ונקית משבועתי זאת. זאת משמע מיעוט לומר דמשבועה דכי אל ארצי ואל מולדתי תלך תהי נקי אבל משבועה דלא תקח אשה לבני לא תנקי ולפי זה צ"ל דענר אשכול וממרא לאו כנעניים היו: ונקית משבועתי זאת, “you will be absolved from this oath I demand from you.” The apparently unnecessary word: “this,” is to warn Eliezer that the only part of the oath he will be absolved from if the woman refuses to leave her home, is Yitzchok must not go there to wed her. He would still be obligated to look for a suitable wife for Yitzchok. According to this interpretation, we must assume that the “friends” of Avraham, Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre, were not of Canaanitic descent.
רק את בני לא תשב שמה. ואע"פ שמעולם לא בא לשם נופל נמי על יצחק לשון שיבה מפני אליעזר שהיה הולך עמו ולו יהיה שיבה גמורה שכבר היה לשם. וכן ברות המואביה השבה עם נעמי משדי מואב ואע"פ שרות לא היתה מעולם לשם קורא לה לשון שיבה מפני נעמי ההולכת עמה: רק את בני לא תשב שמה, “as long as you do not bring my son back to the land from which I emigrated.” The words: “bring back”, is somewhat strange seeing that Yitzchok had never been in Charan, having been born in Canaan. Although Yitzchok had indeed never been in Charan, the term שיבה for “returning” is applicable to him because of Eliezer who had been going to the land of Canaan with Avraham and now as Yitzchok’s emissary (accepting tokens of marriage) While it is true that this was not a return in the full sense of the word, Eliezer had already been there with Avraham before the latter left Charan. We find a similar situation in Ruth 2,6, when Ruth is “returning” to the land of Israel with her mother-in-law Naomi, and although Ruth had never been there before, she too is described by one of Boaz’s hired hands as “returning” from the land of Moab. The reason why she was so described was that she was accompanying her mother-in-law who was definitely returning in the full sense of the word.