Genesis 27

Notes

1. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "his eldest son" (KJV) / "his elder son" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20, 57

   הַגָּדֹל "the great one" and הַקָּטָן "the small one" are the adjectives that rank children by birth: Esau and Jacob here and at vv. 15 and 42; Leah "the great" and Rachel "the small" (29:16, 18, 26); Benjamin "the small one" (42:13; 44:12). The core gloss of גָּדוֹל is "great." קָטָן with the article, of sons, is split as "youngest" (9:24), but Esau and Jacob are twins, and "youngest" would say there were more than two (57), so the other gloss of the split, "small," is printed and the pair "great / small" is kept whole. The oracle of 25:23 used other words, רַב and צָעִיר, for the same reversal ("the great shall serve the young"); this chapter's pair carries it out, and the great one is told he will serve (vv. 29, 37, 40). The WPRB has "older" and "younger."

2. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "Behold, here am I" (KJV) / "Here I am" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 37, 88

   הִנֵּנִי, as at 22:1, 7, 11: הִנֵּה with the suffix "me," "look—me." The home gloss "look" (88) cannot take an object pronoun in English, so the particle and its suffix are printed together as "Here I am," and the phrase is held whole. Esau answers his father with it (v. 1), and Isaac answers Jacob with it (v. 18), the word of a man at hand to be called.

3. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "quiver" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 25, 40

   תְּלִי occurs only here. It is from תָּלָה "hang": the thing a man hangs on himself. The LXX has τήν τε φαρέτραν "the quiver," and the Vulgate pharetram. Rashi takes it as the sword, "which one usually hangs" at the side. No other occurrence decides between them (25), and no stranger sense is attested, so the expected reading is printed with the evidence (40). The "articles" (כֵּלִים) are any made things, here the hunter's gear.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "venison" (KJV) / "game" (RSV)

   Rulings 19, 2

   The ketiv is צידה, the qere צָיִד. With the ketiv's letters the word can be צֵידָה "provision," food for a journey (42:25; 45:21), or צַיִד with a final he. The qere is צַיִד "game," the word of vv. 5, 7, 19, 25, 30–31 and 33, and of 25:28, "for game was in his mouth." The qere is translated (19), and "game" is printed to hold the chain (2). The source files this token under H6720, the lemma of "provision," so the tag is kept and the departure noted here (127d).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 39, 2

   מַטְעַמִּים, from טָעַם "taste," is plural only: dishes made to be tasted. It comes six times in this chapter (vv. 4, 7, 9, 14, 17, 31) and is held as "tasty food" throughout. Elsewhere it is only in Prov 23:3, 6: "do not crave his tasty food, for it is bread of lies." Isaac asks for game; Rebekah knows that what he loves is the taste, "such as he loves" (v. 9), and makes it from goat.

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "that my soul may bless thee" (KJV) / "that I may bless you" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 10

   בַּעֲבוּר is "for the sake of" (8:21; 12:13). Before a finite verb, as here and at vv. 19 and 31 (with אֲשֶׁר at v. 10), it gives the purpose, and "for the sake that" keeps the gloss. נַפְשִׁי "my soul" is the subject of the blessing (vv. 4, 19, 25, 31): the core gloss of נֶפֶשׁ holds, and the RSV's "I" goes to the WPRB (mechanical rule 4).

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   The infinitive "to bring" has no object and no one to bring it to. The LXX supplies one, "to bring to his father" (τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ). The Masoretic text is printed as it stands. The participle שֹׁמַעַת "was hearing" sets Rebekah listening while Isaac speaks.

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 120, 74

   Rebekah's report changes Isaac's words. He said "that my soul may bless you" (v. 4). She has him bless "before the face of ADONAI," an act done in the presence of Adonai, which no one can afterwards undo (v. 33). The two לִפְנֵי are of place and of time: the first keeps "before the face of," the second is the preposition "before," untagged (120), as at v. 10.

