Parashat Toledot

Esau and Jacob

¹⁹ Now these are the genealogies of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham fathered Isaac. ²⁰ Isaac was 40 years old when he took for himself Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. ²¹ Isaac prayed to Adonai on behalf of his wife because she was barren. Adonai answered his plea and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

²² But the children struggled with one another inside her, and she said, “If it’s like this, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of Adonai. ²³ Adonai said to her:

²⁴ When her time came to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. ²⁵ Now the first came out reddish, all of him was like a fur coat, and they named him Esau. ²⁶ Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding onto Esau’s heel—so he was named Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when he fathered them.

²⁷ When the boys grew up, Esau became a man knowledgeable in hunting, an outdoorsman, while Jacob was a mild man, remaining in tents. ²⁸ Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

²⁹ Now Jacob cooked a stew. When Esau came in from the field, he was exhausted, ³⁰ so Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me some of this really red stuff, because I’m exhausted”—that is why he is called Edom.

³¹ So Jacob said, “Sell your birthright to me today.”

³² Esau said, “Look, I’m about to die. Of whatever use is this to me—a birthright?”

³³ Jacob said, “Make a pledge to me now.”

So he made a pledge to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ^{[a] 34} Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.

Confirming the Covenant with Isaac

26 Now there was a famine in the land—aside from the previous famine that happened in Abraham’s days. So Isaac went to King Abimelech of the Philistines, to Gerar. ² Then Adonai appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land about which I tell you. ³ Live as an outsider in this land and I will be with you and bless you—for to you and to your seed I give all these lands—and I will confirm my pledge that I swore to Abraham your father. ⁴ I will multiply your seed like the stars of the sky and I will give your seed all these lands. And in your seed all the nations of the earth will continually be blessed, ⁵ because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My mitzvot, My decrees, and My instructions.” ⁶ So Isaac stayed in Gerar.

⁷ Now the men of the place asked about his wife. So he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “my wife”—“or else the men of the place would kill me on account of Rebekah, because she’s good looking.”

⁸ Now after he had been there for a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines peered down through the window and saw, behold, Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. ⁹ So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “So in fact she’s your wife! Now how could you say, ‘She’s my sister’?”

Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Or else I might die because of her.’”

¹⁰ Then Abimelech said, “What is it that you’ve done to us? One of the people could have easily slept with your wife and you would’ve brought guilt on us.”

¹¹ So Abimelech commanded all the people saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife will surely die!”

Adonai Blesses Isaac

¹² Then Isaac sowed in that land and in that year reaped a hundredfold. Adonai blessed him ¹³ and the man became great and continued to become greater until he became very great. ¹⁴ He acquired livestock of sheep and livestock of cattle, and numerous servants. Then the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵ All the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham the Philistines stopped up and filled with dirt. ¹⁶ So Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much more powerful than us.”

¹⁷ So Isaac departed from there, camped in the Valley of Gerar and dwelled there. ¹⁸ Then Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham—the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham’s death. He gave them the same names that his father had given them. ¹⁹ Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of living water there. ²⁰ But the shepherds of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s shepherds saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Quarrel, because they quarreled with him. ²¹ Then he dug another well and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Accusation. ²² Then he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he named it Wide Spaces and said, “Because now Adonai has created wide spaces for us and we will be fruitful in the land.”

²³ He went up from there to Beer-sheba. ²⁴ Adonai appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your seed for the sake of Abraham my servant.”

²⁵ So he built an altar there and called on the Name of Adonai. He pitched his tent there and Isaac’s servants hollowed out a well there.

Covenant of Isaac and Abimelech

²⁶ Now Abimelech went to him from Gerar along with Achuzzat his friend and Phicol the commander of his army. ²⁷ Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me and sent me away from you?”

²⁸ They said, “We’ve clearly seen that Adonai has been with you. So we said, ‘Let there now be an agreement between us—between us and you—and let us make a covenant with you: ²⁹ that you will do us no harm, just as we haven’t touched you and just as we did nothing to you but good, and sent you away in shalom. You are now blessed by Adonai.”

³⁰ Then he made a feast for them and they ate and drank. ³¹ Then they got up early in the morning and made a pledge, each to his brother. Then Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in shalom. ³² Now it happened that on that day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they dug, and said to him, “We’ve found water.” ³³ So he called it Pledge. That is why the city’s name is Beer-sheba to this day.

³⁴ When Esau was 40 years old, he took as wife Judith the daughter of Be-eri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵ But they caused a bitterness of spirit for Isaac and Rebekah.

Jacob Tricks Isaac

27 Now it was when Isaac grew old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called Esau his elder son, and said to him, “My son.”

“Here I am,” he said to him.

² “Look, I’m old,” he said. “I don’t know the day of my death. ³ So now, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt me some game. ⁴ Then prepare me a delicious meal that I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.”

