Abraham's Latter Years and God's Way of Adding More Than the First

(Genesis 25:1:) "And Abraham added and took a wife." This is what Scripture says (Job 8:7): "Though your beginning was small, yet your end shall greatly increase." Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Eleazar ha-Kappar: From here you learn that the addition of the Holy One, blessed be He, is greater than the original. Abraham at first sired none but Isaac; when the Holy One, blessed be He, added for him, He added for him still more, as it is said (Genesis 25:2): "And she bore him." So too you find with the first man: when she bore Cain, she bore, and afterward "she added to bear" (Genesis 4:2). And so too you find with Rachel: she bore Joseph and said, "May the LORD add to me another son" (Genesis 30:24); He added for her Benjamin and his twin sister. How do we know this? "This is a son for you" is not written here, but rather "For this also is a son for you" (Genesis 35:17). And so too you find with King Hezekiah: all the days of his reign were fourteen years, and when the Holy One, blessed be He, added for him, He added for him fifteen years: "Behold, I will add to your days fifteen years" (Isaiah 38:5). And when the prophets saw that the addition of the Holy One, blessed be He, was greater than the original, they began to bless Israel with addition. Moses said, "May the LORD, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are" (Deuteronomy 1:11). David said, "May the LORD add to you" (Psalms 115:14). Also in the world to come the Holy One, blessed be He, acquires His people with addition, as it is said (Isaiah 11:11): "And it shall come to pass on that day that the LORD will add His hand a second time."