25:24 When the time came for Rebekah to give birth, 1 there were 2 twins in her womb. 25:25 The first came out reddish 3 all over, 4 like a hairy 5 garment, so they named him Esau. 6 25:26 When his brother came out with 7 his hand clutching Esau’s heel, they named him Jacob. 8 Isaac was sixty years old 9 when they were born.
20:14 13 Moses 14 sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: 15 “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardships we have experienced, 16
1:10 “Because 17 you violently slaughtered 18 your relatives, 19 the people of Jacob, 20
shame will cover you, and you will be destroyed 21 forever.
1:11 You stood aloof 22 while strangers took his army 23 captive,
and foreigners advanced to his gates. 24
When they cast lots 25 over Jerusalem, 26
you behaved as though you were in league 27 with them.
1:12 You should not 28 have gloated 29 when your relatives 30 suffered calamity. 31
You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. 32
You should not have boasted 33 when they suffered adversity. 34
1:2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?”
“Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob
1 tn Heb “And her days were filled to give birth.”
2 tn Heb “look!” By the use of the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator invites the audience to view the scene as if they were actually present at the birth.
3 sn Reddish. The Hebrew word translated “reddish” is אַדְמוֹנִי (’admoni), which forms a wordplay on the Edomites, Esau’s descendants. The writer sees in Esau’s appearance at birth a sign of what was to come. After all, the reader has already been made aware of the “nations” that were being born.
4 tn Heb “all of him.”
5 sn Hairy. Here is another wordplay involving the descendants of Esau. The Hebrew word translated “hairy” is שֵׂעָר (se’ar); the Edomites will later live in Mount Seir, perhaps named for its wooded nature.
6 tn Heb “And they called his name Esau.” The name “Esau” (עֵשָׂו, ’esav) is not etymologically related to שֵׂעָר (se’ar), but it draws on some of the sounds.
7 tn The disjunctive clause describes an important circumstance accompanying the birth. Whereas Esau was passive at birth, Jacob was active.
8 tn Heb “And he called his name Jacob.” Some ancient witnesses read “they called his name Jacob” (see v. 25). In either case the subject is indefinite.
9 tn Heb “the son of sixty years.”
10 tn The rare term לָעַט (la’at), translated “feed,” is used in later Hebrew for feeding animals (see Jastrow, 714). If this nuance was attached to the word in the biblical period, then it may depict Esau in a negative light, comparing him to a hungry animal. Famished Esau comes in from the hunt, only to enter the trap. He can only point at the red stew and ask Jacob to feed him.
11 tn The verb has no expressed subject and so is given a passive translation.
12 sn Esau’s descendants would eventually be called Edom. Edom was the place where they lived, so-named probably because of the reddish nature of the hills. The writer can use the word “red” to describe the stew that Esau gasped for to convey the nature of Esau and his descendants. They were a lusty, passionate, and profane people who lived for the moment. Again, the wordplay is meant to capture the “omen in the nomen.”
13 sn For this particular section, see W. F. Albright, “From the Patriarchs to Moses: 2. Moses out of Egypt,” BA 36 (1973): 57-58; J. R. Bartlett, “The Land of Seir and the Brotherhood of Edom,” JTS 20 (1969): 1-20, and “The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Edom,” PEQ 104 (1972): 22-37, and “The Brotherhood of Edom,” JSOT 4 (1977): 2-7.
14 tn Heb “And Moses sent.”
15 sn Some modern biblical scholars are convinced, largely through arguments from silence, that there were no unified kingdoms in Edom until the 9th century, and no settlements there before the 12th century, and so the story must be late and largely fabricated. The evidence is beginning to point to the contrary. But the cities and residents of the region would largely be Bedouin, and so leave no real remains.
16 tn Heb “found.”
17 tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a causal sense.
18 tn Heb “because of the slaughter and because of the violence.” These two expressions form a hendiadys meaning “because of the violent slaughter.” Traditional understanding connects the first phrase “because of the slaughter” with the end of v. 9 (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT). It is preferable, however, to regard it as parallel to the reference to violence at the beginning of v. 11. Both the parallel linguistic structure of the two phrases and the metrical structure of the verse favor connecting this phrase with the beginning of v. 10 (cf. NRSV, TEV).
19 tn Heb “the violence of your brother.” The genitive construction is to be understood as an objective genitive. The meaning is not that Jacob has perpetrated violence (= subjective genitive), but that violence has been committed against him (= objective genitive).
20 tn Heb “your brother Jacob” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your relatives, the Israelites.”
21 tn Heb “be cut off” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV).
22 tn Heb “in the day of your standing”; NAB “On the day when you stood by.”
23 tn Or perhaps, “wealth” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The Hebrew word is somewhat ambiguous here. This word also appears in v. 13, where it clearly refers to wealth.
24 tc The present translation follows the Qere which reads the plural (“gates”) rather than the singular.
25 sn Casting lots seems to be a way of deciding who would gain control over material possessions and enslaved peoples following a military victory.
26 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
27 tn Heb “like one from them”; NASB “You too were as one of them.”
28 tn In vv. 12-14 there are eight prohibitions which summarize the nature of the Lord’s complaint against Edom. Each prohibition alludes to something that Edom did to Judah that should not have been done by one “brother” to another. It is because of these violations that the Lord has initiated judgment against Edom. In the Hebrew text these prohibitions are expressed by אַל (’al, “not”) plus the jussive form of the verb, which is common in negative commands of immediate urgency. Such constructions would normally have the sense of prohibiting something either not yet begun (i.e., “do not start to …”) or something already in process at the time of speaking (i.e., “stop…”). Here, however, it seems more likely that the prohibitions refer to a situation in past rather than future time (i.e., “you should not have …”). If so, the verbs are being used in a rhetorical fashion, as though the prophet were vividly projecting himself back into the events that he is describing and urging the Edomites not to do what in fact they have already done.
29 tn The Hebrew expression “to look upon” often has the sense of “to feast the eyes upon” or “to gloat over” (cf. v. 13).
30 tn Heb “your brother” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your brother Israel.”
31 tn Heb “in the day of your brother, in the day of his calamity.” This expression is probably a hendiadys meaning, “in the day of your brother’s calamity.” The Hebrew word נָכְרוֹ (nokhro, “his calamity”)_is probably a word-play on נָכְרִים (nokherim, “foreigners”) in v. 11.
32 tn Heb “in the day of their destruction” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “on the day of their ruin.”
33 tn Or “boasted with your mouth.” The Hebrew text includes the phrase “with your mouth,” which is redundant in English and has been left untranslated.
34 tn Heb “in the day of adversity”; NASB “in the day of their distress.”