Isaac

And now it came time for God’s promise to Abraham to be fulfilled. Abraham had a son by Hagar, of course, and Ishmael was now a youngster of thirteen.

Almost at once Sarah demanded that Abraham send away Hagar and Ishmael so it would be perfectly plain that only Isaac was to be Abraham’s heir. This, Abraham, who loved Ishmael, did not want to do, but God ordered him to obey Sarah, promising that in time He would form a nation of the descendants of Ishmael also.

Abraham therefore gave Hagar a supply of water and ordered her and Ishmael to leave.

21:14.... and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

Beersheba was, in later times, the most southerly of the important towns of the land. The most northerly city of the land was one called Dan, so that when the Biblical writers wished to speak of the whole king­dom they would say “from Dan to Beersheba,” as we would say “from Maine to California.”

Our version is more impressive in a way since the distance from Maine to California is 3000 miles, while that from Dan to Beersheba is only 150 miles. How­ever, in ancient times it was more troublesome to travel those 150 miles than it is to travel 3000 miles in today’s jet planes. What’s more, such is the in­fluence of the Bible, that people still sometimes say “from Dan to Beersheba” when they mean “every­where.”

ISAAC / 133

The word “wilderness” in this verse does not mean exactly what the modern American is likely to think of. In our own history books, we came across the word in connection with the trackless forests which the first settlers encountered in the New World.

Actually, however, “wilderness” might more cor­rectly be written “wild-deer-ness,” in which the word “deer” stands for “animal.” (“Deer” origi­nally did mean “animal” and m German the word for “animal” is Tier, of which “deer” is a version.) A “wild-deer-ness” or “wilderness” is a name applied to any tract of uninhabited land in which only wild ani­mals are to be found, if anything at all.

For that reason, a desert can be a wilderness; and a large glacier can be one. Even the empty wastes of the sea can be considered a wilderness. When the word “wilderness” is used in the Bible, it usually refers to what we would call a “desert.”

Beersheba itself had wells; seven of them, in fact, and one way of translating the name of the town is “well of seven.” However, the neighboring tracts of land were a dry wilderness and there Hagar and Ishmael were in danger of dying of thirst. But once again an angel appeared to them and they were guided to a well.

In the south, Ishmael grew to manhood.

21:21. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

The “wilderness of Paran” is located in the desert area between Canaan and Egypt.

While on the subject of Beersheba, the Bible goes on to narrate the tale of how that town got its name. This involves an agreement made between Abraham, during the period when he lived in that neighbor­hood, and Abimelech, king of Gerar. An oath was involved and the explanation goes on to say that the translation of Beersheba (another version) is “well of the oath.” After this:

21:32.... Abimelech rose up, and... re­turned into the land of the Philistines.

This is the first mention of the Philistines in the Bible. Notice that Abimelech isn’t called a Philistine here; he is merely said to have returned to the land of the Philistines. This is an anachronism (meaning the placing of something out of its proper time), just as the phrase “Ur of the Chaldees” was, and for the same reason.

According to the traditional dating system, Abra-

ISAAC / 135 ham was born about 2000 b.c. and Isaac about 1900 b.c. This was centuries before the Philistines arrived in Canaan. They did not invade and occupy Canaan until about 1200 b.c. When they did, they took over a fifty-mile stretch of the Canaanite seacoast and re­mained there for some centuries.

Between 1200 b.c. and 1000 b.c., the Philistines were the chief enemies of the Hebrews, and for a time the Philistines even ruled over the Hebrews. Some of the most stirring tales of those early days in­volved the fight of the Hebrews of the interior hills against the more advanced Philistines on the seacoast, and the Jews, in later days, remembered those tales well.

The city of Gerar was located in what was later to become Philistine territory. For that reason, when the book of Genesis came to be written down, the lo­cation of that town was placed in the “land of the Philistines.” The readers would know at once what that meant.

The Philistines were not like any of the other in­habitants of Canaan, for they did not speak a Semitic language and they came from across the sea. The Bible speaks of them as having originated in “Caph- tor” and the Egyptians used a name similar to that for the island of Crete. It is possible, then, that the Philistines were Cretans (or from some region col- 136 / WORDS IN GENESIS onized by Cretans) who were driven out of their land by invading Greeks from the north.

In later centuries, when Greek traders first cruised off the coasts of Canaan, they were naturally most aware of the civilized city-dwellers of the coast, es­pecially since the later versions of the Cretan lan­guage were a kind of Greek. The more primitive people of the interior with their completely strange language and religion were ignored.

Even as late as 430 b.c., the great Greek historian Herodotus, in describing the area, says not one word about the Jews living there. To him the whole area of Canaan was “the land of the Philistines” and he called it “Palaistina” which would be the Greek ver­sion of what we would be more apt to call “Philistia.” Herodotus’s word has come down to us as “Palestine.” In fact, the Douay Version, sticking closer to the Latin, as always, has Abimelech in verse 21:32 “re­turned to the land of the Palestines.”

The modern name of the land of Canaan thus had no connection with the Jews at all, but only with their enemy of early days.

As Isaac grew into young manhood, God’s cove­nant with Abraham seemed well on its way to fulfill-

ISAAC / 137 ment. At that point, God decided to see if Abraham valued anything at all, even the covenant and his son, over obedience to Himself. The Bible puts it this way:

22:1. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham...

The use of the word “tempt” is an odd one to us be­cause we have come to think of it as meaning “to lure into the way of evil” as the serpent did when he tempted Eve. However, an older meaning is “to test” or “to put to trial.” To avoid confusion with the usual modern meaning, the Revised Standard Version has the verse read:.. God tested Abraham...”

The test consisted of commanding Abraham to take his son, Isaac, to a certain spot and there sacrifice him to God. Without hesitation, Abraham did as he was told and was about to kill Isaac when an angel called to him to stop and a ram was supplied in place of the youngster. Abraham had passed the supreme test of his faith.

Meanwhile, word had come to Abraham concern­ing his brother Nahor, who had stayed behind in Haran after their father, Terah, had died, and Abra­ham and Lot had left. Nahor, it seems, had had chil­dren and grandchildren during the time that Abraham and Sarah had been in Canaan. Twelve sons are

listed altogether, plus a grandson and a granddaughter:

22:21. Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram.

This verse includes the grandson, Aram. The im­portance of Aram (a grandnephew of Abraham, ac­cording to this genealogy) is that he is the eponymous ancestor of the Arameans. (Aram is also mentioned in Genesis 10:22 as a son of Shem, but the relation­ship between the Arameans and Hebrews was so close that it seems more reasonable to suppose that the Jews considered both to have descended from Terah.)

Originally, the Arameans were a tribe that lived on the upper Euphrates in the neighborhood of Haran.

The Arameans were great merchants and traders and their language (very like Hebrew) spread through a wide area. The Jews themselves spoke Aramaic during Roman times and some of the later books of the Old lestament were written in Ara-

ISAAC / 139 maic. What’s more, Jesus spoke Aramaic and there are places in the New Testament where the Aramaic is actually used and a translation has to be given.

The original Aramean district in Haran was called Suri by the Assyrians, and the Greeks picked up that name. Herodotus called the Arameans “Syrians” and that name was used in the Septuagint and in later translations of the Bible. The nation to the northeast of modern Israel is still called Syria and its capital is still Damascus.

Since Abraham came from Haran and is part of the family to which Aram is born, he might be considered an Aramean. In one place in the Bible (in verse 26:5 of the book of Deuteronomy,) the Israelites are in­structed to include in their prayers the phrase, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father...” Here the Greek word is used, but in the Revised Standard Ver­sion, the phrase is translated more closely to the orig­inal Hebrew: “A wandering Aramean was my father...”

The granddaughter of Nahor was the daughter of his son Bethuel, and her name was Rebekah (or, in the Douay Version, Rebecca). She was the grand­niece of Abraham and the first cousin of Isaac.

But now it was time for Sarah, at the age of 127, to die:

23:2. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan...

It was in this Hebron, a town 20 miles south of Jerusalem, that Sarah and later Abraham were buried, and that was one reason why Hebron was considered holy by the Jews.

In order to bury Sarah, Abraham decided to pur­chase from its owners a tract called “the cave of Machpelah.”

23:3. And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth...

Heth is listed in the tenth chapter of Genesis as a son of Ham, and later in the chapter, one of the sons of Heth is called a “Hittite.” Hittites are listed among the inhabitants of Canaan m a number of places in the Bible, but until quite modern times nothing fur­ther was known about them. They seemed just an­other small group among the Canaanites.

But then about 1900 strange inscriptions turned up in ruins near the town of Boghazkeui in central Tur­key. The language was finally deciphered and it

ISAAC / 141 turned out that eastern Turkey was the center of a large kingdom which was called “Khatti” by the Babylonian records and which seemed identical with that of the Hittites (Khittim in Hebrew) of the Bible.

In Abraham’s time, the Hittites were still not powerful, but by 1750 b.c. they had established their kingdom and remained a great nation for over five centuries, during which they carried on mighty wars with Egypt. The kingdom came to an end about 1200 b.c. as a result of the great upheavals and mi­grations that brought the Philistines and Hebrews to Canaan, the Arameans to Syria, the Greeks to Crete, and so on. Some remnants of the Hittites were still to be found in the Canaanite region even two hun­dred years after the end of their kingdom.

With Sarah dead, it became more than ever neces­sary to find a proper wife for Isaac, and this presented a problem. Throughout the Bible, it is made clear that it is dangerous to take a wife out of a strange group. The feeling is, perhaps, that a child is always more under the influence of his mother than his father, especially during the very early years, which are most important in forming the child’s character. A strange woman, with other traditions and other gods, would have a son who would not follow the

traditions and gods of his father. The Bible specifi­cally mentions, for instance, that those descendants of Abraham who did not share in the covenant took strange wives. For instance, Ishmael married an Egyptian woman, as was mentioned earlier (and was the son of an Egyptian besides).

In order to keep the children of Isaac from falling away from tradition, Abraham was determined to find a wife that was not a foreigner. For this reason, he sent his oldest and most trusted servant to Haran in order to find a wife for Isaac from among the family of Nahor.

24:10. And the servant... departed... and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of 'Nahor.

The region between the Euphrates and the Tigris was called Sumer (Shinar) in very ancient times and was later known as Babylonia from its chief city, as I said earlier in the book. About the time of Alex­ander the Great, the Greeks who penetrated the area called it Mesopotamia, from Greek words meaning “between the rivers.”

The place to which Abraham’s servant traveled was called in Hebrew Aram-Nah ar aim, which is us­ually taken to mean “Aram of the two rivers,” and so it was naturally translated as “Mesopotamia” in the Septuagint and kept so in the English versions. Later

ISAAC / 143 in the book of Genesis, the same region is referred to as “Padan-aram” and that is left untranslated.

Once in Haran, the servant met with Rebekah, the granddaughter of Nahor. She was beautiful, hospit­able, and well-mannered. The servant was pleased, and gave her gifts:

24:22.... the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold.

The “shekel” was a Babylonian unit of weight which spread throughout the Middle East. Among the Hebrews later on, the shekel was equal to about 4/7 of one of our ounces. When gold and silver came to be used as money, lumps were weighed out as so many shekels. Eventually coins of definite weight were manufactured and stamped with that weight. A coin weighing a shekel came to be called just that, just as a pound of silver in England came to be called “a pound,” which is still the British unit of currency.

A gold shekel would be worth about $11 in our money and a silver shekel about 75 cents. Money is sometimes spoken of today, in a half-humorous way, as “shekels.”

The servant discovered Rebekah was of the family of Nahor, which meant she was eligible for Isaac. After negotiating with the girl’s father, Bethuel, and

her brother, Laban, it was settled that Rebekah was to accompany the servant back to Canaan and there become Isaac’s wife.

When it came time for her to leave, Laban wished her good fortune:

24:60.... Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.

In those days, of course, cities were surrounded by walls. When a besieging army captured one of the gates of the city, that army could force its way in and the battle was about over. For that reason, to “possess the gate of those which hate them” was a way of hoping that Rebekah’s descendants would be victorious over their enemies.

The verse had an odd echo in Great Britain a little over a hundred years ago. In 1843, in South Wales, the toll roads had raised their rates to the point where the country people rioted. The leaders of the rioters disguised themselves as women and in night raids broke down the gates through which travelers had to pass and pay toll. Since they “possessed the gates” in this way, the leaders were called “Rebeccas” and their followers “Rebeccaites.” The whole move­ment is referred to as the “Rebecca riots.”

The Bible, in the 25th chapter of Genesis, deals with the last days of Abraham. It begins by listing other groups that were traditionally considered to have been descended from him. This is done by quickly naming six sons borne him by a wife whose name is given as Keturah. All are supposed to repre­sent groups living in what would now be called north­western Arabia. Of these, only one son, Midian, had descendants who appear later in the Bible.

