Person
Esau (Edom)
Also called Edom, Edomite
Mentioned in 151 verses across 24 books, first in Genesis 25:25. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).
In these stories
In the Bible
The first 10 of 151 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 25:25
The first one came out red, covered with hair like a fur coat; so they named him Esau.
- Genesis 25:26
After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.
- Genesis 25:27
When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.
- Genesis 25:28
Because Isaac had a taste for wild game, he loved Esau; but Rebekah loved Jacob.
- Genesis 25:29
One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished.
- Genesis 25:30
He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am famished.” (That is why he was also called Edom.)
- Genesis 25:32
“Look,” said Esau, “I am about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”
- Genesis 25:34
Then Jacob gave some bread and lentil stew to Esau, who ate and drank and then got up and went away. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
- Genesis 26:34
When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.
- Genesis 27:1
When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied.
Events
Events the dataset lists Esau (Edom) as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1836 BCBirth of Jacob and Esau
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
Hairy, Rebekah’s first-born twin son (Gen. 25:25). The name of Edom, “red”, was also given to him from his conduct in connection with the red lentil “pottage” for which he sold his birthright (30, 31). The circumstances connected with his birth foreshadowed the enmity which afterwards subsisted between the twin brothers and the nations they founded (25:22, 23, 26). In process of time Jacob, following his natural bent, became a shepherd; while Esau, a “son of the desert,” devoted himself to the perilous and toilsome life of a huntsman. On a certain occasion, on returning from the chase, urged by the cravings of hunger, Esau sold his birthright to his brother, Jacob, who thereby obtained the covenant blessing (Gen. 27:28, 29, 36; Heb. 12:16, 17). He afterwards tried to regain what he had so recklessly parted with, but was defeated in his attempts through the stealth of his brother (Gen. 27:4, 34, 38).
At the age of forty years, to the great grief of his parents, he married (Gen. 26:34, 35) two Canaanitish maidens, Judith, the daughter of Beeri, and Bashemath, the daughter of Elon. When Jacob was sent away to Padan-aram, Esau tried to conciliate his parents (Gen. 28:8, 9) by marrying his cousin Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael. This led him to cast in his lot with the Ishmaelite tribes; and driving the Horites out of Mount Seir, he settled in that region. After some thirty years’ sojourn in Padan-aram Jacob returned to Canaan, and was reconciled to Esau, who went forth to meet him (33:4). Twenty years after this, Isaac their father died, when the two brothers met, probably for the last time, beside his grave (35:29). Esau now permanently left Canaan, and established himself as a powerful and wealthy chief in the land of Edom (q.v.).
Long after this, when the descendants of Jacob came out of Egypt, the Edomites remembered the old quarrel between the brothers, and with fierce hatred they warred against Israel.