And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to
wife,
&c.] Which was three years after the death of his mother;
Isaac was born when she was ninety, and therefore must be thirty
seven when she died. The Jews say Rebekah was but fourteen,
though it is highly probable she was older; who is described as
the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian, of
Padanaram;
so called to distinguish it from other Arams, as Aram of Damascus
this seems to be the same with Aram Naharaim, or Mesopotamia,
which lay between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris; for Padan, as
Jarchi observes from the Targum, signifies two; but rather, as
he, and Aben Ezra, and others say, Padan in the Arabic language
signifies a field; it here intends the field or country of Syria,
as in ( Hosea
12:12 ) . Haran, in Syria or Mesopotamia, was the place where
Bethuel and Laban lived, see ( Genesis 28:5
Genesis
28:10 ) ( 29:4 ) . Some
traces of Padan in Mesopotamia are thought to be in the cities of
Aphphadana and Aphadana, which are placed by Ptolemy F26 in
that country. Moreover, Rebekah is also said to be the
sister to Laban the Syrian,
the son of Bethuel, who are both called Syrians, because they now
lived in Syria: otherwise they were originally Chaldees, being
descended from Nahor the brother of Abraham, who both were of Ur
of the Chaldees; so Jacob is called a Syrian, because he lived
long in the same place, ( Deuteronomy
26:5 ) .