Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 258

GRIPLA
Esau sated from this meal. Accordingly, Rebecca, who is ambitious on Jacob’s
behalf, decides to have Jacob masquerade as Esau. She dresses him in Esau’s
clothes and covers his hands and neck with the hairy skins of two kids, so that
when touched by his blind father, he will feel like his brother. From these
domesticated beasts she also prepares a stew as if they are the hunted game.
Isaac signals suspicion by expressing his surprise at how quickly Esau has
returned from his hunt and by remarking that his son has the voice of Jacob.
He is reassured, however, by the feel of his hairy hands and the smell of
Esau’s clothes, and so Jacob receives his father’s best blessing.
A key element in the story is Esau’s appearance, which is reflected in his
two names: Esau (meaning ‘hairy’) and Edom (meaning ‘ruddy’). These two
characteristics – his unusual hairiness and red color – are pointed out at his
birth, and here the compiler renders the hue adjective ‘rufus’ as ‘rau›r,’ which,
as evident from the roughly 210 examples listed by the Ordbog, covers a wide
range of objects. It is used to describe human facial color, the color of human
head and facial hair, as well as, for example, the color of blood, honey, silk,
cows, horses, fire, weapons, clothing, fabric, gold, wine, and the color of the
sun and the rose. It is commonly used as a by-name, and it is frequently
equated with the color of blood, as in, for example, „Erlingr var flá rau›r sem
bló› í andliti“ and „var flá rau›r sem dreyri“ (Heimskringla 1893-1901
2:259.13; 3:27.16).
However, when Esau’s ruddy color is equated with the color of the lentil
stew,11 the compiler renders the same hue adjective as „rau›r e›a bleikr.“ It
appears that the compiler had difficulty believing – and perhaps rightly so –
that Esau’s body color was identical to the color of the deep red lentils and felt
he could not use the same color term about both lentils and body color. Bear-
ing in mind that Esau was as hairy as an animal (Jacob dressed in animal skins
to pass as him), he therefore decided on the macrocolor bleikr, probably
indicating the hue fawn (defined as „grayish yellowish brown to light grayish
or moderate reddish brown or moderate yellowish pink“),12 which, as noted
above, is used to describe the color of domestic animals. The following state-
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11 The statement that the lentils are red is in itself interesting. Sarna (1989:182) points out that
the lentils that were easily available to Jacob were yellowish red or light brown. For the deep
red color that the story specifies, he would either have had to obtain Egyptian lentils, which
are red, or add something to the pottage to give it an exceptionally red hue. See also Fass
(1992:371).
12 The American Heritage Dictionary (1976): s.v. fawn.