25:29 Now Jacob cooked some stew, 7 and when Esau came in from the open fields, he was famished.
32:3 Jacob sent messengers on ahead 15 to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the region 16 of Edom.
32:13 Jacob 17 stayed there that night. Then he sent 18 as a gift 19 to his brother Esau
36:4 Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel,
1 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.
2 tn Heb “all of him.”
3 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.
4 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.
5 tn Heb “the taste of game was in his mouth.” The word for “game,” “venison” is here the same Hebrew word as “hunter” in the last verse. Here it is a metonymy, referring to that which the hunter kills.
6 tn The disjunctive clause juxtaposes Rebekah with Jacob and draws attention to the contrast. The verb here is a participle, drawing attention to Rebekah’s continuing, enduring love for her son.
9 sn Jacob cooked some stew. There are some significant words and wordplays in this story that help clarify the points of the story. The verb “cook” is זִיד (zid), which sounds like the word for “hunter” (צַיִד, tsayid). This is deliberate, for the hunter becomes the hunted in this story. The word זִיד means “to cook, to boil,” but by the sound play with צַיִד it comes to mean “set a trap by cooking.” The usage of the word shows that it can also have the connotation of acting presumptuously (as in boiling over). This too may be a comment on the scene. For further discussion of the rhetorical devices in the Jacob narratives, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).
13 tn Heb “And what is this to me, a birthright?”
17 tn Heb “and he blessed him.” The referents of the pronouns “he” (Isaac) and “him” (Jacob) have been specified in the translation for clarity.
21 tn Heb “said.”
22 tn Heb “and he said, ‘I [am] your son, your firstborn.’” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged for stylistic reasons.
25 tn Heb “saw.”
26 tn Heb “the daughters of Canaan.”
27 tn Heb “evil in the eyes of.”
29 tn Heb “before him.”
30 tn Heb “field.”
33 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
34 tn Heb “and he took from that which was going into his hand,” meaning that he took some of what belonged to him.
35 sn The Hebrew noun translated gift can in some contexts refer to the tribute paid by a subject to his lord. Such a nuance is possible here, because Jacob refers to Esau as his lord and to himself as Esau’s servant (v. 4).