Genesis 25:1-34

The Death of Abraham

25:1 Abraham had taken ¹  another ²  wife, named Keturah. 25:2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 25:3 Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. ³  The descendants of Dedan were the Asshurites, Letushites, and Leummites. 25:4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were descendants ⁴  of Keturah.

25:5 Everything he owned Abraham left to his son Isaac. 25:6 But while he was still alive, Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines ⁵  and sent them off to the east, away from his son Isaac. ⁶ 

25:7 Abraham lived a total of ⁷  175 years. 25:8 Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man who had lived a full life. ⁸  He joined his ancestors. ⁹  25:9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah ¹⁰  near Mamre, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar, the Hethite. 25:10 This was the field Abraham had purchased from the sons of Heth. ¹¹  There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah. 25:11 After Abraham’s death, God blessed ¹²  his son Isaac. Isaac lived near Beer Lahai Roi. ¹³ 

The Sons of Ishmael

25:12 This is the account of Abraham’s son Ishmael, ¹⁴  whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant, bore to Abraham.

25:13 These are the names of Ishmael’s sons, by their names according to their records: ¹⁵  Nebaioth (Ishmael’s firstborn), Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, 25:14 Mishma, Dumah, Massa, 25:15 Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. 25:16 These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names by their settlements and their camps – twelve princes ¹⁶  according to their clans.

25:17 Ishmael lived a total of ¹⁷  137 years. He breathed his last and died; then he joined his ancestors. ¹⁸  25:18 His descendants ¹⁹  settled from Havilah to Shur, which runs next ²⁰  to Egypt all the way ²¹  to Asshur. ²²  They settled ²³  away from all their relatives. ²⁴ 

Jacob and Esau

25:19 This is the account of Isaac, ²⁵  the son of Abraham.

Abraham became the father of Isaac. 25:20 When Isaac was forty years old, he married Rebekah, ²⁶  the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. ²⁷ 

25:21 Isaac prayed to ²⁸  the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 25:22 But the children struggled ²⁹  inside her, and she said, “If it is going to be like this, I’m not so sure I want to be pregnant!” ³⁰  So she asked the Lord, ³¹  25:23 and the Lord said to her,

“Two nations ³²  are in your womb,

and two peoples will be separated from within you.

One people will be stronger than the other,

and the older will serve the younger.”

25:24 When the time came for Rebekah to give birth, ³³  there were ³⁴  twins in her womb. 25:25 The first came out reddish ³⁵  all over, ³⁶  like a hairy ³⁷  garment, so they named him Esau. ³⁸  25:26 When his brother came out with ³⁹  his hand clutching Esau’s heel, they named him Jacob. ⁴⁰  Isaac was sixty years old ⁴¹  when they were born.

25:27 When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilled ⁴²  hunter, a man of the open fields, but Jacob was an even-tempered man, living in tents. ⁴³  25:28 Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for fresh game, ⁴⁴  but Rebekah loved ⁴⁵  Jacob.

25:29 Now Jacob cooked some stew, ⁴⁶  and when Esau came in from the open fields, he was famished. 25:30 So Esau said to Jacob, “Feed ⁴⁷  me some of the red stuff – yes, this red stuff – because I’m starving!” (That is why he was also called ⁴⁸  Edom.) ⁴⁹ 

25:31 But Jacob replied, “First ⁵⁰  sell me your birthright.” 25:32 “Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die! What use is the birthright to me?” ⁵¹  25:33 But Jacob said, “Swear an oath to me now.” ⁵²  So Esau ⁵³  swore an oath to him and sold his birthright ⁵⁴  to Jacob.

25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew; Esau ate and drank, then got up and went out. ⁵⁵  So Esau despised his birthright. ⁵⁶ 

Genesis 12:5

12:5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew ⁵⁷  Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired ⁵⁸  in Haran, and they left for ⁵⁹  the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.

Genesis 11:5

11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people ⁶⁰  had started ⁶¹  building.

Genesis 18:21

18:21 that I must go down ⁶²  and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests. ⁶³  If not, ⁶⁴  I want to know.”

Exodus 19:11

19:11 and be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

Exodus 19:20

19:20 The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain, and the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

Exodus 34:5

34:5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the Lord by name. ⁶⁵ 

John 3:13

3:13 No one ⁶⁶  has ascended ⁶⁷  into heaven except the one who descended from heaven – the Son of Man. ⁶⁸ 

[25:1]  ¹ tn Or “took.”

