'Birthright' in the Bible

Jacob answered, “First sell me your birthright (the rights of a firstborn).”

Esau said, “Look, I am about to die [if I do not eat soon]; so of what use is this birthright to me?”

Jacob said, “Swear [an oath] to me today [that you are selling it to me for this food]”; so he swore [an oath] to him, and sold him his birthright.

Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and got up and went on his way. In this way Esau scorned his birthright.

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?”

Now Joseph’s brothers were seated [by the steward] before him [in the order of their birth]—the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth; and the men looked at one another in astonishment [because so much was known about them].

“Reuben, you are my firstborn;My might, the beginning of my strength and vigor,Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power [that should have been your birthright].

Now [we come to] the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—for Reuben was the eldest, but because he defiled his father’s bed [with Bilhah his father’s concubine], his birthright was given to [Manasseh and Ephraim] the sons of Joseph [the favorite] son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright.

Though Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came [David] the leader [and eventually the Messiah], yet the birthright was Joseph’s—