Genesis 25

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 91

   The sons of Keturah (vv. 1–4) and the sons of Ishmael (vv. 13–16) are genealogies: the names are printed in their familiar forms, and their Hebrew forms, with what can be said of their meanings, are in the names table below. קְטוּרָה sounds like קְטֹרֶת "incense," and several of her sons are peoples of the incense road: Midian, Sheba, Dedan (Isa 60:6; Ezek 27:20–22). 1 Chr 1:32 calls her Abraham's concubine (פִּילֶגֶשׁ), as v. 6 implies here. Genesis Rabbah 61:4 and Rashi identify her with Hagar, called Keturah because her deeds were as fragrant as incense. The plural names of v. 3 (Asshurim, Letushim, Leummim) are peoples, not men; Asshurim is not Assyria (115b), and Leummim is the plural of לְאֹם "folk" (v. 23).

   See the table

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 2

   חֲנֹךְ is the name of Cain's son (4:17) and of the Enoch who walked with Elohim (5:18–24), and the settled form "Enoch" is held. The KJV and RSV print "Hanoch" here and for Reuben's son (46:9), to keep the men apart; the names table does that instead.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 3, 20

   קֵדְמָה אֶל־אֶרֶץ קֶדֶם, "eastward, to the land of the east": the spatial side of the split (20), twice in three words. The sons of the concubines are sent the way Cain went (4:16) and the builders came (11:2); "the sons of the east" are their heirs (29:1; Judg 6:3; Job 1:3). Ishmael's last son, קֵדְמָה Kedemah (v. 15), bears the same word, "eastward," as a name.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "an old man, and full of years" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 39

   The Masoretic text has זָקֵן וְשָׂבֵעַ "old and sated," with no noun. The Samaritan Pentateuch, the LXX (πλήρης ἡμερῶν) and the Peshitta add "of days," the full formula used of Isaac (35:29), David (1 Chr 23:1) and Job (42:17). The English tradition adds "years." The bare adjective is printed: Abraham dies sated, and the text does not say with what. שָׂבֵעַ is the word for one who has eaten enough (Deut 6:11; 8:10). "Good grayness" keeps שֵׂיבָה, the gray head, as promised at 15:15.

5. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "was gathered unto his people" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 39, 26

   עַמָּיו is plural, "his peoples," the kin who went before (25:17; 35:29; 49:29, 33). It is not the burial, which follows in v. 9 and lies in a cave where only Sarah is (23:19). Abraham's father died in Harran (11:32). The plural is concrete, the kin counted one by one, and ruling 26 does not reduce it. The same formula closes Ishmael's life in v. 17.

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   Ishmael comes back for the burial, and the two sons whom ch. 21 separated stand together, Isaac named first. b. Bava Batra 16b and Rashi take the order as a sign that Ishmael had turned back, yielding the first place to Isaac. The place is the field and cave Abraham acquired in ch. 23, named again in its full legal form.

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   בְּאֵר לַחַי רֹאִי, the well Hagar named after she had seen the one who saw her (16:13–14). Isaac was coming from it when Rebekah first saw him (24:62), and now he dwells there. The heir of the promise settles by the well of the slave-woman's vision. The blessing comes from Elohim and after the father's death, as 12:2–3 promised the blessing would pass on.

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 91

   Twelve sons, as promised: "twelve chieftains he shall produce, and I will give him for a great nation" (17:20). The twelve sons of Ishmael stand before the twelve sons of Jacob (35:22–26). Several names are Arabian peoples and oases known outside the Bible: Nebaioth and Kedar (Isa 60:7; Jer 49:28), Dumah (Isa 21:11), Tema (Isa 21:14; Job 6:19), Massa (Prov 31:1). The forms are in the names table.

   See the table

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 110

   חֲדַד is "Hadad" in the Leningrad Codex and in 1 Chr 1:30. The KJV's "Hadar" follows printed Hebrew editions that read ר for ד, two letters easily confused. The Edomite king הֲדַד (36:35; 1 Kgs 11:14) is a different Hebrew name, spelled with ה, and will take a distinguishing spelling when it is reached (110).

10. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations" (KJV) / "by their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 25

    חָצֵר is an enclosure: a settlement without walls (Lev 25:31) and the enclosure of the tent of appointment (Exod 27:9). טִירָה is a ring of stone, a camp walled round (Num 31:10; Ps 69:26), and in Song 8:9 a battlement. The two words give the life of tent-peoples, open and walled, and "towns" and "castles" turn them into cities. אֻמָּה, from אֵם "mother," is a people reckoned by descent (Num 25:15; Ps 117:1). It takes "kindred" so that it stays apart from גּוֹי "nation," עַם "people," לְאֹם "folk" and מִשְׁפָּחָה "clan." "Chieftain" for נָשִׂיא is the settled gloss (17:20).

11. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "he died in the presence of all his brethren" (KJV) / "he settled over against all his people" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 46

    נָפָל is "he fell." The verse answers 16:12, "on the face of all his brothers he shall tent," but changes the verb. נָפַל can mean to lie encamped (Judg 7:12, Midian "lying in the valley like locusts"), to fall upon in attack (Josh 11:7), and to fall in death (Judg 3:25; 2 Sam 1:19). The LXX κατῴκησεν "he dwelt" and the RSV take the first; the Vulgate obiit "he died" and the KJV the third. The subject may be Ishmael or his sons ("they tented"), and the singular after the plural is the text's. "Fell" holds the three senses, and the prophecy of 16:12 stands behind them.

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    פַּדַּן אֲרָם, "the plain of Aram," the region called Aram-naharaim, "Aram of the two rivers," at 24:10; Hos 12:13 calls it "the field of Aram." The repeated "the Aramean," of father and of brother, sets the house Jacob will flee to (28:2–5). Genesis Rabbah 63:4 reads the repetition as praise: daughter of a deceiver, sister of a deceiver, from a place of deceivers, and still a rose among thorns.

13. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "for his wife" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 3

    לְנֹכַח is "opposite, straight in front of" (30:38; Exod 14:2; Ezek 46:9). Of prayer it means on behalf of, and the KJV and RSV give that. Rashi keeps the place: he stood in one corner and prayed, and she stood in the other. "Over against" keeps the posture, and the sense "for" follows from it. עָתַר is the verb of urgent pleading (Exod 8:4–5; 2 Sam 24:25). Its niphal, "let himself be entreated," returns in the same verse with Adonai as subject: the plea and the answer are one verb. Isaac is forty at v. 20 and sixty at v. 26, so the entreating took twenty years.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the children struggled together within her" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    רָצַץ is to crush: "a crushed reed he will not break" (Isa 42:3), "oppressed and crushed" (Deut 28:33), the millstone that crushed Abimelech's skull (Judg 9:53). The reflexive form here is its only one, "they crushed one another." "Struggled" is softer than the verb. Rashi also hears רוּץ "run": when she passed the houses of Torah Jacob ran to get out, and when she passed the houses of idols Esau did. "Sons," not "children": the plural of בֵּן is held (2).

15. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "If it be so, why am I thus?" (KJV) / "If it is thus, why do I live?" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 40

    The Hebrew is five words and no verb: אִם כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי, "if thus, why this, I." The LXX supplies a future, "if thus it is going to be with me, why this to me?" (εἰ οὕτως μοι μέλλει γίνεσθαι, ἵνα τί μοι τοῦτο;). The Peshitta supplies "do I live," and the RSV follows it. Genesis Rabbah 63:6 and Rashi fill it with the pain: if this is what pregnancy is, why did I desire it and pray for it? Every version adds the verb that decides the question. English can keep the broken sentence, and it is printed broken, with a dash where the Hebrew sets the pronoun alone. Esau repeats "why this" in v. 32.

