Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with some of that red stew, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom.
Parallel Translations
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Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with some of that red stew, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom.
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And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
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And Esau said to Jacob: 'Let me swallow, I pray thee, some of this red, red pottage; for I am faint.' Therefore was his name called Edom.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Genesis 25:30 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 36:1 Now this is the history of the generations of Esau (that is, Edom).
- Genesis 36:9 This is the history of the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir:
- Genesis 36:43 chief Magdiel, and chief Iram. These are the chiefs of Edom, according to their habitations in the land of their possession. This is Esau, the father of the Edomites.
- Exodus 15:15 Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed. Trembling takes hold of the mighty men of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
- Numbers 20:14-21 Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: “Your brother Israel says: You know all the travail that has happened to us; how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers. When we cried to Yahweh, he heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. Behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the edge of your border. “Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink from the water of the wells. We will go along the king’s highway. We will not turn away to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border.” Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through me, lest I come out with the sword against you.” The children of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway; and if we drink your water, I and my livestock, then I will give its price. Only let me, without doing anything else, pass through on my feet.” He said, “You shall not pass through.” Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, so Israel turned away from him.
- Deuteronomy 23:7 You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.
- 2 Kings 8:20 In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 30. Feed me, I pray thee, with that same…
30. Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage Although Esau declares in these words that he by no means desires delicacies, but is content with food of any kind, (seeing that he contemptuously designates the pottage from its color only, without regard to its taste,) we may yet lawfully conjecture that the affair was viewed in a serious light by his parents; for his own name had not been given him on account of any ludicrous matter. In desiring and asking food he commits nothing worthy of reprehension; but when he says, Behold I am at the point to die, and what profit shall this birthright do to me? he betrays a profane desire entirely addicted to the earth and to the flesh. It is not, indeed, to be doubted that he spake sincerely, when he declared that he was impelled by a sense of the approach of death. For they are under a misapprehension who understand him to use the words, “Behold I die,” as if he meant merely to say, that his life would not be long, because, by hunting daily among wild beasts, his life was in constant danger. Therefore, in order to escape immediate death, he exchanges his birthright for food; notwithstanding, he grievously sins in so doing, because he regards his birthright as of no value, unless it may be made profitable in the present life. For, hence it happens, that he barters a spiritual for an earthly and fading good. On this account the Apostle calls him a “profane person,” (Hebrews 12:16,) as one who settles in the present life, and will not aspire higher. But it would have been his true wisdom rather to undergo a thousand deaths than to renounce his birthright; which, so far from being confined within the narrow limits of one age alone, was capable of transmitting the perpetuity of a heavenly life to his posterity also. Now, let each of us look well to himself; for since the disposition of us all is earthly, if we follow nature as our leader, we shall easily renounce the celestial inheritance. Therefore, we should frequently recall to mind the Apostle’s exhortation, “Let us not be profane persons as Esau was.”
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Or, feed me quickly.
Or, feed me quickly.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 25:30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me,…
Gen 25:30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red [pottage]; for I [am] faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
Ver. 30. Feed me, I pray thee, with that red, red.] He doubleth it, and could not, for haste and hunger, tell what to call it, to show his greediness. {a} And saith, "Feed me," or let me swallow at once; as camels are fed by casting gobbets into their mouth. He thought he should never have enough Our proverb is, As hungry as a hunter: but this hunter hath no he with him, and is therefore branded for a "profane" {Heb 12:16} sensualist, Edom. The word used for a glutton, {Deu 21:20} is used for a vile person, or a worthless person. {Jer 15:19}
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{a} Geminatio indicat vehementiam appetitus - Pareus.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Red pottage; red by the infusion of lentiles, or…
Red pottage; red by the infusion of lentiles, or saffron, or some other things of that colour. The word is doubled in the Hebrew text, to show how vehemently he desired it.
