this interval, but this record of her death interrupts the flow from the building of the altar to G-d’s blessings. Several answers have been suggested to this question.
Rashbam writes that her death was mentioned since it led to the naming of a place, Allon Bakhut, and the Torah specifies all the places that Yaakov stopped at on his return trip home. Yet, this place was just a tree, and still could not this naming have been recorded after G-d made the promises to Yaakov in order not to interrupt the narrative?
Ramban based on the Midrash (above), writes that Devora’s death also refers to Rivka’s death, and then G-d spoke to Yaakov to comfort him. If I understand this idea correctly, it implies that G-d would not have made the promises recorded in 35:9-12 had not Yaakov been upset about the death of his mother, but this is very difficult to accept since these promises were the confirmation of Yaakov’s dream, 28:13-15, and of Yaakov’s victory over Esav.
Sarna (1989, p. 241, see also Kass, 2003, p. 502) connects her death with the purging of the family’s idolatry, 35:4, and suggests that her death signals that all of the family’s connection with Mesopotamia were “finally and decisively severed.” This could be, but my understanding is that the family’s connection with Haran ended with Yaakov and Lavan’s treaty, 31:44-55.
Gary Rendsburg (1984, pp.364,5) suggests that this information concerning Devora is to teach us about Rivka’s fate from deceiving Yitzhak. As noted by N. Leibowitz (1976, pp. 322,323) Yaakov seems to have been punished for his deception of Yitzhak when Lavan switched Rahel and Lea, but was Rivka also punished? Rendsburg answers that her punishment was that she never saw Yaakov again after he went to Haran, and this is the implication of our verse.
I like Rendsberg’s idea, and it can be further developed. While the verse reminds us about Rivka, still if the point of the verse is just that Rivka died before Yaakov returned, then there was no need to mention Devora’s death. Devora herself must have had some relevance to the narrative, and my guess is that after Yaakov went to Haran, she was the only person left who was friendly with Rivka.
What was Rivka’s life like when Yaakov left home? The simplest assumption is that Yitzhak learned about her role in Yaakov's deceit, and this knowledge must have strained their relationship. In addition, Rivka was far from her blood relatives, living in a foreign land, her favorite son gone, and her other son probably also not too fond of her. She must have been very lonely, and her only friend would have been the nurse that she knew from her native land, Devora. Thus, the reference to Devora is to teach us about Rivka’s sad life after Yaakov left, and this was her punishment, in addition to the fact that she died without seeing Yaakov again, for her involvement in deceiving Yitzhak.
A second point about Devora’s death concerns Yaakov. As mentioned above, it seems that Rivka had died some time before Yaakov returned home, and then Devora stayed with Yitzhak. However, once she heard that Yaakov returned, she set out, even with her advanced age, to see Yaakov. It is possible that this trip caused her to die, but she made it to Yaakov and then Yaakov learned that his mother had died and/ or of her sad life after she left. Thus, in between the time that he built the altar and he received the blessings from G-d he learned these tidings concerning his mother. This news would clearly sadden Yaakov as we see from the name of the tree, the oak of weeping. The timing of this information was also part of his punishment for deceiving Yitzhak. Yaakov was about to receive the blessings that confirmed his victory over Esav, but he could not enjoy the moment since he was sad about the news of his mother and her loyal nurse. Thus, Devora’s death signals one more sad aspect to Yaakov’s life, see 47:9.
Fox, Everett, 1995, The Five Books of Moses: A new translation, New York: Schocken Books
Kass, Leon, 2003, The Beginning of wisdom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Keel, Yehuda, 1997, 2000 and 2003, Commentary on Bereshit: Da'at Mikra, Three volumes, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.
Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1976, Studies in Bereshit, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization
Rendsburg, Gary, 1984, A note on Genesis XXXV, Vetus Testamentum, 34:3, pp. 361-365.
Sarna, Nahum (1923-2005), 1989, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.
Silbermann, A. M. and M. Rosenbaum, 1985, initial publication 1934, Chumash with Rashi’s commentary, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd, successors to Shapiro Valentine & Co.
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