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the elder shall serve the younger" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 1, 46, 123

    רַב is not the usual word for the elder son (גָּדוֹל, 27:1, 15, 42) but the adjective "vast, many," with צָעִיר "younger, small" as its opposite. It keeps its settled gloss (123d): "the vast" is the bigger and the many, the people that will be numerous. Neither noun has an article or the object marker אֶת, so the line can also be read "the vast one, the younger shall serve." The oracle is lined as verse, and verse leaves such things open. The LXX ὁ μείζων δουλεύσει τῷ ἐλάσσονι, "the greater shall serve the lesser," is the text Paul cites (Rom 9:12), with Mal 1:2–3, "Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated." Rashi, after b. Megillah 6a, reads the line before it: the two shall never be great at once; when one rises the other falls. The Hebrew is printed with its gloss, and the reading is left as open as the Hebrew leaves it.

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 81, 14, 102, 19

    The oracle of v. 23 is lined by the translator under ruling 81(b); the Leningrad Codex sets it as prose. It is two couplets, the second pair each comparing one people against the other, and the atnach under יִפָּרֵדוּ divides them (14). Only this verse is lined. The first colon has no verb, "Two nations in your body," and stays verbless (13). The written text has גיים, which the tradition reads גּוֹיִם "nations" (the qere, printed, 19). b. Avodah Zarah 11a reads the written form as גֵּאִים "proud ones": two lords in her body, Antoninus and Rabbi. לְאֹם is a third word for a people, after גּוֹי "nation" and עַם "people," and takes "folk." אָמַץ is strength with courage, "be strong and stout" (Josh 1:6–9), kept apart from חָזַק "be strong."

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    Two puns on the names of the land Esau's people will hold. אַדְמוֹנִי "ruddy" sounds like אֱדוֹם Edom, explained again from the red stew in v. 30; David is the other "ruddy" one (1 Sam 16:12; 17:42). שֵׂעָר "hair" sounds like שֵׂעִיר Seir, the hill country of Edom (32:4; 36:8–9): "Esau is Edom" and dwells in Mount Seir. The hair returns when Jacob borrows it (27:11, 16, 23). Neither pun survives in English with the home glosses (17), so they are here. The name עֵשָׂו is not explained. "They called" is plural, against the singular of v. 26; Rashi takes it that everyone called him so, because he was finished (עָשׂוּי) and hairy like a grown man. The mantle of hair is the dress of prophets (Zech 13:4; 2 Kgs 1:8), and Elijah's mantle is an אַדֶּרֶת (1 Kgs 19:13, 19).

19. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "after that" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 2

    אַחֲרֵי־כֵן is the time-phrase "afterward." The home gloss of כֵּן, "thus," would make nonsense of the phrase ("after thus"), so the expected English is printed here, as a fixed phrase. "Thus" holds where כֵּן stands alone (v. 22) and in עַל־כֵּן (v. 30).

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    יַעֲקֹב is explained from עָקֵב "heel": his hand holds his brother's heel. Esau gives the name a second sense when he is robbed of his blessing: "Is not his name called Jacob? He has heeled me (וַיַּעְקְבֵנִי) these two times" (27:36), and Hosea joins the two: "in the womb he heeled his brother" (Hos 12:4); compare Jer 9:3, "every brother heels." The name is likely a short form of a name with El, "may El protect," but the text hears only the heel. No English word keeps both the name and "heel" (17), so the pun is here. "He called" is singular. Rashi makes the Holy One the namer; Isaac is the nearer subject. עֵקֶב "consequence," formed like the heel, is the conjunction of 26:5.

21. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a plain man" (KJV) / "a quiet man" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 1

    תָּם is whole, entire, without flaw: Job is "whole and upright" (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3), "watch the whole one" (Ps 37:37), and the beloved is "my dove, my whole one" (Song 5:2; 6:9). Targum Onkelos has "a complete man." The LXX ἄπλαστος "unmoulded" and the Vulgate simplex gave the KJV "plain." The stranger sense is the ordinary one, and it is printed (1). It sets Jacob, the man who will deceive his father with his brother's hair (27:35, "with deceit"), as "whole" from his first description, and the reader is left with the irony. The word is one root with תָּמִים "whole" (17:1).

22. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 10, 74

    "Game in his mouth" is ambiguous: Esau's game in Isaac's mouth, or a hunter's mouth. Genesis Rabbah 63:10 and Rashi read the second: Esau trapped his father with his mouth, asking pious questions such as how one tithes salt. Isaac's love is a wayyiqtol with a reason; Rebekah's is a participle, "was loving," with none. The participle is kept as ongoing (10).

23. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Jacob sod pottage" (KJV) / "Jacob was boiling pottage" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 17

    זִיד is to boil, and its noun נָזִיד is what is boiled, a stew (2 Kgs 4:38–40, "death in the pot"; Hag 2:12). The same verb is used of the hot pride that boils over: "the thing in which they seethed against them" (Exod 18:11); "if a man seethes against his neighbour to kill him" (Exod 21:14); the prophet who speaks presumptuously (Deut 18:20). "Seethe" holds both. Jacob's cooking is the verb of presumption, and the reader may hear it.

24. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage" (KJV) / "Let me eat some of that red pottage" (RSV)

    Rulings 25, 39

    לָעַט occurs only here. The Mishnah uses it for cramming food into an animal: on the sabbath one may not stuff a camel, but one may cram it (מַלְעִיטִין, m. Shabbat 24:3). Esau asks to be fed like a beast, mouth open. He does not name the food. He says "the red, this red," הָאָדֹם הָאָדֹם הַזֶּה, and the "pottage" of the KJV and RSV is not in the Hebrew. The narrator names it lentils only in v. 34.

25. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    The red, אָדֹם, gives Esau a second name, אֱדוֹם Edom, after the ruddy skin of v. 25. The people of Edom take it (36:1, 8, 19), and the prophets hear the colour: "Who is this who comes from Edom, red (אָדֹם) in his clothing?" (Isa 63:1–2). The water Moab saw at the border of Edom looked red as blood (2 Kgs 3:22). The same consonants are in אָדָם "human" and אֲדָמָה "ground." English cannot carry the pun with the home glosses (17).

26. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Sell me this day thy birthright" (KJV) / "First sell me your birthright" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 40

    כַּיּוֹם "as the day" is "as of today, now," and also "first, before anything else." Eli's sons demanded the meat before the fat was burned "as the day" (1 Sam 2:16, "first"); Adonijah asked Solomon, "Swear to me as the day" (1 Kgs 1:51), the same words Jacob uses in v. 33. The KJV takes one sense and the RSV the other. "As the day" holds both, and it is printed in both verses.

27. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 20, 123

    בְּכֹרָה in the singular is the right of the firstborn (the split, 20): the double portion of the inheritance (Deut 21:15–17), the right Reuben lost to Joseph (1 Chr 5:1–2). It is kept apart from בְּכוֹר "firstborn" (v. 13; 123f). Esau will hear it again in its anagram: "my birthright (בְּכֹרָתִי) he took, and look, now he has taken my blessing (בִּרְכָתִי)" (27:36). Heb 12:16 makes Esau the one "who for one meal gave up his birthright."

28. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 37

    לָמָּה זֶּה, "why this," is the question Rebekah asked of her pregnancy in v. 22, and Esau asks it of his birthright. The same English is held in both so that the two questions sound alike (37). "Going to die" is a participle of הָלַךְ: he is on his way to death, as a hunter may be on any day, or merely famished.

29. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    Five verbs in a row, "ate and drank and rose and went… and despised," and the narrator gives the verdict on the sale in the last one. Esau does not speak again. בָּזָה is the verb of Goliath looking on David (1 Sam 17:42), of Michal watching David dance (2 Sam 6:16), and of the servant "despised" (Isa 53:3). Rashi: Scripture testifies to his wickedness, that he despised the service of the Most High. The "stew of lentils" is at last named, and it is only what it is.