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Parashat Toledot
Esau and Jacob
Now these are the genealogies of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham fathered Isaac.
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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.
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When the boys grew up, Esau became a man knowledgeable in hunting, an outdoorsman, while Jacob was a mild man, remaining in tents.
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Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
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Now Jacob cooked a stew. When Esau came in from the field, he was exhausted,
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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.
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So Jacob said, “Sell your birthright to me today.”
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Jacob said, “Make a pledge to me now.” So he made a pledge to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
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Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.
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Jacob Tricks Isaac
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.
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Rebekah said to Jacob her son, “Look, I heard your father speaking to your brother Esau saying,
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But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I’m a smooth man.
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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,
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She put the delicious meal and the bread that she had prepared in the hand of Jacob her son.
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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.”
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Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can feel you my son—whether or not you really are my son Esau.”
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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.”
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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.
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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?”
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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!”
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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.
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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?”
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Jacob Sent to Laban
So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him, commanded him and said to him, “Don’t take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
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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.
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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.”