Hearing that Esau sought to kill Jacob for fraudulently taking his blessing, Rebekah advised Jacob to flee to Haran (Genesis 27:42–44). She originally planned a short stay, “a few days,” with her brother Laban until Esau’s anger subsided, then she would send for Jacob. We never hear of her doing so. After twenty years, Jacob himself fled when he realized Laban no longer regarded him as before.
The failure of Rebekah’s original plan poses no difficulty. But we would at least expect the Torah to mention her when Jacob returns, since she sent him to Haran. He would naturally return to his mother on reaching Canaan. Instead, he returns to his father Isaac, while Rebekah is wholly absent.
Perhaps she was no longer alive when he returned, explaining the missing reunion. Even then, however, we would expect her death and perhaps Jacob’s response to be mentioned, just as the Torah describes the death and burial of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, during his return (Genesis 35:8). Why ignore Rebekah altogether?
I propose that the omission is deliberate. It hints at Jacob’s change before entering the land, distancing him from his mother and her guidance. In this sense he did not return to Rebekah.
Jacob’s original name followed his birth. When his twin Esau emerged first, Jacob’s hand grasped Esau’s heel as though trying to delay him and emerge before him. His name derives from the Hebrew for heel, aqev. But the root ע־ק־ב also denotes deception and cunning, as Esau’s words show: “Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing” (Genesis 27:36). Jacob indeed acted cunningly toward Esau twice: buying the birthright and taking the intended blessings.
This conduct expressed by “Jacob” he learned from his mother Rebekah, Laban’s sister. She initiated stealing the blessings and urged deception of Isaac. By telling us he returned to Isaac and ignoring Rebekah, the Torah strongly hints that he abandoned his mother’s course of obtaining primogeniture fraudulently and accepted Isaac’s wish not to take it from Esau. His return from Haran thus symbolizes leaving the deception represented by Laban and, to some extent, his sister Rebekah, and returning to Isaac’s upright course.
