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Toldot
Genesis 25:19 - 28:9
Isaac marries Rebecca. After twenty
childless years their prayers are answered and Rebecca
conceives. She experiences a difficult pregnancy as the
"children struggle inside her"; G-d tells her that
"there are two nations in your womb", and that the
younger will prevail over the elder.
Esau emerges first; Jacob is born clutching Esau's heel.
Esau grows up to be "a cunning hunter, a man of the
field"; Jacob is "a wholesome man", a dweller in the
tents of learning. Isaac favors Esau; Rebecca loves
Jacob. Returning exhausted and hungry from the hunt one
day, Esau sells his birthright (his rights as the
firstborn) to Jacob for a pot of red lentil stew.
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In Gerar, in the
land of the Philistines, Isaac presents Rebecca as his
sister, out of fear that he will be killed by someone
coveting her beauty. He farms the land, reopens the
wells dug by his father Abraham, and bores a series of
his own wells: over the first two there is strife with
the Philistines, but the waters of the third well are
enjoyed in tranquility.
Esau marries two Hittite women. Isaac grows old and
blind, and expresses his desire to bless Esau before he
dies. While Esau goes off to hunt for his father's
favorite food, Rebecca dresses Jacob in Esau's clothes,
covers his arms and neck with goatskins to simulate the
feel of his hairier brother, prepares a similar dish,
and sends Jacob to his father. Jacob receives his
fathers' blessings for "the dew of the heaven and the
fat of the land" and mastery over his brother. When Esau
returns and the deception is revealed, all Isaac can do
for his weeping son is to predict that he will live by
his sword, and that when Jacob falters, the younger
brother will forfeit his supremacy over the elder.
Jacob leaves home for Charan to flee Esau's wrath and to
find a wife in the family of his mother's brother, Laban.
Esau marries a third wife -- Machlat, the daughter of
Ishmael.
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