[25:1]  ² tn Heb “And Abraham added and took.”

[25:3]  ³ sn The names Sheba and Dedan appear in Gen 10:7 as descendants of Ham through Cush and Raamah. Since these two names are usually interpreted to be place names, one plausible suggestion is that some of Abraham’s descendants lived in those regions and took names linked with it.

[25:4]  ⁴ tn Or “sons.”

[25:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “the sons of the concubines who [belonged] to Abraham.”

[25:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “And he sent them away from upon Isaac his son, while he was still living, eastward to the land of the east.”

[25:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “and these are the days of the years of the lifetime of Abraham that he lived.” The normal genealogical formula is expanded here due to the importance of the life of Abraham.

[25:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “old and full.”

[25:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “And he was gathered to his people.” In the ancient Israelite view he joined his deceased ancestors in Sheol, the land of the dead.

[25:9]  ¹⁰ sn The cave of Machpelah was the place Abraham had purchased as a burial place for his wife Sarah (Gen 23:17-18).

[25:10]  ¹¹ tn See the note on the phrase “sons of Heth” in Gen 23:3.

[25:11]  ¹² sn God blessed Isaac. The Hebrew verb “bless” in this passage must include all the gifts that God granted to Isaac. But fertility was not one of them, at least not for twenty years, because Rebekah was barren as well (see v. 21).

[25:11]  ¹³ sn Beer Lahai Roi. See the note on this place name in Gen 24:62.

[25:12]  ¹⁴ sn This is the account of Ishmael. The Book of Genesis tends to tidy up the family records at every turning point. Here, before proceeding with the story of Isaac’s family, the narrative traces Ishmael’s family line. Later, before discussing Jacob’s family, the narrative traces Esau’s family line (see Gen 36).

[25:13]  ¹⁵ tn The meaning of this line is not easily understood. The sons of Ishmael are listed here “by their names” and “according to their descendants.”

[25:16]  ¹⁶ tn Or “tribal chieftains.”

[25:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And these are the days of the years of Ishmael.”

[25:17]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And he was gathered to his people.” In the ancient Israelite view he joined his deceased ancestors in Sheol, the land of the dead.

[25:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (Ishmael’s descendants) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:18]  ²⁰ tn Heb “which is by the face of,” or near the border. The territory ran along the border of Egypt.

[25:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “as you go.”

[25:18]  ²² sn The name Asshur refers here to a tribal area in the Sinai.

[25:18]  ²³ tn Heb “he fell.”

[25:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “upon the face of all his brothers.” This last expression, obviously alluding to the earlier oracle about Ishmael (Gen 16:12), could mean that the descendants of Ishmael lived in hostility to others or that they lived in a territory that was opposite the lands of their relatives. While there is some ambiguity about the meaning, the line probably does give a hint of the Ishmaelite-Israelite conflicts to come.

[25:19]  ²⁵ sn This is the account of Isaac. What follows for several chapters is not the account of Isaac, except briefly, but the account of Jacob and Esau. The next chapters tell what became of Isaac and his family.

[25:20]  ²⁶ tn Heb “And Isaac was the son of forty years when he took Rebekah.”

[25:20]  ²⁷ sn Some valuable information is provided here. We learn here that Isaac married thirty-five years before Abraham died, that Rebekah was barren for twenty years, and that Abraham would have lived to see Jacob and Esau begin to grow up. The death of Abraham was recorded in the first part of the chapter as a “tidying up” of one generation before beginning the account of the next.

[25:21]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew verb עָתַר (’atar), translated “prayed [to]” here, appears in the story of God’s judgment on Egypt in which Moses asked the Lord to remove the plagues. The cognate word in Arabic means “to slaughter for sacrifice,” and the word is used in Zeph 3:10 to describe worshipers who bring offerings. Perhaps some ritual accompanied Isaac’s prayer here.

[25:22]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew word used here suggests a violent struggle that was out of the ordinary.

[25:22]  ³⁰ tn Heb “If [it is] so, why [am] I this [way]?” Rebekah wanted to know what was happening to her, but the question itself reflects a growing despair over the struggle of the unborn children.

[25:22]  ³¹ sn Asked the Lord. In other passages (e.g., 1 Sam 9:9) this expression refers to inquiring of a prophet, but no details are provided here.

[25:23]  ³² sn By metonymy the two children in her womb are described as two nations of which the two children, Jacob and Esau, would become the fathers. The language suggests there would be a struggle between these nations, with one being stronger than the other. The oracle reveals that all of Jacob’s scheming was unnecessary in the final analysis. He would have become the dominant nation without using deception to steal his brother’s blessing.

[25:24]  ³³ tn Heb “And her days were filled to give birth.”

[25:24]  ³⁴ 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.

[25:25]  ³⁵ 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.

[25:25]  ³⁶ tn Heb “all of him.”

[25:25]  ³⁷ 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.

[25:25]  ³⁸ 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.

[25:26]  ³⁹ tn The disjunctive clause describes an important circumstance accompanying the birth. Whereas Esau was passive at birth, Jacob was active.

[25:26]  ⁴⁰ 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.

[25:26]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the son of sixty years.”

[25:27]  ⁴² tn Heb “knowing.”

[25:27]  ⁴³ tn The disjunctive clause juxtaposes Jacob with Esau and draws attention to the striking contrasts. In contrast to Esau, a man of the field, Jacob was civilized, as the phrase “living in tents” signifies. Whereas Esau was a skillful hunter, Jacob was calm and even-tempered (תָּם, tam), which normally has the idea of “blameless.”

[25:28]  ⁴⁴ 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.

[25:28]  ⁴⁵ 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.

[25:29]  ⁴⁶ 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).

[25:30]  ⁴⁷ 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.

[25:30]  ⁴⁸ tn The verb has no expressed subject and so is given a passive translation.

[25:30]  ⁴⁹ 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.”

[25:31]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “today.”

[25:32]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “And what is this to me, a birthright?”

[25:33]  ⁵² tn Heb “Swear to me today.”

[25:33]  ⁵³ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:33]  ⁵⁴ sn And sold his birthright. There is evidence from Hurrian culture that rights of inheritance were occasionally sold or transferred. Here Esau is portrayed as a profane person who would at the moment rather have a meal than the right to inherit. He will soon forget this trade and seek his father’s blessing in spite of it.

[25:34]  ⁵⁵ sn The style here is typical of Hebrew narrative; after the tension is resolved with the dialogue, the working out of it is recorded in a rapid sequence of verbs (“gave”; “ate”; “drank”; “got up”; “went out”). See also Gen 3:1-7 for another example.

[25:34]  ⁵⁶ sn So Esau despised his birthright. This clause, which concludes the episode, is a summary statement which reveals the underlying significance of Esau’s actions. “To despise” means to treat something as worthless or with contempt. Esau’s willingness to sell his birthright was evidence that he considered it to be unimportant.

[12:5]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “the son of his brother.”

[12:5]  ⁵⁸ tn For the semantic nuance “acquire [property]” for the verb עָשָׂה (’asah), see BDB 795 s.v. עָשָׂה.

[12:5]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “went out to go.”

[11:5]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “the sons of man.” The phrase is intended in this polemic to portray the builders as mere mortals, not the lesser deities that the Babylonians claimed built the city.

[11:5]  ⁶¹ tn The Hebrew text simply has בָּנוּ (banu), but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea (“had started building”) should be understood here.

[18:21]  ⁶² tn The cohortative indicates the Lord’s resolve.

[18:21]  ⁶³ tn Heb “[if] according to the outcry that has come to me they have done completely.” Even the Lord, who is well aware of the human capacity to sin, finds it hard to believe that anyone could be as bad as the “outcry” against Sodom and Gomorrah suggests.

[18:21]  ⁶⁴ sn The short phrase if not provides a ray of hope and inspires Abraham’s intercession.

[34:5]  ⁶⁵ tn Some commentaries wish to make Moses the subject of the second and the third verbs, the first because he was told to stand there and this verb suggests he did it, and the last because it sounds like he was worshiping Yahweh (cf. NASB). But it is clear from v. 6 that Yahweh was the subject of the last clause of v. 5 – v. 6 tells how he did it. So if Yahweh is the subject of the first and last clauses of v. 5, it seems simpler that he also be the subject of the second. Moses took his stand there, but God stood by him (B. Jacob, Exodus, 981; U. Cassuto, Exodus, 439). There is no reason to make Moses the subject in any of the verbs of v. 5.

