A midrash, found in Genesis Rabbah (mid-first millennium C.E. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the rabbinic association of Esau with Rome and Christianity is that when we last see Esau in the Hebrew Bible, he has reconciled with his brother Jacob, and they live near one another, if not among one another, in peace. Both women had a crisis of identity – Rachel wasn’t a mother and Leah wasn’t really a wife in her own eyes. They already did the movie “Get Out”. • Asaph: Asaph was one of the worship leaders appointed by King David. The biblical text explains that the two groups, Israel (=Jacob) and Edom (=Esau), are “brothers.” The Edomites are the older group, which the Bible confirms in a number of texts that describe Edom having a kingdom before the Israelites do (Gen 36:31-39, Num 20:14-21, Deut 2:2-8). During Herod’s time, and on through the destruction of the Temple and the putting down of the Bar Kokhba rebellion, Rome was polytheistic, worshipping Jupiter and other Roman deities. As with Bilhah’s offspring, Zilpah’s children are claimed and named by Leah as her own. And since Rome was the great power in the region throughout the rabbinic period, and the Romans destroyed the Temple and the polity of Judea, it was natural to apply the “us-them” narrative of Esau and Jacob to the us-them reality of Rome and the Jews. Episode 86: Mark Part 28–Herod and John the Baptist’s Ghost? Tyler Dawn – How Many Wives did Jacob Have? But instead of saying that Esau is the ancestor of Christianity, they describe him as the ancestor of Rome. Her father contracted with her husband’s father that she would be a wife in that house, that she would provide heirs to the house who would have rights to his share of the inheritance. The abhorrence of Esau towards Jacob… ), also connects Emperor Hadrian with Esau (Gen. Rab. Genesis Rabbah continues this midrash with a different reading, suggesting that these are two hated nations: Although Rebekah’s twin sons are both progenitors of the two nations most hated by other nations, only one of the sons is also hated by God. [10] The rabbis detested him, associating him with other unstable rulers whose cruelty would become the hallmark of their ruling governments, such as Caligula and Nero. Now we get to your verse – if he sends her away and she has provided him with children – despite the fact that he hates her he cannot treat her sons with contempt when it comes time to give the inheritance. For example, a prophecy about the destruction of Edom appears in Isaiah 63:1, which begins when the prophet sees a vision of a man (or a being) with stained garments: Asked why his garments are so red, he answers that it is because he has been trampling people in his rage and their blood has splattered on his clothing. John 10:30) is ‘hen’ and the word used by Paul in those instances is mia. I love reading and studying from you. This was the legal world and social context of the time of the Patriarchs. 8 So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; 9 and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth. 1. The reference to Rome and Christianity as Esau thus indicates that Rome, and even more powerfully, Christianity, is a sibling to Judaism. Don’t miss the latest essays from TheTorah.com. well, that did go well. ), glossing the scene in which Jacob dons furry goat skins to pretend to be his hairy brother Esau, and Isaac, who can no longer see in his old age, grows perplexed: The Jerusalem Talmud suggests that Isaac’s statement alludes to the pain that Esau’s descendants will cause Jacob’s descendants (j. Ta’anit 4:8, 68d): This passage refers to the catastrophic conflict between Rome and the people of Judea which took place in 132–135 C.E., popularly known as the Bar Kokhba rebellion after the Jewish leader, Simeon Bar Kokhba. A few decades after Paul, in the late first or early second century C.E., the author of the pseudonymous letter known as the Epistle of Barnabas (a work that was considered canonical by some sects of Christianity), uses the prophecy about Rebekah’s two sons as a reference to contemporary groups (Barnabas 13:1-3, Holmes ed. Who was Sarah in the Bible? The problem lies in the fact that the Hebrew word for wife, ‘isha,’ is also the generic word for woman (we see this same phenomenon in Greek), and so Bilhah and Zilpah were given to Jacob as women who were there for the express purpose of bearing children – otherwise known as concubines. The Torah describes how Isaac and Rebekah’s twin sons, Jacob and Esau, battle each other in their mother’s womb: This battle in the womb continues through their birth: As Jacob and Esau grow up, their competition continues. The Aftermath. No, he had two (and not by his choosing) wives and two concubines – four women to whom he was connected through children. The world was blessed through Judah, and the house of David. whoa whoa whoa – personal suite? . David must have received some kind of message from God, however, as so many of his psalms prophesy the coming of Jesus (Psalm 8; 22; 110). “Now why? See, I have gained five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. She was no longer the mother of all of Jacob’s children – Rachel had a child now and she was the one who was truly regarded, by Jacob, as his wife. Herod would later kill his wife, Mariamne, as well, in addition to her mother and other family members. Rebecca's brother was Laban the Aramean, and she was the granddaughter of Milcah and Nahor, the brother of Abraham. And this teaching is called “Edomite” because the Idumeans were the first to believe in the teachings of the well-known man (Jesus). Isaac, the son of Abraham, was married to Rebecca for many years before being blessed with children. Only then would Esau have any power over Jacob.35 Ultimately, though, Jacob would triumph and would have mastery over Esau and all his descendants. Please support us. It would seem that part of the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau was in response to the Christian claim that Esau is the spiritual ancestor of the Jews. How did this develop? In referencing Beitar’s destruction, this Talmudic legend clearly associates the Roman Empire with Esau, and presents Jews and Romans as eternal antagonists. He vowed to kill his brother. Now with the permanent lockdown coming, people should get out of Babylon the Great which is America, the UK and the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia and New Zealand). However there are two separate lands related to the epithet ‘Cush.’ Kusite and Kusan are both used and they are spelled almost exactly the same – the only difference being a tav vs a nun at the end of the word. …והטעם על הגזרה שגזר על אדום, וזאת היא מלכות רומא וקוסטנטינא, ונקראו אדומים בעבור שנכנסו בתורת אדום, וזאת התורה נקראה על שם אדום, שהאדומיים האמינו בתחילה בתורת האיש הידוע: …And the reason is because of the decree he made against Edom—this is a reference to Rome and Constantinople. “Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done many acts; he slew two lionlike men of Moab: also he went down and slew a lion in a pit in a snowy day.” ‭‭1 Chronicles‬ ‭11:22‬ ‭KJV‬‬ Why did God send the Israelites to Egypt for 400 years (Genesis 15:13)? The word used by for echad in the LXX (Septuagint, the authorized Greek translation of the Tanach – OT) and the NT (ie. [8] This Antoninus appears in the Talmud as a Roman king and beloved friend of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (Judah the Prince). The midrash here makes use of the same verse from Malachi used by Paul in Romans: God hates Esau, says the prophet Malachi, but in this case, Esau is not a code for Paul’s opponents but for the Roman Empire. [2] For some discussion of this in the context of Hebron and its archaeological finds, see David Ben-Shlomo, “The Ancient City of Hebron,” TheTorah (2018). In his gloss on this verse, Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–c.1167) writes that the being is God himself, Putting aside his dubious historical claim about early Idumean embracing of Christianity, ibn Ezra’s point is that “Edomite” is first and foremost a cipher for the “Christian” religion and only by extension a reference to Rome, who adopted this religion.[12]. [3] Already in his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul characterized his opponents as Ishmael, a point implied at the beginning of Romans 9 as well. [6] The phrase in brackets appears in the Theodor-Albeck edition but not in the standard printing. Edit: I have been getting some great questions so I will share my answers. This contrasts sharply with Paul, for whom the main distinction between Esau and Jacob was between types of Christ followers, his group versus that of his opponents in Jerusalem. An accurate understanding of God is essential to loving and serving Him well. The movie “You Should Have Left” was released on June 19. So Jacob drew close to his father Isaac, who felt him and wondered. We passed on to Zilpah, and they noticed it again – “Gad is Leah’s son!”, “Very good,” I smiled. script>. When she heard what Esau intended to do, she called Jacob in and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you, by planning to kill you. (notice that she is given the same treatment as a wife but is not a wife), [147] If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may sell her for money. Again, even though Hadrian lived before Rome became Christian and was not himself a Christian, Jewish readers of Genesis Rabbah know what Rome symbolizes. lol – does it come with a jetted jacuzi tub? וַיֵּצֵא הָרִאשׁוֹן אַדְמוֹנִי כֻּלּוֹ כְּאַדֶּרֶת שֵׂעָר וַיִּקְרְאוּ שְׁמוֹ עֵשָׂו. Readers of the midrashic texts quoted above might assume that the rabbinic association of Esau with Rome points to God’s unequivocal rejection of Rome and Christianity. Could Paul have been saying that the husband and wife need to be one (Hebrew echad) instead of limiting a man to one wife? Whose feet are they? This difference is best explained by the post-Paul history of the Christ believing group, which was composed largely of non-Jews, and often identified the Jews as the Other. So Jacob ran away from home. Dr. Malka Zeiger Simkovich is a the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and the director of their Catholic-Jewish Studies program. The Jerusalem Talmud suggests that Isaac’s statement alludes to the pain that Esau’s descendants will cause Jacob’s descendants (j. That’s an interesting word, because although the lemma is the same isha as I discussed above – neshe is tied in to the idea of a debt. Laws of Hammurabi: [144] If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a second wife. In this chapter, after the title of the book (), we have Christ and his church, Christ and a believer, expressing their esteem for each other.I. Gen 28:6 - When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away H7971 to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; Notify me of follow-up comments by email. The physical description of Esau, as red (adom) and covered in hair (se’ar) foreshadows his future as the founder of the Edomites who live near Mount Seir.[1]. There was a small population of highly Hellenized Jews that might have shaved their beards, as was the custom among Romans. 