“Esau too receives a blessing (vv. 39–40) that is remarkably similar to Jacob’s. Two glaring differences stand out. First, Esau’s blessing reverses the first two lines of Jacob’s blessing, leading many scholars incorrectly to regard it as a curse or anti-blessing. Second, and most importantly, God appears nowhere in the blessing of Esau. Taken in tandem, this second fact is not a denigration of Esau for the future but is simply a concern to show that the ancestral promise will go to Jacob, not Esau.”—Jacob and the Divine Trickster, page 80
<idle musing>
It is all about the ancestral promise. Today's statement makes better use of the evidence than yesterday's condemnation of Esau as unworthy...
</idle musing>
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2 comments:
James, I think the earlier 'Esau' post is unfairly taken out of context. When read, rightly, alongside what you post today (as well as the relevant footnotes in the first chapter from Kaminsky and Brueggemann) the picture comes into sharper focus. I DO think the narrative has in mind not to "condemn" Esau but to make it clear in a variety of ways that HE is not fit to carry the ancestral promise forward. By not receiving a divine word (when, remarkably, Rebekah does, as does the marginal and ineffective Isaac, and the trickster Jacob), the deafening silence of Esau not hearing a divine word is significant.
John,
That might be—but I'm the one doing the excerpting! :) I'm glad you clarified it here, though. I agree that the fact that Esau was tone-deaf to the word of YHWH is significant.
James
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