Esau in the Bible

The first one came out red-looking, covered with hair like a fur coat, and they named him Esau.

After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when they were born.

When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.

Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field exhausted.

And Esau will say to Jacob, Give me now to eat from the red; this red, for I faint: for this he called his name Edom.

“Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”

But Jacob said, "Swear an oath to me now." So Esau swore an oath to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave bread and lentil stew to Esau; he ate, drank, got up, and went away. So Esau despised his birthright.

When Esau was 40 years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could not see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.”

And he answered, “Here I am.”

Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac said to his son Esau. So while Esau went to the field to hunt some game to bring in,

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Listen! I heard your father talking with your brother Esau. He said,

Jacob answered Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am a man with smooth skin.

Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were in the house, and had her younger son Jacob wear them.

Jacob replied to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may bless me.”

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau or not?”

So Jacob came closer to his father Isaac. When he touched him, he said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him.

Again he asked, “Are you really my son Esau?”

And he replied, “I am.”

As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau arrived from the hunt.

Esau also made a delicious dish [of meat] and brought it to his father and said to him, “Let my father get up and eat some of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.”

But his father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?”

He answered, “I am Esau your firstborn son.”

When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, my father!”

Esau replied, “Is he not rightly named Jacob (the supplanter)? For he has supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing. Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”

But Isaac answered Esau: “Look, I have made him a master over you, have given him all of his relatives as his servants, and have sustained him with grain and new wine. What then can I do for you, my son?”

Esau said to his father, “Do you only have one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” And Esau wept loudly.

Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart: “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she summoned her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Listen, your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.

Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth [these insolent wives of Esau]. If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

Esau noticed that Isaac blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to get a wife there. When he blessed him, Isaac commanded Jacob, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.”

Esau realized that his father Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women,

so Esau went to Ishmael and married, in addition to his other wives, Mahalath daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son. She was the sister of Nebaioth.

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

He commanded them, “You are to say to my lord Esau, ‘This is what your servant Jacob says. I have been staying with Laban and have been delayed until now.

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you—and he has 400 men with him.”

He thought, “If Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, the remaining one can escape.”

Please rescue me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him; otherwise, he may come and attack me, the mothers, and their children.

He spent the night there and took part of what he had brought with him as a gift for his brother Esau:

And he told the first one: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘Who do you belong to? Where are you going? And whose animals are these ahead of you?’

then tell him, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And look, he is behind us.’”

He also told the second one, the third, and everyone who was walking behind the animals, “Say the same thing to Esau when you find him.

You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I want to appease Esau with the gift that is going ahead of me. After that, I can face him, and perhaps he will forgive me.”

Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming toward him with 400 men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female slaves.

Then he went out to meet Esau, passing in front of all of them, and bowed low to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

But Esau ran to meet him, hugged him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. Then they wept.

When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he asked, “Who are these with you?”

He answered, “The children God has graciously given your servant.”

So Esau said, “What do you mean by this whole procession I met?”

“To find favor with you, my lord,” he answered.

“I have enough, my brother,” Esau replied. “Keep what you have.”

So receive my blessing, which has been sent to you, since God has been gracious to me. Besides, I have enough." Because Jacob kept pressing him, Esau accepted the gifts.

Then Esau said, “Let’s move on, and I’ll go ahead of you.”

Esau said, “Let me leave some of my people with you.”

But he replied, “Why do that? Please indulge me, my lord.”

That day Esau started on his way back to Seir,

God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”

He took his last breath and died, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

These are the family records of Esau (that is, Edom).

Esau took his wives from the Canaanite women: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite,

Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel,

and Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were Esau’s sons, who were born to him in the land of Canaan.

Esau took his wives, sons, daughters, and all the people of his household, as well as his herds, all his livestock, and all the property he had acquired in Canaan; he went to a land away from his brother Jacob.

So Esau (that is, Edom) lived in the mountains of Seir.