Abraham’s death is then recorded at the age of 175:

25:8. Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age...

The spirit of life left him, in other words, leaving behind only a vacant corpse. The phrase “to give up the ghost” is still used as a phrase meaning “to die.” However, the Revised Standard Version pre­fers a metaphor which doesn’t use the word “ghost,” since that has developed too many foolish meanings these days. It says instead, “Abraham breathed his last.” Since “spirit” and “breath” are the same word, to give up the spirit (or ghost) is to stop breathing.

Abraham was buried by Isaac and Ishmael in the cave of Machpelah next to his dead wife, Sarah.

Since the Bible is now set to confine itself to the

146 / WORDS IN GENESIS descendants of Isaac, Ishmael is quickly taken care of by a listing of his sons and a statement concerning his death at the age of 13 7.

The descendants of Ishmael, like the descendants of Abraham through Keturah, are described as living east and south of Palestine so that they may be con­sidered as including the Arabs, generally. For this reason, the Jews and early Christians sometimes called the Arabs “Ishmaelites,” or “Hagarenes' after Ishmael’s mother.

In 632 a.d., the Arabian prophet Mohammed in­troduced a new religion he called ‘Islam’ (from an Arabic word meaning “submission,” by which is im­plied submission to God, of course). This religion was strongly influenced by Judaism, for there were a number of Jews living in the Arabian cities of the time who taught Mohammed much but who would not accept him as a prophet.

The followers of Mohammed (“Mohammedans” or “Moslems,” the latter name meaning “those who made submission”) accepted the truth of the Bible, according to their own understanding and with the addition of various legends, and considered them­selves descendants of Abraham and Ishmael.

For that reason, the Arabs revered the memory of Abraham and considered Hebron as one of their holy cities. They built a place of worship (called a

‘‘mosque ’ by the Arabs from an Arabic word mean­ing “to bow down”) over the traditional location of the cave of Machpelah, where Abraham was buried.

Hebron has been in Mohammedan hands for over 1300 years now. It is in the portion of Palestine which is not included in the Republic of Israel, but which has been joined instead with the region to the east of Jordan.

This eastern section was freed from Turkish rule in 1921 and was named Transjordan (“across the Jordan”). In 1949, when Transjordan annexed parts of Palestine to the west of the river, its name be­came simply Jordan.

The modern Arabic name of Hebron is El Khalil, meaning “the friend.” This is a reference to Abra­ham.

Abraham and Ishmael are popular names among the Moslems, though they are then spelled (in the Latin alphabet) Ibrahim and Ismail. Since Islam con­quered vast territories in Asia and Africa (and even in sections of Europe) during the Middle Ages, those names have been spread far and wide.

The most famous recent Ibrahim was Ibrahim Pasha, an Egyptian general who fought against the Turks in the 183O’s and won a number of victories. His son was Ismail Pasha, who ruled Egypt at the time the Suez Canal project was begun.

A much earlier Ismail, who lived a century after Mohammed, formed the basis about which a special sect of Moslems, called the “Ismailians” have or­ganized themselves.

While Abraham was still alive, however, Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons, Esau and Jacob, with Esau the older by a few minutes.

The name Jacob is interesting because of the changes it has undergone in the various languages; and since I have just been discussing names, this will be j good place to mention a bit more on the subject.

The most common first names among the English- speaking people come from three sources: (1) ancient Greece and Rome, (2) the early Teutons, and (3) the Bible. From ancient Greece we have names like Jason, Philip, Alexander, Helen, Doris, and Daphne. From ancient Rome there are Mark, Julius, Horace, Cornelia, Sylvia, and Diana. From Teutonic sources there are Harold, William, Edward, Ger­trude, Emma, and Charlotte.

After Christianity was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, and later by the Germanic peoples as well, there was a natural tendency to adopt names from the Bible, particularly names that were promi­nent in the New Testament. Examples are Andrew, Thomas, John, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth, and so on.

Names from the Old Testament were used by the Jews themselves and so were less often used by the early Christians, who wanted to stress the difference between themselves and the Jews.

In the 15 00’s, however, along came the Protestants. They usually had the feeling they were returning to an older and purer form of Christianity and increased the importance of the Bible, particularly of the Old Testament. For that reason there was a rash of Old Testament names among the Puritans, for instance, and these were also quite common in country areas of the United States during the 1800’s. (Such Old Testament names grew steadily less popular during the 1900’s, even among the Jews themselves in Amer­ica.)

