You Find, in Fact, That God, Assigned Their Names to Them

"And these are the names" -- the names are pleasant for Israel. You find that the Holy One, blessed be He, called them by names. He gave a son to Abraham and said to him: "And you shall call his name Isaac" (Genesis 17:19). Yod is ten, tzadi is ninety, chet is eight, kof is one hundred -- this makes two hundred and eight. And two hundred and ten years Israel spent in Egypt -- even though He said to Abraham, "and they shall serve them, and they shall afflict them, four hundred years" (Genesis 15:13). He said to him: "that your seed shall be a stranger" -- from when you have seed. The Holy One, blessed be He, began counting from when Isaac was born. And the eight days of circumcision -- for he was the first to be circumcised at eight days, as it is said: "And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old" (Genesis 21:4). Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him a name. And Jacob too, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him a name, as it is said: "And he called his name Jacob" (Genesis 25:26). "Jacob" (Yaakov) has four letters in it, corresponding to the four crowns with which his children crown the Holy One, blessed be He. Yod corresponds to the Ten Commandments; ayin corresponds to the seventy elders; kof corresponds to the Sanctuary that his children built for the Holy One, blessed be He, whose height was one hundred (me'ah) cubits, as it is said: "And the temple was a hundred cubits" (Ezekiel 41); bet corresponds to the two tablets. And by the merit of Jacob they were redeemed from Egypt, as it is said: "And He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute" (Psalms 105:10). And were it not for Jacob, Abraham would not have been delivered from the furnace, as it is said: "Therefore thus says the LORD to the house of Jacob, who redeemed Abraham" (Isaiah 29:22). But Esau -- his father and his mother called him by name, as it is said: "And they called his name Esau." Of him it is said: "His memory perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the street" (Job 18:17).