Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl wrote:  “Esau [at Genesis 25: 27 is] pictured as a one-sided man of 
hunting and the outdoors.”
 
I agree.  And going beyond that, what Esau was doing was big game trophy 
hunting, rather than supplying meat to the community of shepherds that was 
led 
by his father Isaac.  The selfish, unattractive nature of Esau’s hunting 
can be seen by comparing the older brothers of three early monotheistic 
leaders, all of whom hunted using bows, and none of whom won the grand 
monotheistic prize that instead went to his younger brother.
 
1.  Esau
 
Genesis 27: 3 says that Esau hunted with a bow, meaning that Esau is an 
archer.  By contrast, younger twin brother Jacob does not do hunting.
 
If Esau is, as I have asserted, associated with the Lachish Valley, then 
the hunting enthusiasm of pharaoh Amenhotep III was known, and emulated, at 
Lachi-$a [which I see as being Biblical Beer Laxi-Rai]:  “[T]he Lion Hunt 
scarab, which was found at the Fosse Temple at Lachish[, where wild game 
sacrifices were also found,]…records the lion-hunting exploits of Amenhotep 
III”.  
Carolyn R. Higginbotham, “Egyptianization and Elite Emulation in Ramesside 
Palestine” (2000), at p. 250.  
 
>From Late Bronze Age burials at Lachi-$a, we know that wild game was an 
insignificant component of the people’s diet there.  Rather, as at Gaza in 
this 
time period, nobles did big game trophy hunting for recreation, aping the 
decadent Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III, the so-called “King of Kings”, who 
never tired of bragging about his legendary exploits as a big game hunter.
 
The closest Late Bronze Age burial site to the other place where Esau in my 
view hunted wild game, Beersheba of Galilee, is at a place with the modern 
nickname “Persian Garden”, northeast of Acco.  What was found there 
includes:  “…62 arrowheads and spearheads.  The arrowheads and spearheads 
were 
found in groups, each group perhaps the content of a quiver.  …Other 
interesting finds were…Egyptian jewelry, including a silver ring bearing the 
name of 
Amenophis III, [and] an arrowhead with an Egyptian hieroglyph incised on its 
base….  All objects conform well with a date in the first half of the 
fourteenth century B.C.”  Rivka Gonen, “Burial Patterns and Cultural 
Diversity in 
Late Bronze Age Canaan” (1992), at pp. 84-85.  
 
While Jacob is being TM and helping out the community/family clan by being 
a shepherd, Esau is selfishly off pretending to be a nobleman who, like 
Amenhotep III, spends his idle time hunting trophy big game with bow and 
arrow.  
T-h-a-t  is the contrast between the two boys that is being made at Genesis 
25: 27!
 

2.  Ishmael
 
Genesis 21: 20 says that Ishmael was an archer, meaning that he hunted with 
a bow.  By contrast, younger half-brother Isaac does not do hunting.
 
3.  Thutmose
 
Amenhotep III’s firstborn son [Akhenaten’s older brother], Thutmose, is 
associated with many outdoor activities, including hunting with a bow:  “Very 
interesting is the detail that to the tomb equipment of Tutankhamun a whip 
grasp belongs which the name and titles of prince Thutmose mentioned together 
with the addition chief of the archers.”  Klaus Finneiser, the Egyptian 
Museum of Berlin, Germany.  By contrast, younger brother Akhenaten was a rare 
pharaoh who did not do hunting:  “Amarna tableaux rarely feature hunting, 
suggesting that Akhenaten abjured the sport of kings.”  Dan Richardson, 
“Rough 
Guide to Egypt” (2003), at p. 314.  
 
Note that both at Amarna and in the first two Patriarchal successions, the 
firstborn son who loved to hunt using a bow [Ishmael, Esau, Thutmose] did 
not become the leader of the next generation of early monotheists.  Rather, 
that great honor instead went to a younger son who never went hunting:  
Isaac, 
Jacob, Akhenaten.  Thus what is portrayed in the Patriarchal narratives 
parallels with pinpoint historical accuracy exactly how the first 
monotheistic 
ruler in non-biblical sources succeeded to power:  a younger son who never 
went hunting, and who was not his father’s favorite son, although his father 
nevertheless ended up giving him everything, whose mother was his father’s 
original main wife #1, whose own original main wife #1 was a firstborn 
daughter, and who would prove to have a difficult time siring his own proper 
male 
heir.  
 
Note how redolent of the Late Bronze Age these verses in the Patriarchal 
narratives are.  None of this relates to anything in the 1st millennium BCE.
 
Firstborn son Esau is castigated at Genesis 25: 27 for doing trophy big 
game hunting, instead of helping with the all-important flock of sheep and 
goats like younger son Jacob, and otherwise being an integral part of the 
community of which their father Isaac was the leader.  In the Patriarchal 
narratives, reflecting with pinpoint accuracy the peculiar circumstances of 
the 
mid-14th century BCE, the firstborn son always gets the shaft, and properly 
so.
 
The  o-n-l-y  time period when Genesis 25: 27 makes sense is shortly after 
Amenhotep III’s death, when princelings in Canaan were aping the decadent 
lifestyle of the “King of Kings” re hunting, and the  o-n-l-y  geographical 
locale where Genesis 25: 27 makes sense is a place like the Lachish Valley, 
where [unlike the eastern Sinai Desert] big game hunting was doable, but 
[unlike Luz/Laish/Dan] it was insignificant in terms of what the people there 
ate.  The text is  t-e-l-l-i-n-g  us when and where these Biblical stories 
happened, namely the “timeframes and geographical parameters” [to use George 
Athas’s helpful lingo], if we only will pay close attention to what the text  
s-a-y-s .
 
If we can understand Genesis 25: 27, we can understand the bulk of the 
Patriarchal narratives.  
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois