¹ tn Heb “And the men arose from there.”

² tn Heb “toward the face of.”

³ tn The disjunctive parenthetical clause sets the stage for the following speech.

⁴ tn The Piel of שָׁלַח (shalakh) means “to lead out, to send out, to expel”; here it is used in the friendly sense of seeing the visitors on their way.

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ tn The words “the goats” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁸ tn Heb “his mother.” This has been replaced by the pronoun “she” in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁹ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct after the preposition, followed by the subjective genitive.

¹⁰ tn The action precedes the action of preparing the gift, and so must be translated as past perfect.

¹¹ tn Heb “eat bread.” The imperfect verbal form is used here as a historic future (future from the perspective of the past).