Ḥizkiya said: Our patriarch Jacob was sixty-three years old when he took the blessings, [and] spent another fourteen years [during which] he was hidden in the house of Ever.5See Megillah 17a. He spent another seven years that he worked for Rachel. The result is that he married a wife at the age of eighty-four years. Esau was at the age of forty years. We learned that the Holy One blessed be He delays for the righteous and moves forward for the wicked.
Rabbi Hoshaya said: It is already written: “Jacob heeded his father and his mother” (Genesis 28:7), why does the verse state: “Jacob departed from Beersheba.” It is, rather, that he said [to himself]: [My] father, when he sought to depart outside the Land of Israel, from where did he seek permission? Was it not from Beersheba?6It is not clear what the midrash is referring to here. I, too, will go to Beersheba.
If He gives me permission, I will depart, but if not, I will not depart. That is why it was necessary for the verse to say: “Jacob departed from Beersheba.”