Study Desk

He that came forth first was red, and hairy like a skin: and his name was called Esau. Immediately the other coming forth, held his brother’s foot in his hand: and therefore he was called Jacob.

Isaac loved Esau, because he ate of his hunting: and Rebecca loved Jacob.

Said: Give me of this red pottage, for I am exceeding faint. For which reason his name was called Edom.

Jacob said: Swear therefore to me. Esau swore to him, and sold his first birthright.

And so taking bread and the pottage of lentils, he ate, and drank, and went on his way; making little account of having sold his first birthright.

And when he was asked by the men of that place, concerning his wife, he answered: She is my sister: for he was afraid to confess that she was his wife, thinking lest perhaps they would kill him because of her beauty.

And when very many days were passed, and he abode there, Abimelech, king of the Palestines, looking out through a window, saw him playing with Rebecca, his wife.

Stopped up at that time all the wells, that the servants of his father, Abraham, had digged, filling them up with earth:

And he digged again other wells, which the servants of his father, Abraham, had digged, and which, after his death, the Philistines had of old stopped up: and he called them by the same names, by which his father before had called them.

And he built there an altar: and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent; and commanded his servants to dig a well.

To which place when Abimelech, and Ochozath his friend, and Phicol chief captain of his soldiers, came from Gerara,

Now Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see: and he called Esau, his elder son, and said to him: My son? And he answered: Here I am.

And his father said to him, Thou seest that I am old, and know not the day of my death.

And when Rebecca had heard this, and he was gone into the field to fulfil his father’s commandment,

And his mother said to him: Upon me be this curse, my son: only hear thou my voice, and go, fetch me the things which I have said.

He went, and brought, and gave them to his mother. She dressed meats, such as she knew his father liked.

And the little skins of the kids she put about his hands, and covered the bare of his neck.

And Isaac said to his son: How couldst thou find it so quickly, my son? He answered: It was the will of God, that what I sought came quickly in my way:

He came near to his father, and when he had felt him, Isaac said: The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob; but the hands, are the hands of Esau.

And he knew him not, because his hairy hands made him like to the elder. Then blessing him,