Study Desk

The first to come out was reddish and covered all over with hair, like a coat; so they named him ‘Esav [completely formed, that is, having hair already].

The men of the place asked him about his wife, and out of fear he said, "She is my sister." He thought, "If I tell them she's my wife, they might kill me in order to take Rivkah. After all, she is a beautiful woman."

They dug another well and quarreled over that one too. So he called it Sitnah [enmity].

He went away from there and dug another well, and over that one they didn't quarrel. So he called it Rechovot [wide open spaces] and said, "Because now Adonai has made room for us, and we will be productive in the land."

They answered, "We saw very clearly that Adonai has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there be an oath between us: let's make a pact between ourselves and you

(v) Yitz'chak prepared a banquet for them, and they ate and drank.

The next morning, they got up early and swore to each other. Then Yitz'chak sent them on their way, and they left him peacefully.

That very day Yitz'chak's servants came and told him about the well they had dug, "We have found water."

But they became a cause for embitterment of spirit to Yitz'chak and Rivkah.

May El Shaddai bless you, make you fruitful and increase your descendants, until they become a whole assembly of peoples.

As he looked, he saw a well in a field; and there were three flocks of sheep lying there next to it; because they watered the sheep from that well. The stone on the well's mouth was large,

and only when all the flocks had gathered there would they roll the stone away from the opening of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place on the well's opening.

He asked them, "Are things going well with him?" "Yes," they answered, "and here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep."

They answered, "We can't, not until all the flocks have been gathered together, and they roll the stone away from the opening of the well. That's when we water the sheep."

Then he set the rods he had peeled upright in the watering troughs, so that the animals would see them when they came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink,

Lavan said to Ya‘akov, "What do you mean by deceiving me and carrying off my daughters as if they were captives taken in war?

You have felt around in all my stuff, but what have you found of all your household goods? Put it here, in front of my kinsmen and yours, so that they can render judgment between the two of us!

(vii) Lavan answered Ya‘akov, "The daughters are mine, the children are mine, the flocks are mine, and everything you see is mine! But what can I do today about these daughters of mine or the children they have borne?

Then Ya‘akov said to his kinsmen, "Gather some stones"; and they took stones, made a pile of them and ate there by the pile of stones.

Ya‘akov offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his kinsmen to the meal. They ate the food and spent the whole night on the mountain.