Bereshith Rabbah, chap. 39.

The Holy One—­blessed be He!—­said unto Abraham, “What should I tell thee? and with what shall I bless thee?  Shall I tell thee to be perfectly righteous, or that thy wife Sarah be righteous before me?  That ye both are already.  Or shall I say that thy children shall be righteous?  They are so already.  But I will bless thee so that all thy children which shall in future ages come forth from thee shall be just like thee.”  Whence do we learn this?  From Gen xv. 5:  “And he said unto him, So (like thee) shall thy seed be.”

Bamidbar Rabbah, chap. 2.

“Every man ... by his own standard” (Num. ii. 2).  The several princes of Israel selected the colors for their banners from the color of the stones that were upon the breastplate of Aaron.  From them other princes have learned to adorn their standards with different distinguishing colors.  Reuben had his flag red, and leaves of mandrakes upon it.  Issachar had his flag blue, and the sun and moon upon it.  Naphtali had on his flag an olive tree, for this reason that (Gen. xlix. 20) “Out of Asher his bread shall be fat.”

Ibid., chap. 7.

“And Abraham rose up early and saddled his ass” (Gen. xxii. 3).  This is the ass on which Moses also rode when he came into Egypt; for it is said (Exod. iv. 20), “And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass.”  This is the ass on which the Son of David also shall ride; as it is said (Zech, ix. 9), “Poor, and riding upon an ass.”

Pirke d’Rab.  Eliezer, chap. 31.

In the morning service for Yom Kippur, there is an allusion to the Scripture passage with which our quotation opens.  It is said that Abraham in “his great joy perverted the usual order,” which a footnote explains thus—­“In the greatness of his joy, that he had thus an opportunity of showing his obedience to God, he set aside the usual order of things, which was that the servant should saddle the ass, and saddled the ass himself, as mentioned Gen. xxii. 3.”  The animal referred to in the above remarks is spoken of in Sanhedrin, fol. 98, col. 1, as being of a hundred colors.

When Joseph saw the signs of Judah’s anger, he began to tremble, and said (to himself), “Woe is me, for he may kill me!” And what were these signs?  Tears of blood rolling down from Judah’s right eye, and the hair that grew on his chest rising and penetrating through the five garments that he wore.  Joseph then kicked the marble seat on which he was sitting, so that it was instantly shattered into fragments.  Upon this Judah observed, “He is a mighty man, like one of us.”

Yalkut Vayegash.

Abraham married three wives—­Sarah, a daughter of Shem; Keturah, a daughter of Japheth; and Hagar, a daughter of Ham.

Yalkut, Job, chap. 8.