Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah
Ibn Ezra on Genesis 30:23/אבן עזרא על בראשית ל׳:כ״ג
אאסף אלהים את חרפתי. כטעם כרת, וכן "ונאסף שמחה וגיל" (ישעי' טז י) ואחרים אמרו כי השם ראה החרפות שהי' הנשים מחרפות אותי בעבור היותי עקרה וכאילו נאספו ונתחברו אצל השם, והנה נולדו ליעקב י"ב בנים בז' שנים וכאשר ספרום הקדמונים מצאום בני ששה חדשים וימים במספר, ויתכן שנתנה לאה שפחתה ליעקב קודם שנולד נפתלי, גם הרתה רחל קודם שנולד זבלון, וגם דינה לא ידענו מתי נולדה:
1GOD HATH TAKEN AWAY MY REPROACH. Asaf (taken away) is to be rendered cut off. Compare, And gladness and joy are taken away (ve-ne’esaf) (Is. 16:10). Others interpret what Rachel said as, God saw the insults which the women hurled at me because I was barren and by giving me a son He, as it were, gathered (asaf) and collected the insults.23 means gathered rather than cut off. It is clear from Scripture that Jacob’s twelve children were born in seven years.24 2, “Jacob spent 20 years in Laban’s house. Seven before marrying the matriarchs, and seven after marrying them and six years after the birth of the eleven tribes and Dinah. We thus find that the tribes with the exception of Benjamin were born in seven years, each one every seven months.” That is, six months and some days (Weiser). The point is that Jacob had acquired eleven sons and Dinah by the time he had finished serving his 14 years for his wives (v. 25). The first seven years he had no wife (v. 20). Hence all his children, with the exception of Benjamin who was born after he had left Laban, were born during seven years. When the ancients numbered them they could only explain how this was possible by saying that each was born six months and some days after conception.25, Chap. 36). The Seder Olam quoted above employs a round number (Cherez). However, this was not necessarily so. It is posssible that Leah gave her handmaiden to Jacob before Naphtali was born, that Rachel conceived before the birth of Zebulun,26 and that we do not know when Dinah was born.