Hebrew Myths (31 page)

Esau cried bitterly: ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob? He has twice
supplanted me
—stealing first my birthright, and now my blessing! Have you kept none for your son Esau?’

Isaac answered: ‘Alas, I appointed Jacob lord over all his brothers, and promised him boundless corn and wine! What blessing is left to bestow on you, my son?’

Esau insisted, weeping: ‘Bless me too, Father, in whatever manner may be fitting!’

So Isaac prophesied again:

Yet Esau hated Jacob for his double-dealing, and swore to himself: ‘As soon as my father dies and the mourning has ended, I will kill him!’
³¹⁴

(
b
) Some say that God sent an angel to detain Esau in the wilderness, while Rebekah prepared the stew and Isaac ate his fill. Whenever, therefore, Esau shot a deer, left its carcase lying, and went in chase of another, the angel both revived and released it. Whenever Esau shot a bird, cut its wings and continued his hunt, the angel made it fly away; thus, in the end, he brought Isaac no better than dog’s meat.
³¹⁵

(
c
) Others say that, though Jacob obeyed his mother because of the Fifth Commandment, he hated the enforced deception: tears streamed from his eyes, inwardly he prayed God to remove this shame, and two angels supported him. But Rebekah, being a prophetess, knew that Jacob must face the ordeal, and said: ‘Courage, my son! When Adam sinned, was not Earth, his mother, cursed? If needs be, I shall tell your father that I have acted in my knowledge of Esau’s evil ways.’ Yet Jacob did not lie to Isaac, saying only: ‘I am your first-born son,’ which was the truth—since he had bought Esau’s birthright.

Others again say that Esau’s garments in which Rebekah clothed him, namely those made by God for Adam and Eve, had now rightfully become Jacob’s, and Isaac recognized their Paradisal fragrance. However, discovering the trick played on him, Isaac grew angry and would have cursed Jacob, but that God warned him: ‘Did you not say “Let your curser be cursed! Let your blesser be blessed!”?’ Then Isaac told Esau: ‘While Jacob is worthy to be served, serve him you must! But when he ceases to obey God’s Law, rebel, and make him your servant!’
³¹⁶

***

1.
The rival twins, their mother, and their moribund father shared a firm belief in the efficacy of his last blessing, which would establish, rather than merely predict, the future of Israel; nor could the words, once pronounced, be unsaid even by himself. If Esau had brought the venison stew in good time, his posterity would have enjoyed Isaac’s blessing and inherited Canaan. The significance of this blessing was that of a property charter. Having
once awarded the fat of the land to Jacob—namely, fertile Western Palestine, watered by dew from Heaven—Isaac could bequeath Esau no more of Abraham’s kingdom than Idumaea, the meagre produce of whose soil his semi-nomadic sons would have to supplement with the sword: by raiding, and by extorting protection money from caravans and the frontier villages of neighbouring peoples (see 35.
2
). ‘Your brother shall you serve!’ looks forward to the period of Edomite vassalage between the reigns of King David and King Jehoram (2
Kings
VIII. 20–22). The second half of Esau’s blessing, which differs in style and rhythm from the first, has been added to justify Edom’s subsequent rebellion.

2
. Though midrashic commentators admitted the efficacy of Isaac’s blessing, they also knew that the prophet Hosea (XII. 3–13) had threatened ‘Jacob’ with punishment for his evil deeds, recalling how he took Esau by the heel at birth, and by his strength made himself a prince, thereafter using deceitful balances, and fleeing to Syria from Esau’s vengeance. A sentence condemning Jacob’s theft of the blessing has evidently been excised by some early editor, and the gap filled (verses 4 and 5) with praise of his wrestling feat at Bethel. The Second Isaiah (
Isaiah
XLIII. 27–28) later declares that Jacob’s sin is at last punished by the Babylonian Exile: ‘Thy first father sinned… therefore… have I given Jacob to condemnation.’

3
. This myth—the first chapter of which has a Greek parallel of Canaanite origin (see 38. 2)—became fixed in Hebrew tradition at a time when to be ‘a man of many wiles’, like the cruel and treacherous Odysseus, was still a noble trait. Indeed, Autolycus the Greek master-thief, Odysseus’s grandfather, can be identified with Jacob in the Laban context (see 46.
a. b.
and
1
). Yet lies and thieving were strictly forbidden by the Law to God-fearing Jews of rabbinic days (
Leviticus
XIX. 11 reads: ‘Ye shall not steal, nor lie to one another!’), who thus faced a cruel dilemma. They held that the fate of the Universe hung on their ancestor Jacob’s righteousness, as the legitimate heir to God’s Promised Land. Should they suppress the Esau-Jacob myth, and thereby forfeit Isaac’s blessing? Or should they agree that refusal of food to a starving man, conspiracy to rob a brother, and deceit of a blind father are justifiable when a man plays for high enough stakes? Unable to accept either alternative, they recast the story: Jacob was bound, they explained, by obedience to his mother; hated the part she forced on him; took pains to evade downright lies. Since Esau married Hittite wives whose idolatry distressed Rebekah (see 42.
a
), they equated him with the Wicked Kingdom of Rome, whose officers and agents it was permissible to deceive, and made Jacob their exemplar of how to survive in a hostile world. Though unwilling to excuse his deceit on the ground that he lived before the Mosaic Law was promulgated—the Law, for them, preceded Creation—they could at least portray him as decoyed into sin by
Rebekah, a woman who, from a prophetic sense of Israel’s future, had taken the curse on her own head.

4
. The late-first-century Jewish author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews
(XII. 16–17) characteristically argues that Esau, a profane fornicator who bartered his birthright for a ‘morsel of food’, was rejected when he afterwards tried to inherit the first-born’s blessing, because he could not repudiate this sale.

(
a
) At the age of forty, Esau brought two Hittite wives to Hebron: Judith, daughter of Beeri—though some name her Aholibamah the Hivite—and Basemath, or Adah, daughter of Elon. Their idolatry vexed Isaac and Rebekah, to please whom he married a third, God-fearing wife: namely, Basemath, or Mahalath, daughter of his uncle Ishmael.
³¹⁷

(
b
) Some say that Esau’s love for Isaac and Rebekah turned to hatred when they condoned Jacob’s theft. He thought: ‘I will marry a daughter of Ishmael, and make him insist on having the forced sale of my birthright annulled. When Isaac refuses this, Ishmael will kill him. As my father’s blood-avenger, I shall then kill Ishmael; and thus inherit the wealth of both.’ Yet to Ishmael he said no more than: ‘Abraham bequeathed all that he had to your younger brother Isaac, and sent you off to die in the wilderness. Now Isaac plans to treat me likewise. Take vengeance on your usurping brother, and so shall I on mine.’ Ishmael asked: ‘Why should I kill your father Isaac, when it is you whom he has wronged?’ Esau answered: ‘Cain murdered his brother Abel; but no son has hitherto committed parricide.’ God, however, reading Esau’s evil thoughts, said: ‘I shall make public what you planned in secret!’
³¹⁸

(
c
) Ishmael died soon after Basemath’s betrothal; and Nebaioth, his eldest son, therefore gave her to Esau. Meanwhile, Ishmael had renamed Basemath ‘Mahalath’, as a means of distinguishing her from Esau’s Hittite wife of that name, and in hope that this marriage would make God
forgive
Esau’s wickedness. Here, indeed, was Esau’s opportunity to win God’s favour at last; but since he would not send away his other wives, they soon corrupted Mahalath. All her sons intermarried with idolatrous Horites and Seirites.
³¹⁹

(
d
) The Edomite tribes were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam and Kenaz, grandsons of Adah by Eliphaz; Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah, grandsons of Basemath by Reuel; Amalek, son of Timna by Eliphaz; Jeush, Jalam and Korah, sons of Aholibamah by Esau.
³²⁰

***

1
. The chroniclers of
Genesis
named Edom’s three ancestresses from hearsay. One of them had certainly been Basemath; but the other two were remembered as either Judith and Mahalath, or Adah and Aholibamah.
Basemath
may mean ‘perfumed’.
Aholibamah
means ‘my tent is exalted’;
Adah
, ‘assembly’. ‘Aholibamah the
Hivite’
is probably a misreading of
Horite
.

2. Genesis
XXXVI. 10–14 lists the sons of Esau matrilineally, as
Genesis
XXXV. 23–26 has listed the sons of Jacob. Jacob’s sons had four ancestresses: Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah (see 45.
a–c
). Perhaps because Esau’s sons had only three such, the chronicler has added another—Timna, sister of Lotan (Lot)—to point a parallel. The earlier confederacies seem to have corresponded with the twelve signs of the Zodiac (see 43.
d
).

3
. Edom’s genealogical tree closely matches that of Israel, as the following tables show:

THE SONS OF ISRAEL

THE SONS OF EDOM

4.
Six of these Edomite tribal names, namely Kenaz, Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, Jeush and Korah, occur also as proper names in the Israelite tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi—proof of the close relations between Edom and Judaea. Moreover,
Judith
, ‘Praise of God’, is the feminine form of
Judah;
and ‘Aholibamah’, in its associated form ‘Aholibah’, is the symbolic
name given to Judah by Ezekiel (XXIII) when he condemns idolatrous practices at Jerusalem. The tribe of Judah was early expanded by addition of the Edomite Kenizzites (
Numbers
XXXII. 12 and
Judges
I. 13) and Kenites (
Judges
I. 16), who included the Calebites and lived in Amalek’s territory (1
Samuel
XV. 6).

5
. The ‘sons of Eliphaz’, according to
Genesis
XXXVI. 10–12, were grandsons of Esau and his wife Adah, but are subsequently described as ‘sons of Adah’ (verse 16). The grandsons of Basemath are also described as her sons in verses 13 and 17, and in verse 19 as ‘sons of Esau’. Similarly, in
Genesis
XLVIII. 5–6, Jacob’s grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh become his ‘sons’, thus eliminating the tribe of their father Joseph; but Ephraim seems to have won its position by absorbing the matriarchal tribe of Dinah (see 49.
3
). The priestly tribe of Levi, which was allotted no tribal territory, corresponded with the ambiguous, and therefore holy, thirteenth tribe. These thirteen tribes were symbolized by the almond rods stored in the Sanctuary at Moses’ orders, of which Aaron’s alone put forth buds: thereby designating Levi as God’s choice for the priesthood (
Numbers
XVII. 16–24). Almonds symbolized holy wisdom, and the Seven-branched Candlestick, or
Menorah
, was carved with almond leaves (Exodus XXV. 31).

6
.
Genesis
emphasizes the continual struggle of these patriarchal Hebrews against their matrilineal neighbours (see 36.
1
). Since Esau compromised between the two systems, midrashic commentators felt at liberty to place the worst possible construction on his marriage into Ishmael’s patriarchal clan.

(
a
) Rebekah called Jacob and said: ‘Esau plans to kill you, and Ishmael will then avenge your death. But why should I lose two sons in one day? Take refuge with my brother Laban at Padan-Aram, and when Esau’s anger has abated I will send you word.’ To Isaac she said: ‘These Hittite wives of Esau make me weary of life! If Jacob, too, were to marry an idolatress, the shame would kill me.’ Isaac thereupon warned Jacob: ‘My son, do not take a Canaanite wife! Instead, go to Padan-Aram and choose one of your uncle Laban’s twin-daughters.’ And he prophesied again: