Now the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years: in chapter 27 Isaac was pictured as an old man even before Jacob left for Haran. According to 25.26 Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob and Esau were born, and in 26.34 he would have been one hundred when Esau married at age forty.

In Good News Translation and some other versions, this sentence is joined to the next verse; for example, “Isaac was one hundred and eighty years old when he breathed his last” (New Jerusalem Bible), “Isaac was a very old man, and when he reached a hundred and eighty years he died.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .