Genesis 25:28

28 Yitz'chak favored 'Esav, because he had a taste for game; Rivkah favored Ya'akov.

Genesis 25:28 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 25:28

And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of [his] venison,
&c.] Better than Jacob, not only because he was his firstborn, but because he brought him of the flesh of creatures, which he took in hunting, and being dressed, were savoury food to him: it is in the original, "because venison (or what he hunted) [was] in his mouth" ^F8, into which he put it, and was very grateful to his taste: but Rebekah loved Jacob;
more than Esau, being more at home with her, and of a milder disposition; and more especially being a good man, a partaker of the grace of God, and to whom she knew by the oracle the blessing and promise belonged.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 (wypb dyu yk) "quia venatio in ore ejus", Pagninus, Montanus.

Genesis 25:28 In-Context

26 Then his brother emerged, with his hand holding 'Esav's heel, so he was called Ya'akov [he catches by the heel, he supplants]. Yitz'chak was sixty years old when she bore them.

27 The boys grew; and 'Esav became a skillful hunter, an outdoorsman; while Ya'akov was a quiet man who stayed in the tents.

28 Yitz'chak favored 'Esav, because he had a taste for game; Rivkah favored Ya'akov.

29 One day when Ya'akov had cooked some stew, 'Esav came in from the open country, exhausted,

30 and said to Ya'akov, "Please! Let me gulp down some of that red stuff - that red stuff! I'm exhausted!" (This is why he was called Edom [red].)