13:9). Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Judgment in Context: Honor, Shame, and the Command to “Judge Not.”, Confessions of a Former Torah Terrorist Pt II. I believe that the two main factors were at work here: Christianity and Herod. The complex relationship that Israel had with Edom in the Hebrew Bible correlated well with the complex relationship that the Jews in the early rabbinic period had with Rome: while some Jews admired aspects of Roman culture, other Jews saw Rome as a powerful, looming force that had the potential to cause massive destruction to the Jewish community. Your email address will not be published. They were now seeing that God does not show partiality. Habakkuk 3:7, in a paralellism (a literary device where something is said twice, slightly differently, in such a way as to equate two concepts), says this of Cushan. These two rulers were not contemporaries, of course, but each represents his respective kingdom at its most expanded, powerful moment. Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, ... As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. The connection likely derives from historical events associated with Herod the Great. The earliest example of this connection in rabbinic literature appears in the Jerusalem Talmud (4th/5thcentury C.E. (clearly, the reference to a second wife shows that the concubine is not a wife), [145] If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Esau is furious at his brother’s trick, and Jacob runs away to Haran to escape Esau’s wrath. Chapter 1. Glad to hear from you Brian, I have received many heartbreaking messages from women whose husbands seem to think they can force them into this lifestyle – when they haven’t even bothered to look at whether or not the reasons that existed then still exist now, which of course they do not. Esau took his wives, his sons and daughters, and all the members of his household, his cattle and all his livestock, and all the property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan and went to another land because of his brother Jacob…. What happens when a man is required to take his dead brother’s wife, if he is already married Deut 25:5? This implicit polemic eventually becomes explicit in the medieval Jewish commentators, who use Edom as a cipher for Christianity without the veneer of Pagan Rome. Other biblical passages explain these names differently: Esau is called Edom because he asked Jacob for some “red stuff” to eat (Gen 25:30); Mount Seir is so named because it is where a man named Seir the Horite lived (Gen 36:20-30) before the Edomites conquered the area from the Horites and made it their own (Deut 2:12, 22). Deut 21:15 says that if a man has two wives, one loved and one unloved that he cannot disinherit the child of the unloved wife – doesn’t this say that men can have two wives? ): This midrash identifies the two nations in Rebekah’s womb with Solomon (10th cent. This could happen with his own consent, as in the case of Esau, who sold his birthright to Jacob (Genesis 25:29-34), or by the decision of the father, as in the case of Reuben (Genesis 48:22; Genesis 49:3, 4 1 Chronicles 5:1, 2) and of Shimri (1 Chronicles 26:10). How many times did God call out to young Samuel in the night as he was lying down in the house of the Lord? This war resulted in the Romans razing Jerusalem to the ground, and the destruction of the city of Beitar, where the Romans believed leaders of the rebellion were stationed. I am a fifty-something-year-old Bible teacher, wife of twenty-eight years to Mark, and mom of adult twin sons. Was Yahweh *really* the name of a pagan god? Even those Roman officials who were beloved by the rabbis are still spoken of as descendants of Esau in rabbinic literature. They were survival oriented, and so when greeted with the opportunity to be something greater in the family, not wives but the mothers of some of the heirs of the House, that was a chance to have a much better life and better prospects for the future. Isaac had one wife. Moreover, Paul’s allegory and its application to Jews would likely have been familiar to the rabbis both in Israel and Babylon, who lived amongst Christians. When the rabbis were writing their midrashim about Rome being Edom, however, Rome was already Christian. The levirate marriage was for the purpose of providing a woman with offspring and so if a man was already married, he could still perform the levirate function and she would be provided for with her dead husband’s share of the inheritance, which then belongs to her son (or daughter, because the Torah also says that if a man dies and has only daughters they can inherit so that his name and inheritance will not pass from Israel). [9] But Herod’s reputation as a cruel tyrant endured in rabbinic texts, and the rabbis associated the tragedy of the Roman takeover of Judea directly with Herod. For an excellent read on many matters pertaining to women in the Bible (not all of which I agree with, of course), see Matthews, Victor H., Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (1998) p 229 is directly relevant to this discussion. Biblical context is very much important. Sefaria with adjustments): In this legend, Antoninus identifies himself as a descendant of Esau and expresses his concern to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi that this will block his entry into the World to Come, since he reads the verse like the rabbis, that eradication of descendants refers to the next world (i.e., messianic times). Information much needed for understanding context. And as for Jacob, he never intended to  have any