I will give you a few examples of famous English and American non-Jews with first names taken from the Biblical personalities I have already mentioned in this book.

There was a Scottish economist named Adam Smith, who published a book called The Wealth of Nations in 1776. This started a new philosophy of economy called laissez faire which means, roughly translated, “hands off” and held that government should keep hands off business.

Then there was Seth Low, who was mayor of Brooklyn in the 188O’s and president of Columbia University in the 1890’s. After Manhattan (the orig­inal New York City) and surrounding towns had been joined to form Greater New York, he became mayor of New York from 1901 to 1903.

The American writer Noah Webster was the first to treat the American version of English as something worth particular attention. He put out very popular spelling books and in 1806 published the first Ameri­can dictionary. Chis has become, today, the famous Webster’s New International Dictionary.

I have already mentioned Abraham Lincoln. Equaling him in fame is Isaac Newton, the man who discovered the law of universal gravitation in 1683 and whom many consider to have been the greatest scientist of all times.

Nevertheless, more popular than any of these is Jacob. This may surprise you because you may think of Jacob as being a name that is almost entirely con­fined to Jews. In fact, “Jake” is sometimes used by Gentiles as a rough-and-ready name for any Jew — and often it is not meant in a kindly way, either. And though a few non-Jews bear the name itself (as John Jacob Astor, for instance), many a non-Jew bears the name in another form without knowing it. Jacob is, in Latin, Jacobus. In French, this became Jacques and in English, Jack.

In France, the name Jacques became so common,

ISAAC / 151 especially among the lower classes, that a common name for the French peasant was “Jacques Bon­homme” (which has the meaning, roughly translated, of “Farmer Jack”). In addition, the peasant’s short coat was called a jaquette and this is spelled “jacket” by us. In 1358, during the hardships of the Hundred Years’ War, the French peasants rose in wild and hopeless rebellion. This was called a Jacquerie from the peasants’ nickname and ever since then any peasant uprising has been called that.

The name received another connection with re­bellion among the French, by a more roundabout route. When the Dominicans (an order of monks founded in 1215 by a Spanish priest named Dominic) were first established in Paris they were given a place near the church of St. Jacques. From the Latin version of the saint’s name, Jacobus, the Dominicans came to be called “Jacobins” as a kind of nickname.

Many years later, during the French Revolution, a group of politicians held conferences in an old building that had once been a Jacobin convent. This group, which consisted of radical Republicans who believed in drastic measures against the King and aristocrats, called themselves the Society of Friends of the Constitution. Their enemies, however, called them Jacobins in sarcasm, because they were anything but monks. That name stuck.

From September 1792 to August 1794, the Jaco­bins were in control of France. They executed the King and many aristocrats and the period is known as the Reign of Terror. For years afterward, the word Jacobin, which could be traced all the way down from an Old Testament personality, through a Christian saint, and then through a group of monks, came to mean a violent radical in politics. (The word has now dropped out of use because “communist,’’ “anarchist,” and words of that sort have taken its place.)

It is not as “Jack,” however, that the name Jacob has become most popular among English-speaking people. Although Jack is much used, it is usually considered a nickname and a popular form of John (which is actually a different name altogether). However, Jacob took another form in French in ad­dition to Jacques and that form has come down in English as “James.”

For instance, there are three prominent individuals in the New Testament named James. Two of these are among the twelve apostles and a third is listed among the brothers of Jesus. Every one of those was known in his own time as Jacob. It is only in English translation that it comes out as James.

Thus, all people who are named James, including

ISAAC /153 five presidents of the United States, bear names that are a version of Jacob.

This shows up whenever the Latin language must be used. For instance, James I of England, who ruled from 1603 to 1625 (and was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots), signed his name officially as “Jacobus Rex.” A gold coin issued in his reign was called a “jacobus” and the period of English history during which he ruled is often referred to as “Jacobean” in connec­tion with its literature, its style of furniture, and so on.

From 1685 to 1688, England was ruled by James II, a grandson of James I. He was deposed and exiled, but lived on to 1701, never abandoning his claim to the throne. This claim was carried on till 1766 by his son, who called himself James III. During this time, there was a certain amount of support for their claims within England and, particularly, within Scot­land, where the family of James I had originated. The supporters of James II and James III were com­monly called “Jacobites.”

