Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Read, James C wrote:
> Hebrew1: Edom had red hair and ate some red stew and lived in a place called 
> red.
>
> Hebrew2: No! Stop! You're killing me! My sides are splitting. Oh you really are a 
>          funny guy.

I don't think this kind of caricature of Chris' post is helpful.

The punning evident in the Gen passage (and, for that matter, in the 
summary of Hebrew1 above) is not meant in the spirit of a Henny Youngman 
type of vaudville act. Rather, it expresses the humor of mockery and 
poetic justice.

Put another way:
The more Esau's lust for things red (wild game, lentils, flesh) ruled 
him, the more alienated he became from the blessing of the Lord, in 
effect banishing himself to the difficult life of the red mountains. 
  The poetic tie-in mocks the enslavement of Esau by the lusts of his 
own red flesh.  The funny thing is that while Jacob, Rebecca, ultimately 
even Israel and we can see Esau's problem so clearly, Esau does not 
recognize his own raging red lust and its pathetic result.

Shalom,
Bryan

--
B. M. Rocine
Living Word Chruch
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