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 37

   שְׁמַע בְּקֹלִי "hear my voice" is to heed (3:17; 16:2; 22:18 "because you heard my voice"; 26:5). Rebekah says it three times (vv. 8, 13, 43): twice to send Jacob in to his father, and the last time to send him away. The chain keeps "hear" and "voice" (2, 37), and v. 22 turns on the same noun: "the voice, the voice of Jacob."

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    שָׂעִר "hairy" sounds through the story of Esau. He was born "all of him like a mantle of hair (שֵׂעָר)" (25:25); he is the father of Edom, whose land is Seir, שֵׂעִיר (32:4; 36:8); and the שָׂעִיר is the he-goat (37:31; Lev 16:8–10), whose kids now cover Jacob's hands (v. 16). חָלָק "smooth" is also the smooth lip and tongue of flattery (Prov 5:3; 26:28; Ps 12:3–4). English carries none of this, so it stays in the note (17).

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 88, 95

    Two verbs for Isaac's hands: מָשַׁשׁ (vv. 12, 22) and its by-form מוּשׁ (v. 21). Both are printed "feel," one word in two spellings (88, 127c). מָשַׁשׁ is also the blind man's groping in Deut 28:29, "you shall grope at noon as the blind gropes in the dark." Isaac's eyes are dim (v. 1), and he tests his son by touch, by voice (v. 22) and by smell (v. 27).

12. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a deceiver" (KJV) / "mocking him" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 25

    מְתַעְתֵּעַ is the reduplicated stem of תָּעַע, which elsewhere is to make sport of someone: "they mocked the messengers of Elohim" (2 Chr 36:16). The LXX has καταφρονῶν "one who despises," and the Vulgate inludere "to mock." The KJV's "deceiver" takes the root as תָּעָה "stray, lead astray." "Deceit" in this chapter is מִרְמָה (v. 35), and the two are kept apart. Jacob does not fear being a liar. He fears being seen to make a fool of a blind father.

13. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a curse" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 105

    קְלָלָה is the noun of קָלַל, "be light," piel "make light of" (12:3: "the one making light of you I will curse"). The WPB keeps that verb apart from אָרַר "curse" (105a), and this chapter needs both, because v. 29 "your cursers, cursed" is אָרַר. "Slighting" is the noun of making light. The word becomes the standing opposite of "blessing" (Deut 11:26–29; 30:1, 19). At Deut 21:23 the hanged man is קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים, which the Mishnah reads as an affront to Elohim (m. Sanhedrin 6:4) and Paul as a curse (Gal 3:13, ἐπικατάρατος). Rebekah answers in v. 13: "on me your slighting." The WPRB has "curse."

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 95

    הַחֲמֻדֹת "the desirable ones" is of the root of חָמַד "desire": the trees "desirable to see" (2:9) and the tree "desirable" in the woman's eyes (3:6). Genesis Rabbah 65:16 has Esau wear these garments to serve his father. Later midrash traces them back to the garments Adonai Elohim made for the first humans (3:21), handed down through Nimrod (Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer 24). The two are declared one root (127g).

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 20, 39

    The hiphil of לָבַשׁ with עוֹר "skin" is the act of Adonai Elohim at 3:21: "tunics of skin, and he clothed them." Here a mother clothes a son in skins so that he will pass for his brother. The goat comes back at 37:31. Jacob's sons dip Joseph's tunic in the blood of a kid of goats (שְׂעִיר עִזִּים), and Jacob is the one deceived by a garment and a goat. At 38:17–20 Judah's pledge is a kid of goats. The skins cover "the smoothness" of Jacob's neck (חֶלְקַת), the noun of his "smooth" in v. 11.

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ is a verbless clause, "I—Esau your firstborn." Rashi, who will not have Jacob lie outright, divides it: "I am the one who brings to you, and Esau is your firstborn." The plain sense is the lie, and Isaac's questions at vv. 21 and 24 press it. Jacob claims the title whose right he bought (25:31–34); the blessing that goes with it he takes by disguise (v. 36).