In Spanish, one of the names into which Jacob has been converted is “Diego.” This was so common that some Americans took to calling Spaniards and other south Europeans by an insulting corruption of that name, “dago.” Another Spanish version is

“Iago,” which means that Shakespeare’s most evil villain has a name stemming from Jacob. In Spanish, Saint James (Spain’s patron saint) is “Santiago” and this has become a popular name for cities in Spanish­speaking nations. The largest of these, with a popu­lation of nearly a million, is Santiago, the capital of Chile.

But let’s get back to Isaac and his sons. Once again, there is a winnowing out. First, Abraham and Lot, uncle and nephew, separate and God’s choice is Abraham. Then Abraham’s sons by different mothers, Isaac and Ishmael, are separated and the 'choice falls upon Isaac. Now matters are even finer, for the choice must be between Isaac’s twin sons.

The two brothers are of completely different char­acters. Esau is a hunter and man of action, who brings fresh meat to his father, Isaac, and is therefore Isaac’s favorite. Jacob, on the other hand, is a quiet homebody, a man of thought rather than action, and he is Rebekah’s favorite.

They come quickly into conflict:

25:29. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint.

Now “sod” is the past tense of “seethe,” an old- fashioned word meaning “to boil.” In fact, both the Revised Standard Version and the Douay Version state that Jacob was “boiling pottage.” Pottage con­sists of vegetables (in this case, as described a few verses later, lentils) cooked in a pot. Consequently, what Jacob was doing was making lentil soup.

25:30. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, 'with that same red pottage... therefore was his name called Edom.

This is a rather farfetched way of accounting for Esau’s alternate name of Edom, which in Hebrew means “red.” Under that name Esau is the epony­mous ancestor of the Edomites, who lived in the des­ert area south of the Dead Sea. The name “red” is here said to be obtained from the red pottage. How­ever, the land of Edom was made up mostly of red­dish rock. Its capital, Sela, was known in Roman times as Petra. The buildings and temples of Petra were carved out of reddish stone, and it was immor­talized in a famous line by the English poet Burgon as “a rose-red city half as old as time.”

The story continues:

25:31. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

25:52. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what proJit shall this birth­right do to me?

A birthright is anything to which a person is en­titled just by the manner of his birth. A king’s oldest son becomes king on his father’s death as a matter of birthright. In the same way, Esau, as Isaac’s older son, even though by only a few minutes, stood to in­herit the major portion of Isaac’s property and, what was more important in the Biblical story, to inherit Isaac’s special relationship to God.

It doesn’t seem exactly right that Jacob should take advantage of Esau’s hunger to bargain him out of his birthright. On the other hand, Esau seems to have behaved badly, too. Apparently, he con­sidered the special relationship with God, which he stood to inherit, wasn’t of much practical use as com­pared with a quick meal, and he was willing to let Jacob have it. It wasn’t likely that he was really “at the point to die”; he might easily have held out a little longer and prepared his own meal or had some­one else prepare it. However, he did not.

This story has given rise to the common saying “to sell one’s birthright for a mess of pottage,” which means to give up something of important long-range value for something trivial which can yield quick results.

The term “mess of pottage” doesn’t appear in the Biblical version of the incident. The word “mess” is now most commonly used to mean a disagreeable

ISAAC / 157 hodgepodge and that makes the expression seem even stronger, but actually, the earlier meaning of the word is simply “a portion of food.” We still speak of the “mess hall” in the Army and the “soldier’s mess” (though when I was in the Army it seemed, at times, to be a mess in both senses).

Isaac is not so prominent in the Bible as either Abraham, his father, or Jacob, his son, and the 26th chapter of Genesis is the only one that is given over entirely to him. In it his stay in Gerar among the “Philistines” (again the anachronism) is described, but it is only a repetition of the adventure of Abraham earlier. Abimelech almost takes Rebekah into his harem but, at the last minute, doesn’t.

The chapter ends with the description of how Esau made matters worse by marrying outside the clan:

26:34. And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:

26:35. Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

As I explained earlier in the chapter, a mother from a strange group with different traditions is almost cer­tain to raise children according to her own ways and not the father’s.

Because of these verses, the phrase “daughters of Heth” (that is, Hittite women) is sometimes used to mean any alien women.