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To: All
I just want to thank everyone for his comments! (Yes, that's right; the correct possessive pronound for everyone is his!)

I once read a very interesting article on the selling of `Esav's birthright. Most people, reading the story in translation, assume that after `Esav agreed to give Jacob his birthright, then Jacob gave him the soup. But the author of this particular article pointed out that when the Torah's text transitions to the selling it doesn't use the vav hahippukh but the the regular perfect. This implies a non-chronological break in the narrative, meaning that it very well may have been that Jacob had already given `Esav the soup before the topic of the birthright even came up. I've always thought that was interesting. This means that while the translation makes Jacob sound like a nasty schemer who took advantage of his brother's hunger to get something from him, the original Hebrew implies that `Esav had already satisfied his appetite and simply sold his birthright because he was a thoroughly un-spiritual person who didn't appreciate it (and hence was unworthy of it).

11 posted on 11/24/2011 12:13:47 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Ki-hagoy vehamamlakhah 'asher lo'-ya`avdukh yove'du; vehagoyim charov yecheravu.)
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To: Zionist Conspirator
I think there's a very good probability that Esau had disdained his birthright before that incident. We shouldn't forget that they both were living in Jacob's home, so even though Esau was hungry from his hunting trip, there was no danger that he was going to starve - not in his own father's house. The fact that he was willing to give it up for a bowl of soup showed how little it meant to him.

That's a good example for the same mindset with the Arabs and Palestinians in Israel today. Under Israeli rule, there is order, free commerce, jobs, food, medicine, pretty much all they need and most would probably prefer living that way than being at war, terrified of terrorist acts - which kill just as many Muslims as Jews. The facts that their leaders have turned down so many generous - more than generous in my estimation - offers in exchange for peace only shows they really have no such desire for peace but only the elimination of Israel, driving them into the sea. I remember Israel in my prayers regularly.

13 posted on 11/24/2011 11:14:07 PM PST by boatbums ( Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. Titus 3:5)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

I’m not trying to make any kind of point but I’m curious. Why do you think it was so crucially important in Jacob and Esau’s generation who got the blessing but didn’t matter a bit in the next? The descendents of all 12 of Jacob’s sons were in God’s covenant but for some reason Esau’s were cut out.


14 posted on 11/25/2011 6:06:07 AM PST by DManA
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