27:1 When 1 Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he was almost blind, 2 he called his older 3 son Esau and said to him, “My son!” “Here I am!” Esau 4 replied.
27:5 Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. 5 When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back, 6
27:41 So Esau hated 7 Jacob because of the blessing his father had given to his brother. 8 Esau said privately, 9 “The time 10 of mourning for my father is near; then I will kill 11 my brother Jacob!”
27:42 When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, 12 she quickly summoned 13 her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you. 14
36:17 These were the sons of Esau’s son Reuel: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah. These were the chiefs descended from Reuel in the land of Edom; these were the sons 15 of Esau’s wife Basemath.
36:18 These were the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah: chief Jeush, chief Jalam, chief Korah. These were the chiefs descended from Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah.
25:29 Now Jacob cooked some stew, 16 and when Esau came in from the open fields, he was famished.
27:11 “But Esau my brother is a hairy man,” Jacob protested to his mother Rebekah, “and I have smooth skin! 17
32:3 Jacob sent messengers on ahead 18 to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the region 19 of Edom.
33:12 Then Esau 20 said, “Let’s be on our way! 21 I will go in front of you.”
36:9 This is the account of Esau, the father 22 of the Edomites, in the hill country of Seir.
1 tn The clause begins with the temporal indicator (“and it happened”), making it subordinate to the main clause that follows later in the sentence.
2 tn Heb “and his eyes were weak from seeing.”
3 tn Heb “greater” (in terms of age).
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Esau) is specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn The disjunctive clause (introduced by a conjunction with the subject, followed by the predicate) here introduces a new scene in the story.
6 tc The LXX adds here “to his father,” which may have been accidentally omitted in the MT.
7 tn Or “bore a grudge against” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV). The Hebrew verb שָׂטַם (satam) describes persistent hatred.
8 tn Heb “because of the blessing which his father blessed him.”
9 tn Heb “said in his heart.” The expression may mean “said to himself.” Even if this is the case, v. 42 makes it clear that he must have shared his intentions with someone, because the news reached Rebekah.
10 tn Heb “days.”
11 tn The cohortative here expresses Esau’s determined resolve to kill Jacob.
12 tn Heb “and the words of Esau her older son were told to Rebekah.”
13 tn Heb “she sent and called for.”
14 tn Heb “is consoling himself with respect to you to kill you.” The only way Esau had of dealing with his anger at the moment was to plan to kill his brother after the death of Isaac.
15 tn Or “grandsons” (NIV); “descendants” (NEB).
16 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).
17 tn Heb “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, ‘Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man, but I am a smooth [skinned] man.’” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
18 tn Heb “before him.”
19 tn Heb “field.”
20 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
21 tn Heb “let us travel and let us go.” The two cohortatives are used in combination with the sense, “let’s travel along, get going, be on our way.”
22 sn The term father in genealogical records needs to be carefully defined. It can refer to a literal father, a grandfather, a political overlord, or a founder.