“He said: Behold, I have now grown old; I do not know the day of my death” (Genesis 27:2). Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: When a person reaches the age of his parents, five years before or five years after, he should be concerned about death, as Isaac said: ‘If I will reach the years of Father, now there are many remaining; if I will reach the years of my mother: “He said [to him]: Behold, I have now grown old; I do not know the day of my death.”14Isaac was 123 years old.
Abraham died at age 175 and Sarah died at age 127. It is taught: There are seven matters that are obscured from people: The day of [their] death; the day of consolation;15The redemption (Etz Yosef). the profundity of justice; a person does not know through what he will profit; a person does not know what is in the heart of another; a person does not know what the woman is carrying in her pregnancy; and when the evil empire will fall.
The day of death, from where is it derived? It is as it is written: “For a person, too, does not know his time” (Ecclesiastes 9:12). The day of consolation, from where is it derived? It is as it is written: “At its time, I will hasten it” (Isaiah 60:22).
A person does not know the profundity of justice, as it is stated: “For judgment is God’s” (Deuteronomy 1:17). A person does not know through what he will profit, as it is written: “It is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 3:13). A person does not know what is in the heart of another, as it is written: “I, the Lord, probe the heart” (Jeremiah 17:10). A person does not know what the woman is carrying in her pregnancy, as it is written: “[You do not know]…how the fetuses grow in a womb of the pregnant” (Ecclesiastes 11:5). And when the evil empire will fall, as it is written: “For a day of vengeance is in My heart” (Isaiah 63:4).