These are the family records of Esau, father of the Edomites in the mountains of Seir.

These are the names of Esau’s sons:
Eliphaz son of Esau’s wife Adah,
and Reuel son of Esau’s wife Basemath.

Timna, a concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz,
bore Amalek to Eliphaz.
These were the sons of Esau’s wife Adah.

These are Reuel’s sons:
Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah.
These were the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath.

These are the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah
daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon:
She bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah to Edom.

These are the chiefs of Esau’s sons:
the sons of Eliphaz, Esau’s firstborn:
Chiefs Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz,

These are the sons of Reuel, Esau’s son:
Chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah.
These are the chiefs of Reuel
in the land of Edom.
These are the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath.

These are the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah:
Chiefs Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.
These are the chiefs of Esau’s wife Oholibamah
daughter of Anah.

These are the sons of Esau (that is, Edom),
and these are their chiefs.

The children of Anah are these: Dishon and Oholibamah [Esau’s wife], the daughter of Anah.

These are the names of Esau’s chiefs,
according to their families and their localities,
by their names:
Chiefs Timna, Alvah, Jetheth,

Magdiel, and Iram.
These are Edom’s chiefs,
according to their settlements in the land they possessed.
Esau was father of the Edomites.

And command thou the people, saying, Ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir; and they shall be afraid of you: take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore:

Meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth; because I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.

And when we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through the way of the plain from Elath, and from Eziongaber, we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.

The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto them.

As he did to the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day:

(As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the LORD our God giveth us.

“You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother [Esau’s descendant]. You shall not detest an Egyptian, because you were a stranger (resident alien, foreigner) in his land.

and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I assigned Mount Seir, while Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

So then Abraham begat Isaac, - the sons of Isaac, were Esau and Israel.

the sons of Esau, Eliphaz, Reuel, and Jeush, and Jalam, and Korah.

Turn and flee! Take up refuge in remote places, you people who live in Dedan. For I will bring disaster on the descendants of Esau. I have decided it is time for me to punish them.

But I will strip everything away from Esau's descendants. I will uncover their hiding places so they cannot hide. Their children, relatives, and neighbors will all be destroyed. Not one of them will be left!

Because you [descendants of Esau] have had an everlasting hatred [for Jacob (Israel)] and you handed over the sons of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their tragedy, at the time of their final punishment [the Babylonian conquest],

Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Edom [the descendants of Esau] and for four (multiplied delinquencies)
I will not reverse its punishment or revoke My word concerning it,
Because he pursued his brother Jacob (Israel) with the sword,
Corrupting and stifling his compassions and casting off all mercy;
His destructive anger raged continually,
And he maintained [and nurtured] his wrath forever.

Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Moab and for four (multiplied delinquencies)
I will not reverse its punishment or revoke My word concerning it,
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom [Esau’s descendant] into lime [and used it to plaster a Moabite house].

How is Esau searched! his hidden things sought out!

Shall I not in that day, saith Jehovah, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?

And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that every one may be cut off from the mount of Esau by slaughter.

And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble; and they shall kindle in them and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau: for Jehovah hath spoken it.

And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the lowland the Philistines; yea, they shall possess the field of Ephraim and the field of Samaria; and Benjamin shall possess Gilead;

And saviours shall come up on mount Zion, to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Jehovah's.

"I have loved you," says Yahweh, but you say, "How have you loved us?" "[Is] Esau not Jacob's brother?" {declares} Yahweh. "I have loved Jacob,

but Esau I have hated. I have made his mountain ranges a desolation, and [given] his inheritance to the jackals of [the] desert."

For even before the twins were born, and therefore had not done anything good or bad, Rebecca was told [Gen. 25:23], "The older one [i.e., Esau] will serve the younger one [i.e., Jacob]." This was so that God's purpose of choosing and calling [whomever He wanted to] might prevail, instead of [it depending on] what a person did.

As the Scripture says, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated."

By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come.