⁵ Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac was speaking to Esau his son. So while Esau went to the field to hunt game to bring in, ⁶ Rebekah said to Jacob her son, “Look, I heard your father speaking to your brother Esau saying, ⁷ ‘Bring me some game and prepare me a delicious meal that I may eat and bless you in Adonai’s presence before my death.’ ⁸ So now, my son, listen to my voice, to what I am commanding you. ⁹ Go now to the flock and bring me two good young goats from there, so that I may prepare them as a delicious meal for your father—that he’ll love. ¹⁰ Then you’ll bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before his death.”

¹¹ But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I’m a smooth man. ¹² Perhaps my father will touch me, and he’ll take me for a mocker, and I’ll bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.”

¹³ Then his mother said to him, “Let your curse fall on me, my son. Just listen to me, and go, get them for me.”

¹⁴ So he went and got them, and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a delicious meal that his father would love. ¹⁵ Rebekah also took her elder son Esau’s favorite clothes that were with her in the house, and she put them on her younger son Jacob, ¹⁶ along with the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the hairless part of his neck. ¹⁷ She put the delicious meal and the bread that she had prepared in the hand of Jacob her son.

¹⁸ Then he came to his father and said, “My father.”

And he said, “I’m here. Who are you, my son?”

¹⁹ Then Jacob said to his father, “I’m your firstborn, Esau. I’ve done just what you said to me. Sit up, please, and eat some of my wild game so that your soul may bless me.”

²⁰ Then Isaac said to his son, “How in the world were you able to find it so quickly, my son?”

He said, “Because Adonai your God made it happen for me.”

²¹ Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can feel you my son—whether or not you really are my son Esau.”

²² So Jacob came closer to his father Isaac, and he felt him. Then he said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice but the hands are Esau’s hands.” ²³ He did not recognize him because his hands were like the hairy hands of his brother Esau. So he blessed him. ²⁴ But he said, “Are you really my son Esau?”

So he said, “I am.”

²⁵ Then he said, “Bring it to me and I’ll eat some of my son’s wild game, so that my soul may bless you.” So he brought it to him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank.

²⁶ Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come closer and kiss me my son.” ²⁷ So he came closer and kissed him. When he smelled the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said,

³⁰ No sooner had Isaac finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had just gone out from his father Isaac’s presence, than Esau his brother came in from his hunting. ³¹ Then he also prepared a delicious meal and brought it to his father, and he said to his father, “Let my father get up and eat of his son’s wild game that your soul may bless me.”

³² His father Isaac said, “Who are you?”

And he said, “I am your son, your first-born, Esau.”

³³ Then Isaac trembled with intense trembling and said, “Who was it then that hunted wild game and brought it to me? I ate it all just before you came and I blessed him—and yes, he will be blessed.”

³⁴ When Esau heard his father’s words, he shouted with an intensely bitter groan. Then he said to his father, “Bless me, me too, my father!”

³⁵ Then he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

³⁶ He said, “Is this why he was named Jacob—since he’s tricked me twice already? My birthright he’s taken. Look! Now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he said, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?”

³⁷ Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Behold, I’ve made him master over you, and all your brothers I’ve given to him as servants. I’ve provided him with grain and new wine. What then can I do for you, my son?”

³⁸ Esau said to his father, “Do you just have one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

³⁹ Then Isaac his father said to him,

⁴¹ So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “Let the time for mourning my father draw near, so that I can kill my brother Jacob!”

⁴² Now to Rebekah was reported the words of Esau her elder son. So she sent and called for Jacob her younger son, and said to him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself about you with the thought of killing you. ⁴³ So now my son, listen to my voice. Get up—flee to Laban my brother in Haran! ⁴⁴ Then stay with him a few days, until your brother’s rage subsides, ⁴⁵ until your brother’s rage turns away from you and he forgets what you’ve done to him. Then I’ll send for you and get you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

⁴⁶ Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m disgusted with my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth like these women, from the daughters of the land what is life to me?”

Jacob Sent to Laban

28 So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him, commanded him and said to him, “Don’t take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. ² Get up, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take for yourself a wife from there, from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. ³ Now may El Shaddai bless you, and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you will become an assembly of peoples. ⁴ And may he give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed with you that you may take possession of the land of your sojourn, which God gave to Abraham.”

⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob away and he went toward Paddan-aram, to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. ⁶ Now Esau saw that Isaac blessed Jacob when he sent him to Paddan-aram to take for himself a wife from there, when he blessed him and commanded him saying, “Don’t take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.” ⁷ Jacob listened to his father Isaac and to his mother and went toward Paddan-aram. ⁸ Then Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan were contemptible in his father Isaac’s eyes. ⁹ So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, Nebaioth’s sister for his wife, besides his other wives.