Jacob and Esau: Prophecy and Rivalry in the Early Jewish Literary Imagination

The biblical text recounts that, during her pregnancy, Rebekah seeks guidance from God, who responds: “Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body. One people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23, NJPS). The relationship between these two children, Jacob and Esau, and its legacy are discussed in Jubilees, Paul’s letter to the Romans, and the midrash.

In Jubilees, although Rebekah and Isaac have made Esau swear not to harm Jacob, Esau’s sons force him to fight his brother. In contrast to the biblical narrative, in which Jacob and Esau are reconciled (see Genesis 33:1–16), Jubilees has Jacob kill Esau, likewise with his sons’ encouragement. Jacob’s sons then subject Esau’s sons to servitude, fulfilling God’s words to Rebekah.

Paul’s letter to the Romans shows that as early as the mid-first century CE, the first community of Christ followers began to identify with the younger son, Jacob, and the Jews who did not follow Christ, with the rejected elder son, Esau. The rabbis conversely identified their own community with Jacob while identifying Rome and, later, Christianity with Esau. In the eyes of the rabbis, the rivalry between Jacob/Israel and Esau/Rome continued to manifest in the early second-century Hadrianic persecutions, the Bar Kokhba revolt, and beyond (see “Hadrian’s Massacre at Beitar” and “The Wicked Kingdom”).

Like Jubilees, the midrash also casts doubt on the apparently conciliatory nature of the brothers’ reunion. Where the Bible says “Esau ran to greet [Jacob]; he embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept” (Genesis 33:4, NJPS), R. Yannai in Genesis Rabbah suggests that Esau fell on Jacob’s neck to bite him, at which point Jacob’s neck turned to marble and Esau’s teeth were broken. Jacob cried on account of his neck, and Esau cried on account of his teeth.