The Birth of Jacob and Esau
After twenty childless years Rebecca bears twins: Esau, and after him Jacob, holding his brother's heel.
Isaac married at forty, but the children came when he was sixty: for twenty years he and Rebecca prayed. The Torah uses a rare verb, vaye'tar, related to a pitchfork—as a fork turns over grain, so the prayer of the righteous overturns a decree. The pregnancy is agonizing; the children struggle within her until Rebecca says, "If so, why am I?" and goes to inquire of God. The answer is a forecast for millennia: "Two nations are in your womb… and the elder shall serve the younger." Esau emerges first, red and hairy; then Jacob, his hand grasping his brother's heel, from which he takes his name. The boys grow up side by side and diverge completely: Esau a man of the field and a hunter, Jacob "a wholesome man dwelling in tents"—the tents of study of Shem and Ever, say the sages. Isaac loves Esau, Rebecca loves Jacob, and that split will drive the next six decades.
How we know
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 25:19–28 — twenty years of prayer, the prophecy to Rivkah, the birth and the parting of the brothers
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 63 — “they struggled”: towards the house of study and towards the shrine; the parting at thirteen
- Yevamot 64a — vayetar and the image of a pitchfork; why the matriarchs were barren
Rishonim
- Rashi on Bereishit 25:27 — “a man of the field” and “dwelling in tents”: two paths
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.