Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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[1.] As a shepherd. He was attached to that safe and silent employment of keeping sheep, to which also he bred up his children, Ge 46:34. Or,
[2.] As a student. He frequented the tents of Melchizedek, or Heber, as some understand it, to be taught by them divine things. And this was that son of Isaac on whom the covenant was entailed.
28 And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but
Rebekah loved Jacob.
Their interest in the affections of their parents was likewise different. They had but these two children, and, it seems, one was the father's darling and the other the mother's, Ge 25:28.
(1.) Isaac, though he was not a stirring man himself (for when he went into the fields he went to meditate and pray, not to hunt), yet loved to have his son active. Esau knew how to please him, and showed a great respect for him, by treating him often with venison, which gained him the affections of the good old man, and won upon him more than one would have thought.
(2.) Rebekah was mindful of the oracle of God, which had given the preference to Jacob, and therefore she preferred him in her love. And, if it be lawful for parents to make a difference between their children upon any account, doubtless Rebekah was in the right, that loved him whom God loved.
29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was
faint:
His appetite was very strong, Ge 25:29, 30. Poor Jacob had got some bread and pottage (Ge 25:29) for his dinner, and was sitting down to it contentedly enough, without venison, when Esau came from hunting, hungry and weary, and perhaps had caught nothing. And now Jacob's pottage pleased his eye better than ever his game had done. Give me (says he) some of that red, that red, as it is in the original; it suited his own colour (Ge 25:25), and, in reproach to him for this, he was ever afterwards called Edom, red. Nay, it should seem, he was so faint that he could not feed himself, nor had he a servant at hand to help him, but entreats his brother to feed him. Note,