Charles Ellicott Commentary


Charles Ellicott Commentary
"And her brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us [a few] days, at the least ten. After that she shall go." — Genesis 24:55 (ASV)
A few days, at least ten. —Hebrew, days or a decade, which Onkelos, Saadja, Rashi, and others translate as in the margin: “a year or ten months.” But while this rendering has high Jewish authority for it, yet more probably decade was the name for the third part of a month. It would be curious thus to find that the family of Terah, either with or instead of weeks, measured time by periods of ten days, as was certainly the custom of the Egyptians at one period of their history.