other wife but Rachel and only ended up in this polygamous situation because of trickery – he chose to be a polygamist because it would seem that a man who was willing to work a grand total of fourteen years for a woman evidently could not imagine living without her. YES, and in ROMANS 9:13 “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Malachi 1:3 and OBADIAH!!! They are on the Amazing Bible Timeline with World History starting in 1921 BC. C.E., with Edom, a small province southeast of Judea, which didn’t even rule itself? There is much confusion about the word ‘Cush’ in Scripture – the first being that it does not actually refer to Ethiopia at all but instead a region more in the Sudan. He was a Levite and a prolific writer—many of the psalms were written either by him or by the guild he inspired. He was notoriously capricious and paranoid, killing off all surviving members of the Hasmonean family who presented potential royal competition, including his wife’s 17-year old brother, Aristobulus, whom he had drowned at a party. וַיִּגַּשׁ יַעֲקֹב אֶל יִצְחָק אָבִיו וַיְמֻשֵּׁהוּ וַיֹּאמֶר הַקֹּל קוֹל יַעֲקֹב וְהַיָּדַיִם יְדֵי עֵשָׂו. וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן יָצָא אָחִיו וְיָדוֹ אֹחֶזֶת בַּעֲקֵב עֵשָׂו וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב…. Although this very well may offend our modern sensibilities, Zilpah and Bilhah had a better life than they had hoped for, in the end. Loaded with knowledge and wisdom. If later he is disgusted with her (after all, she was from a pagan nation), he cannot treat her as a slave and simply sell her away but must treat her as he would treat a divorced wife. Naturally, the rabbis consider Jacob to be the ancestor of the Jews. In other words, although the rabbis explicitly connect Esau with pagan Rome, referring to Hadrian and Antoninus, the destruction of the Temple, and the quashed Bar Kokhba rebellion, they likely have Christian Rome in mind as well. Really Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s lives would have looked bleak but they would have accepted it as their lot in life – in ancient times people firmly believed that their conditions and station in life were pre-determined by the gods and hardly worth complaining about or trying to get out of. God-ThoughtsLead Up January 28, 2021 What is the Gospel? Midrash Tanchuma (mid 1st millennium C.E.) And yet, Rabbinic midrash associates Esau and Edom with a completely different geographical area—the city of Rome in the Italian Peninsula—and speaks as if Romans are all Edomites. Scholars debate whether Antoninus is meant to represent a real historical figure (Antoninus Pius), but all agree that the conversations between him and Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi are legendary. I put up the white board and I was marking out the family tree of the patriarchs. — I think I’ll stick with my one wife (Staci) of 23 years. He Had Three Names. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul reminds his readers that God chose Isaac and not Ishmael among Abraham’s sons, because Isaac was “the child of the promise” and not just a child of the flesh. I have written six books on the ancient Near Eastern and First Century context of Scripture, including a family curriculum series. But as we might expect, Rebekah came up with another ingenious idea. Such a blessing as always sis. This is great, Tyler. Rebekah heard Esau say that he was going to kill Jacob, so Rebekah went and told Jacob, "You have to run away from here because Esau is going to kill you." One of the hardest things there is, is to contemplate the possibility that our point of view has been utterly contaminated – after all, they never taught ancient Near Eastern context in any of the churches I attended. Great article Tyler! Just as Esau was the rejected son who received no covenantal inheritance from God, so too were Rome and Christianity rejected by God in favor of a relationship with Israel. Once the Roman Empire legalized Christianity in the fourth century and adopted Christianity as its official religion, Edom became a cipher not just for the political entity Rome, but for the religious entity Christianity. TheTorah.com is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.We rely on the support of readers like you. Centuries later, when the Maccabees rebelled against the Syrian Greeks in 167 B.C.E., the Judeans also took their fight to the Idumeans (1 Macc. }. The other polygamists in Scripture were Lamech (a descendant of Cain who killed a guy) and Esau (who… well he was Esau, nuff said) – we don’t see any of the twelve sons of Jacob having mutliple wives, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, the Judges (not even … Why So Many Mature Voices From the Hebrew Roots Movemen... Is Hand Washing Commanded? Levirate marriage served two functions – that a man’s name would not cease to go forward and that a woman would not be bereft of support. [Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi answered]: “[This refers to] those who behave like Esau. כיון שכבש את העולם כולו הלך לו לרומי אמר לבני פלטרין שלו מבקש אני מכם שתעשו אותי אלוה שהרי כבשתי את כל העולם אמרו לו עדיין לא שלטת בעירו ובביתו, הלך והספיקו בידו והחריב בית המקדש והגלה את ישראל וחזר לרומי, אמר להם כבר החרבתי ביתו ושרפתי היכלו והגל[ת]י עמו עשו אותי אלוה. Who would actually say “Jesus is accursed” in Corinth? Something went wrong while submitting the form. Such an understanding of Esau and Edom would have been a particularly sharp and effective polemical counter-reading to that of Paul and the Church Fathers.
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