27:34 When Esau heard 3 his father’s words, he wailed loudly and bitterly. 4 He said to his father, “Bless me too, my father!” 27:35 But Isaac 5 replied, “Your brother came in here deceitfully and took away 6 your blessing.” 27:36 Esau exclaimed, “‘Jacob’ is the right name for him! 7 He has tripped me up 8 two times! He took away my birthright, and now, look, he has taken away my blessing!” Then he asked, “Have you not kept back a blessing for me?”
1 tn Heb “and Isaac trembled with a great trembling to excess.” The verb “trembled” is joined with a cognate accusative, which is modified by an adjective “great,” and a prepositional phrase “to excess.” All of this is emphatic, showing the violence of Isaac’s reaction to the news.
2 tn Heb “Who then is he who hunted game and brought [it] to me so that I ate from all before you arrived and blessed him?”
3 tn The temporal clause is introduced with the temporal indicator and has the infinitive as its verb.
4 tn Heb “and he yelled [with] a great and bitter yell to excess.”
5 tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Or “took”; “received.”
7 tn Heb “Is he not rightly named Jacob?” The rhetorical question, since it expects a positive reply, has been translated as a declarative statement.
8 sn He has tripped me up. When originally given, the name Jacob was a play on the word “heel” (see Gen 25:26). The name (since it is a verb) probably means something like “may he protect,” that is, as a rearguard, dogging the heels. This name was probably chosen because of the immediate association with the incident of grabbing the heel. Esau gives the name “Jacob” a negative connotation here, the meaning “to trip up; to supplant.”