[3:13]  ⁶⁶ tn Grk “And no one.”

[3:13]  ⁶⁷ sn The verb ascended is a perfect tense in Greek (ἀναβέβηκεν, anabebhken) which seems to look at a past, completed event. (This is not as much of a problem for those who take Jesus’ words to end at v. 12, and these words to be a comment by the author, looking back on Jesus’ ascension.) As a saying of Jesus, these words are a bit harder to explain. Note, however, the lexical similarities with 1:51: “ascending,” “descending,” and “son of man.” Here, though, the ascent and descent is accomplished by the Son himself, not the angels as in 1:51. There is no need to limit this saying to Jesus’ ascent following the resurrection, however; the point of the Jacob story (Gen 28), which seems to be the background for 1:51, is the freedom of communication and relationship between God and men (a major theme of John’s Gospel). This communication comes through the angels in Gen 28 (and John 1:51); but here (most appropriately) it comes directly through the Son of Man. Although Jesus could be referring to a prior ascent, after an appearance as the preincarnate Son of Man, more likely he is simply pointing out that no one from earth has ever gone up to heaven and come down again. The Son, who has come down from heaven, is the only one who has been ‘up’ there. In both Jewish intertestamental literature and later rabbinic accounts, Moses is portrayed as ascending to heaven to receive the Torah and descending to distribute it to men (e.g., Targum Ps 68:19.) In contrast to these Jewish legends, the Son is the only one who has ever made the ascent and descent.

[3:13]  ⁶⁸ tc Most witnesses, including a few important ones (A^[*^] Θ Ψ 050 Ë^1,13 Ï latt sy^c,p,h), have at the end of this verse “the one who is in heaven” (ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, Jo wn en tw ouranw). A few others have variations on this phrase, such as “who was in heaven” (e sy^c), or “the one who is from heaven” (0141 pc sy^s). The witnesses normally considered the best, along with several others, lack the phrase in its entirety (Ì^66,75 א B L T W^s 083 086 33 1241 pc co). On the one hand, if the reading ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ is authentic it may suggest that while Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus he spoke of himself as in heaven even while he was on earth. If that is the case, one could see why variations from this hard saying arose: “who was in heaven,” “the one who is from heaven,” and omission of the clause. At the same time, such a saying could be interpreted (though with difficulty) as part of the narrator’s comments rather than Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus, alleviating the problem. And if v. 13 was viewed in early times as the evangelist’s statement, “the one who is in heaven” could have crept into the text through a marginal note. Other internal evidence suggests that this saying may be authentic. The adjectival participle, ὁ ὤν, is used in the Fourth Gospel more than any other NT book (though the Apocalypse comes in a close second), and frequently with reference to Jesus (1:18; 6:46; 8:47). It may be looking back to the LXX of Exod 3:14 (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν). Especially since this exact construction is not necessary to communicate the location of the Son of Man, its presence in many witnesses here may suggest authenticity. Further, John uses the singular of οὐρανός (ourano", “heaven”) in all 18 instances of the word in this Gospel, and all but twice with the article (only 1:32 and 6:58 are anarthrous, and even in the latter there is significant testimony to the article). At the same time, the witnesses that lack this clause are very weighty and must not be discounted. Generally speaking, if other factors are equal, the reading of such mss should be preferred. And internally, it could be argued that ὁ ὤν is the most concise way to speak of the Son of Man in heaven at that time (without the participle the point would be more ambiguous). Further, the articular singular οὐρανός is already used twice in this verse, thus sufficiently prompting scribes to add the same in the longer reading. This combination of factors suggests that ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ is not a genuine Johannism. Further intrinsic evidence against the longer reading relates to the evangelist’s purposes: If he intended v. 13 to be his own comments rather than Jesus’ statement, his switch back to Jesus’ words in v. 14 (for the lifting up of the Son of Man is still seen as in the future) seems inexplicable. The reading “who is in heaven” thus seems to be too hard. All things considered, as intriguing as the longer reading is, it seems almost surely to have been a marginal gloss added inadvertently to the text in the process of transmission. For an argument in favor of the longer reading, see David Alan Black, “The Text of John 3:13,” GTJ 6 (1985): 49-66.