31Early in the morning, they exchanged oaths. Isaac then bade them farewell, and they departed from him in peace. 32That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water!” 33He named it Shibah;d therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.
34When Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite; 35and they were a source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.
27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” He answered, “Here I am.” 2And he said, “I am old now, and I do not know how soon I may die. 3Take your gear, your quiver and bow, and go out into the open and hunt me some game. 4Then prepare a dish for me such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my innermost blessing before I die.”
5Rebekah had been listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau had gone out into the open to hunt game to bring home, 6Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I overheard your father speaking to your brother Esau, saying, 7‘Bring me some game and prepare a dish for me to eat, that I may bless you, with the LORD’s approval, before I die.’ 8Now, my son, listen carefully as I instruct you. 9Go to the flock and fetch me two choice kids, and I will make of them a dish for your father, such as he likes. 10Then take it to your father to eat, in order that he may bless you before he dies.” 11Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am smooth-skinned. 12If my father touches me, I shall appear to him as a trickster and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.” 13But his mother said to him, “Your curse, my son, be upon me! Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.”
14He got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a dish such as his father liked. 15Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were there in the house, and had her younger son Jacob put them on; 16and she covered his hands and the hairless part of his neck with the skins of the kids. 17Then she put in the hands of her son Jacob the dish and the bread that she had prepared.
18He went to his father and said, “Father.” And he said, “Yes, which of my sons are you?” 19Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your first- born; I have done as you told me. Pray sit up and eat of my game, that you may give me your innermost blessing.” 20Isaac said to his son, “How did you succeed so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the LORD your God granted me good fortune.” 21Isaac said to Jacob, “Come closer that I may feel you, my son—whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 22So Jacob drew close to his father Isaac, who felt him and wondered. “The voice is the voice of Jacob, yet the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; and so he blessed him.
24He asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And when he said, “I am,” 25he said, “Serve me and let me eat of my son’s game that I may give you my innermost blessing.” So he served him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank. 26Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come close and kiss me, my son”; 27and he went up and kissed him. And he smelled his clothes and he blessed him, saying, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that the LORD has blessed.
28“May God give you
Of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth,
Abundance of new grain and wine.
29Let peoples serve you,
And nations bow to you;
Be master over your brothers,
And let your mother’s sons bow to you.
Cursed be they who curse you,
Blessed they who bless you.”
30No sooner had Jacob left the presence of his father Isaac—after Isaac had finished blessing Jacob—than his brother Esau came back from his hunt. 31He too prepared a dish and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may give me your innermost blessing.” 32His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” And he said, “I am your son, Esau, your first-born!” 33Isaac was seized with very violent trembling. “Who was it then,” he demanded, “that hunted game and brought it to me? Moreover, I ate of it before you came, and I blessed him; now he must remain blessed!” 34When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst into wild and bitter sob- bing, and said to his father, “Bless me too, Father!” 35But he answered, “Your brother came with guile and took away your blessing.” 36[Esau] said, “Was he, then, named Jacob that he might supplant mea these two times? First he took away my birthright and now he has taken away my blessing!” And he added, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” 37Isaac answered, saying to Esau, “But I have made him master over you: I have given him all his brothers for servants, and sustained him with grain and wine. What, then, can I still do for you, my son?” 38And Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!” And Esau wept aloud. 39And his father Isaac answered, saying to him,
“See, your abode shall b-enjoy the fat of the earth
Andb- the dew of heaven above.
40Yet by your sword you shall live,
And you shall serve your brother;
But when you grow restive,
You shall break his yoke from your neck.”
41Now Esau harbored a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him, and Esau said to himself, “Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob.” 42When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. 43Now, my son, listen to me. Flee at once to Haran, to my brother Laban. 44Stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury subsides—45until your brother’s anger against you subsides—and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will fetch you from there. Let me not lose you both in one day!”
28 46Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like these, from among the native women, what good will life be to me?” 1So Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him. He instructed him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from among the Canaanite women. 2Up, go to Paddan- aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 3May El Shaddaia bless you, make you fertile and numerous, so that you become an assembly of peoples. 4May He grant the blessing of Abraham to you and your offspring, that you may possess the land where you are sojourn- ing, which God assigned to Abraham.”
5Then Isaac sent Jacob off, and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, mother of Jacob and Esau.
6When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, charging him, as he blessed him, “You shall not take a wife from among the Canaanite women,” 7and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram, 8Esau realized that the Canaanite women displeased his father Isaac. 9So Esau went to Ishmael and took to wife, in addition to the wives he had, Ma- halath the daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, sister of Nebaioth.
10Jacob left Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran. 11He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12He had a dream; a stairwayb was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it.
13And the LORD was standing beside him and He said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. 14Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. 15Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever
