impure means by which he had obtained it.” “ Behold,” it states, “ from the fat fields of the earth will thy dwelling be, and from the dew of heaven from above.” By a play upon the words Isaac uses the same expression as in Gen 27:28, “from the fat fields of the earth, and from the dew,” but in the opposite sense, מן being partitive there, and privative here, “from = away from.” The context requires that the words should be taken thus, and not in the sense of “thy dwelling shall partake of the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven” ( Vulg., Luth., etc.).[1]
Since Isaac said (Gen 27:37) he had given Jacob the blessing of the super-abundance of corn and wine, he could not possibly promise Esau also fat fields and the dew of heaven. Nor would this agree with the words which follows, “ By thy sword wilt thou live.” Moreover, the privative sense of מן is thoroughly poetical (cf. 2Sa 1:22; Job 11:15, etc.). The idea expressed in the words, therefore, was that the dwelling-place of Esau would be the very opposite of the land of Canaan, viz., an unfruitful land. This is generally the condition of the mountainous country of Edom, which, although not without its fertile slopes and valleys, especially in the eastern portion (cf. Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 552), is thoroughly waste and barren in the western; so that Seetzen says it consists of “the most desolate and barren mountains probably in the world.”
The mode of life and occupation of the inhabitants were adapted to the country. “ By (lit., on) thy sword thou wilt live;” i.e., thy maintenance will depend on the sword (על as in Deu 8:3 cf. Isa 28:16), “live by war, rapine, and freebooting” ( Knobel). “ And thy brother thou wilt serve; yet it will come to pass, as (כּאשׁר, lit., in proportion as, cf. Num 27:14) thou shakest (tossest), thou wilt break his yoke from thy neck.” רוּד, “to rove about” (Jer 2:31; Hos 12:1), Hiphil “to cause (the thoughts) to rove about” (Psa 55:3); but Hengstenberg's rendering is the best here, viz., “to shake, sc., the yoke.” In the wild, sport-loving Esau there was aptly prefigured the character of his posterity. Josephus describes the Idumaean people as “a tumultuous and disorderly nation, always on the watch on every
- ↑ Note: I cannot discover, however, in Mal 1:3 an authentic proof of the privative meaning, as Kurtz and Delitzsch do, since the prophet's words, “I have hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste,” are not descriptive of the natural condition of Idumaea, but of the desolation to which the land was given up.