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 20

    The hiphil of קָרָה is "make happen," as in the prayer of Abraham's slave at the well: "make it happen before my face today" (24:12, הַקְרֵה־נָא לְפָנַי הַיּוֹם). Jacob borrows the words of the answered prayer that brought his mother from Harran, and puts the name of Adonai into the lie. He says "your Elohim," not "my Elohim"; at 28:21 he will make Adonai "my Elohim" on a condition.

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    Two clauses without a verb, as the Hebrew has them: the article on the first noun, the construct on the second. Genesis Rabbah 65:20 reads them as a saying for all time: when the voice of Jacob is heard in the houses of prayer and study, the hands of Esau have no power. Isaac's ears tell him the truth and his hands tell him the lie, and he believes his hands.

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    The hiphil of נָכַר "recognize" begins a chain through the Jacob and Joseph stories. The brothers bring Jacob the bloodied tunic and say "recognize, please" (הַכֶּר־נָא), and he recognizes it (37:32–33). Tamar sends Judah his pledge with the same words, and he recognizes it (38:25–26). Joseph recognizes his brothers, and they do not recognize him (42:7–8). "And he blessed him" stands before the blessing itself (v. 27): the narrator's summary, or a first blessing given at the touch.

20. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Bring it near" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    The hiphil of נָגַשׁ is the causative of "approach," and the chapter builds a chain on the qal (vv. 21, 22, 26, 27). "Bring near" is the hiphil of קָרַב (20), so "bring close" is printed for the hiphil, here and in the next clause; it is the hiphil's gloss (127e).

21. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    The scent is Esau's, carried in Esau's garments (v. 15), and it decides Isaac. Rashi, after the midrash, has the scent of the garden of Eden come in with Jacob. b. Sanhedrin 37a reads בְּגָדָיו "his garments" as בּוֹגְדָיו "his betrayers": even the faithless of Israel give off a scent.

22. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 81, 14, 102

    Isaac's two blessings, Jacob's (vv. 27b–29) and Esau's (vv. 39b–40), are lined by the translator under ruling 81(b). The Leningrad Codex runs them as prose, but each is built of parallel cola, and the colons follow the accents (14): the scent of my son / of a field; the dew of the skies / the fatness of the land; peoples / folk; brothers / sons of your mother; cursers / blessers; and in Esau's, the fatness / the dew, the sword / the brother, the roaming / the yoke. The lead-ins stay on the verse line (102).

23. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "plenty of corn and wine" (KJV) / "plenty of grain and wine" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    תִּירוֹשׁ is not יַיִן "wine" (v. 25). It is the fresh juice of the press: "as the must is found in the cluster" (Isa 65:8); "must, but you shall not drink wine" (Mic 6:15). With grain and oil it is the yield of the land (Deut 7:13; Hos 2:10). "Must" keeps the two words apart; the WPRB has "new wine." "The Elohim," with the article and a singular verb, takes the capital (123c), WPRB "God."

24. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "be lord over thy brethren" (KJV) / "Be lord over your brothers" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 95

    גְּבִיר occurs only here and at v. 37. It is the masculine of גְּבֶרֶת "mistress" (16:4, 8–9; Isa 47:5, 7), of the root of גִּבּוֹר "mighty one." "Lord" is אָדוֹן's, so the word takes the partner of "mistress." הֱוֵה is the imperative of הָוָה, the older form of הָיָה "be" (Isa 16:4; Eccl 2:22), printed "be." The blessing gives Jacob the rule the oracle foretold (25:23), and v. 37 repeats it to Esau. Both glosses are ruled (127a, b).

25. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 65

    The closing pair is verbless, as blessings are (65): "your cursers, cursed; your blessers, blessed." It turns Adonai's word to Abram around, "I will bless those blessing you, and the one making light of you I will curse" (12:3), and Balaam repeats it of Israel: "your blessers, blessed; your cursers, cursed" (Num 24:9). Isaac uses אָרַר for the curse, not the קָלַל of 12:3, and the "slighting" Jacob feared (v. 12) does not come.

26. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 6, 10

    אַךְ with the infinitive absolute, יָצֹא יָצָא, marks how near the two came: Jacob had only just gone out when Esau came in. אַךְ keeps "only" (restrictive), and the doubled verb is kept, "going out… had gone out," as at 2:16 "eating you may eat" (6).

27. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 22

    Esau speaks in the third person of deference, "let my father rise… of his son," and shifts to "your soul" in the same breath. The shift is kept (22). Jacob had used the second person, "rise, please, sit" (v. 19).

28. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "exceedingly" (KJV) / "violently" (RSV)

    Ruling 2

    עַד־מְאֹד is an idiom of degree, "to the utmost," not a span of time or space, so neither gloss of עַד ("until," "as far as") can stand alone (1 Kgs 1:4, "the girl was beautiful עַד־מְאֹד"; Ps 38:7, 9). One English word renders the pair, tagged with both. The cognate object is kept, "trembled a great trembling" (חָרַד חֲרָדָה), and v. 34 has the same build, "cried out an outcry" (צָעַק צְעָקָה).

29. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Who? where is he that hath taken venison" (KJV) / "Who was it then that hunted game" (RSV)

    Ruling 2

    אֵפוֹא is an enclitic of consequence after a question or a condition: "who, therefore" (here), "what, therefore, shall I do" (v. 37), "if so, therefore, do this" (43:11). The KJV read the consonants as אֵיפֹה "where." "Then" is the gloss of אָז, so "therefore" is printed.

30. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    "A great and bitter outcry" comes once more in the Bible, when Mordecai learns of Haman's decree: "he cried out a great and bitter outcry" (Esth 4:1, זְעָקָה גְדֹלָה וּמָרָה). Genesis Rabbah 67:4 joins the two: Jacob made Esau cry out once, and was answered for it in Shushan by Haman the Agagite, of Esau's line through Amalek (36:12). The tears of v. 38 are remembered at Heb 12:17.

31. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 74

    מִרְמָה "deceit" keeps its own English. The root comes back on Jacob: Laban gives him Leah for Rachel, and Jacob says "why have you deceived me (רִמִּיתָנִי)?" (29:25); his sons answer Shechem "with deceit" (34:13). Targum Onkelos softens it to "with wisdom," and the Vulgate has fraudulenter.

32. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    הֲכִי קָרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב "is it that one called his name Jacob": the subject of קָרָא is unnamed, as at the naming in 25:26. Esau hears the name's verb in it: יַעֲקֹב, and וַיַּעְקְבֵנִי "he has supplanted me." At birth the name was given from the heel, עָקֵב, that the second twin grasped (25:26). עָקַב is to take by the heel, to overreach. Hosea makes the same pun, "in the womb he took his brother by the heel" (Hos 12:4), and Jeremiah, "every brother supplants and supplants," עָקוֹב יַעְקֹב (Jer 9:3). English cannot make "Jacob" say "supplant" (17), and the name keeps its familiar form (18).

33. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 2

    בְּכֹרָתִי "my birthright" and בִּרְכָתִי "my blessing" are the same three consonants in another order, ב־כ־ר and ב־ר־כ, and Esau's complaint turns on them. The two words keep their own English, "birthright" (בְּכֹרָה, 25:31–34) and "blessing" (בְּרָכָה), so that one is never taken for the other: the birthright was sold for a stew (25:33), the blessing taken in a disguise. English has no pair that sounds the swap (17).

34. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "for servants" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 34

    Ruling 34 makes עֶבֶד "slave" when a person is acquired, owned or given, and "servant" in deference. Here brothers are given to a master, a subjection like Canaan's, "a slave of slaves" (9:25), and גְּבִיר "master" and עֲבָדִים "slaves" belong together. The history the blessing names is 2 Sam 8:14: "all Edom became slaves to David."

35. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 54, 74

    The LXX has a plus before the weeping, "and Isaac being troubled" (κατανυχθέντος δὲ Ισαακ). Heb 12:17 remembers the tears: Esau "found no place of rethinking, though he sought it with tears." "Lifted his voice and wept" is said of Hagar (21:16) and of Jacob at the well (29:11).

36. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above" (KJV) / "away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 46

    The words are those of v. 28, "from the dew of the skies and from the fatness of the land," in reverse order, and the preposition מִן can be read two ways. Partitive, as in v. 28: Esau too receives a share of fatness and dew (LXX ἀπὸ τῆς πιότητος τῆς γῆς, Vulgate in pinguedine terrae, Onkelos, the KJV). Privative: his seat shall be away from them, in a dry land (RSV, NRSV), which fits Isaac's "what shall I do?" (v. 37) and the land of Edom. English "from" keeps both (1). מוֹשָׁב is "seat," where one sits and where one dwells.

37. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "when thou shalt have the dominion" (KJV) / "when you break loose" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 25

    רוּד is to roam, to range free: "we roam; we will come to you no more" (Jer 2:31); "Judah still roams with El" (Hos 12:1); "I am restless in my complaint" (Ps 55:3). The KJV takes the form from רָדָה "rule." The LXX has καθέλῃς "you take down" and the Vulgate excutias "you shake off," both guessing from the yoke. The history the verse looks to is 2 Kgs 8:20–22: Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah and made a king over itself. מֵעַל "from on" your neck repeats מֵעָל "above" of v. 39, one word in both.

38. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "hated" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 2

    שָׂטַם is not שָׂנֵא "hate." It is hostility that waits and then acts: Joseph's brothers fear "perhaps Joseph will be hostile to us" (50:15); the archers "were hostile to him" (49:23); Job says of Elohim, "he has torn me in his nose and been hostile to me" (Job 16:9). It is of the root behind the well Sitnah (26:21) and שָׂטָן "the adversary" (Num 22:22; Job 1:6). "Said in his heart" is said to himself, and still v. 42 has his words told to Rebekah.

39. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee" (KJV) / "comforts himself by planning to kill you" (RSV)

    Rulings 20, 101

    This is the hithpael of נחם. Ruling 101 split the piel "comfort" and the niphal "be sorry," and left the hithpael unruled. It is reflexive, and here it keeps the piel's "comfort": Esau consoles himself for the lost blessing with the thought of a killing. The same stem is Jacob's refusal "to comfort himself" over Joseph (37:35) and the psalmist's "I comfort myself" (Ps 119:52), but also "be sorry" in Num 23:19. "Comfort oneself" is the hithpael's gloss (127f).

40. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a few days" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 2

    אֲחָדִים is the plural of אֶחָד "one": "some, a few" (29:20, "they were in his eyes like a few days," for seven years; Dan 11:20). The singular returns in v. 45, "in one day." Rebekah's "few days" are twenty years (31:38, 41), and she does not see her son again: the narrative never tells her death, only her nurse's (35:8).

41. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "until thy brother's fury turn away" (KJV) / "until your brother's fury turns away" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 57

    The home gloss of שׁוּב, "return," is kept through vv. 44–45, where Rebekah says it twice. Of anger it is the heat going back where it came from, as the next verse says in full: "until your brother's nose returns from you." The same idiom is Adonai's anger in Isa 5:25 and 9:11, "for all this his nose has not returned."

42. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    שָׁכֹל is the loss of children (43:14, Jacob's "as I am bereaved, I am bereaved"; 1 Sam 15:33). "The two of you" may be both sons, one killed and the other put to death as his killer, as in the parable of the woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14:6–7); or Isaac and Jacob, the father dying and the son killed in the days of mourning (v. 41). Rashi takes it of the sons and says their deaths fell on one day, as b. Sotah 13a tells of Esau killed at Jacob's burial.

43. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "I am weary of my life" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 2

    קוּץ is to feel loathing: "our soul loathes this worthless bread" (Num 21:5); the Egyptians "felt dread" before Israel (Exod 1:12); "I loathed them" (Lev 20:23). The LXX has προσώχθικα, a verb of disgust. It is stronger than weariness. Rebekah points back to Esau's Hittite women, "a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and to Rebekah" (26:34–35), and leads into Isaac's charge to Jacob (28:1–2): she sends Jacob away for one reason (v. 43) and gives Isaac another. מִפְּנֵי is kept as "from the face of."