Edom, which signifies red; as he was at first so called from the colour of his hair, so now that name was confirmed and given to him afresh upon this occasion: q.d. He was rightly called Edom, or red, not only historically for his colour, but prophetically for this accident.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray…
And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage,.... Or, "with that same red (l), 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 Gen 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 (m) relates. The lentiles of Pelusium, a city in Egypt, are made mention of by Virgil (n) and Martial (o), for which that place was famous; where, as Servius says (p), lentiles were first found, or where they grew the best; and, in the Misnah (q), an Egyptian lentil is spoken of, as neither large nor small, but middling. Pliny (r) 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 (s), 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 (t) 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 (u), 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 (w) 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:
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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.
(l) "de rufo, rufo isto", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius; so Piscator, Schmidt. (m) Comment. in Psal. xlvi. tom. 8. p. 174. (n) Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228. (o) Martial. l. 13. epigr. 9. (p) In Virgil. ut supra. (Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228) (q) Misn. Celim. c. 17. sect. 8. (r) Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 12. (s) lbid. c. 17. (t) Travels, p. 140. Ed. 2. (u) Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 78. (w) Deipno Sophist. l. 4. c. 14, 15.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Edom - That is, red.
Edom - That is, red.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 30. I am faint] It appears from the…
Verse 30. I am faint] It appears from the whole of this transaction, that Esau was so completely exhausted by fatigue that he must have perished had he not obtained some immediate refreshment. He had been either hunting or labouring in the field, and was now returning for the purpose of getting some food, but had been so exhausted that his strength utterly failed before he had time to make the necessary preparations.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Give me, &c. Hebrew, "make me devour this red;"…
Give me, &c. Hebrew, "make me devour this red;" which denotes, the very red quality of the pottage, and the greediness of Esau. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 30. Feed me … with] i.e. “let me, I…
30. Feed me … with] i.e. “let me, I pray thee, swallow a little of.”
that same red pottage] Heb. the red pottage, this red pottage. Esau’s words repeat the adjective “red”: either this was the name by which the pottage was known, or else Esau in his faintness and weariness is represented as simply pointing and gasping out “that red, red mess1[22].”
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[22] “The phrase ‘mess of pottage’ does not occur in the A.V. of 1611, but is used proverbially of the means whereby Esau sold his birthright (Genesis 25.). The actual phrase was used in the heading to this chapter of Genesis in the Bibles of 1537 and 1539, and in the Geneva Bible of 1560. Coverdale, in his Bible of 1535, used the phrase in other passages, viz. in 1Ch_16:3 and Pro_20:7, but not in Genesis 25. See A New English Dictionary (Oxford University Press),” Spectator, Nov. 29, 1913.
therefore was his name called] A separate tradition accounting for the origin of the name “Edom”: see note on Gen_25:25.
Edom] That is, Red.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And Esau said unto Jacob, Feed me (literally, let…
And Esau said unto Jacob, Feed me (literally, let me swallow, an expression for eating greedily), I pray thee, with that same red pottage; literally, of that red, red (sc. pottage), or thing, in his excitement forgetting the name of the dish (Knobel), or indicative of the haste produced by his voracious appetite (Wordsworth, Luther), though the duplication of the term red has been explained as a witty play upon the resemblance of the lentil broth to his own red skin, as thus: "Feed with that red me the red one" (Lange)for I am faint (vide supra, ver. 29): therefore was his name called Edomi.e. red. "There is no discrepancy in ascribing his name both to his complexion and the color of the lentil broth. The propriety of a name may surely be marked by different circumstances" (A. G. in Lunge). The Arabians are fond of giving surnames of that kind to famous persons. Cf. Akil-al Murat, which was given to Hodjr, king of the Kendites, owing to his wife saying in a passion, "He is like a camel that devours bushes" (vide Havernick, "Introduction,"
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 25:30 Esau was preoccupied with his appetite. Being driven…
25:30 Esau was preoccupied with his appetite. Being driven by one’s appetites leaves no place for spiritual values. The text emphasizes this by using a Hebrew word (translated give) that was normally used for feeding animals. • Edom, which means “red”: See study note on 25:25.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.