Genesis 25:30

30 Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!" (Therefore he was called Edom. )

Genesis 25:30 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 25:30

And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same
red [pottage]
Or, "with that same red ^F12, red"; not knowing what it was, or what it was made of, and therefore only calls it by its colour; and the word being doubled, may denote that it was very red; or he, being in haste and greedy of it through hunger, repeats it in a quick and short way: this pottage was made of lentiles, as we learn from ( Genesis 25:34 ) ; which sort of food was much in use with the Egyptians, Egypt abounding with lentiles; and particularly Alexandria was famous for them, from whence they were carried into other countries, as Austin

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 relates. The lentiles of Pelusium, a city in Egypt, are made mention of by Virgil ^F14 and Martial ^F15, for which that place was famous; where, as Servius says ^F16, lentiles were first found, or where they grew the best; and, in the Misnah ^F17, an Egyptian lentil is spoken of, as neither large nor small, but middling. Pliny ^F18 speaks of two sorts of it in Egypt, and says he found it in some authors, that eating of these makes men even tempered, good humoured, and patient; and observes ^F19, that they delight in red earth, or where there is much ruddle, or red ochre, from whence they may receive a red tincture; and the pottage made of them is of such a colour. And Dr. Shaw ^F20 says, that lentiles dissolve easily into a mass, and make a pottage or soup of a chocolate colour, much used in the eastern countries: and, as Scheuchzer observes ^F21, coffee is of the bean kind, and not unlike a lentil, and makes a red decoction. The colour of it took with Esau, as well as it was sweet and savoury, as Athenaeus ^F23 reports; and especially, he being faint and hungry, desires his brother to give him some of it, and even to feed him with it: for I [am] faint;
so faint that he could not feed himself, or however wanted immediate sustenance, and could not wait till other food he had used to live upon was dressed: therefore was his name called Edom;
not from his red hair, but from this red pottage; for Edom signifies "red", and is the same with the names Pyrrhus and Rufus.
F12 (hzh Mdah Mdah-Nm) "de rufo, rufo isto", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius; so Piscator, Schmidt.
F13 Comment. in Psal. xlvi. tom. 8. p. 174.
F14 Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228.
F15 Martial. l. 13. epigr. 9.
F16 In Virgil. ut supra. (Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228)
F17 Misn. Celim. c. 17. sect. 8.
F18 Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 12.
F19 lbid. c. 17.
F20 Travels, p. 140. Ed. 2.
F21 Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 78.
F23 Deipno Sophist. l. 4. c. 14, 15.

Genesis 25:30 In-Context

28 Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished.

30 Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!" (Therefore he was called Edom. )

31 Jacob said, "First sell me your birthright."

32 Esau said, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?"

Footnotes

• [a]. That is [Red]