Birthright & Blessings - Genesis 27 Intro

As far as I know, each legitimate son is entitled to a portion of the inheritance, whereas the illegitimate sons are not, though they can receive “gifts” from their father just like we saw Abraham do. When it comes to the inheritance that the legitimate sons receive, I think it’s all supposed to be split evenly between the boys, except for the oldest which receives the “birthright” that includes not only a double portion of the inheritance, but also takes over as the leader of the clan meaning that he also assumes the father’s authority and responsibility for the welfare of those that his father cared for. The designation for the child who will receive this double portion is called the “birthright,” so it’s not as much of a specific amount of say money or property, but instead is a more abstract concept of “this is the boy who will take over for dad.” In other words, the order of his “birth” is what qualified him to receive the “right” of assuming his father’s position when the time comes. This makes sense with the double portion because the son taking over would need so many more resources in order to care for all of those now in his care. So if a man had 100 somethings and 5 sons, upon his death, each son would get 20 somethings, but then the oldest would get 40 somethings and the other 4 boys would split the 60 something. For the younger boys, this would be a massive boost, where they got 15 somethings and got to go off and start a new life, whereas the oldest boys would get 60 somethings and use that to support his father’s people, where they were cared for with 100 somethings earlier. I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but that’s how I needed to reason it out in my mind. This is one aspect of Jacob & Esau’s story that is important but that I don’t fully understand is that there are two different parts of the birthright blessing thing. If I understand it correctly, the “birthright” is the designation for the child who will receive a double portion of the inheritance after the father dies. Meaning that if there are two boys, the inheritance will be split and the child with the birthright receives 2/3 and the other son receives 1/3. It is granted to the firstborn son of the father only through one of his legitimate wives, but the amounts aren’t mandated by law or anything so much of it is left up to the discretion of dear old dad. So when Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for that lentil soup, he was basically giving up his position as the next in line to take over for his father. He was agreeing to take his portion of the inheritance and go on his merry way, instead of assuming the role of the head of his father’s household. This might end up not being a bad deal, especially considering that his father Isaac was a very wealthy man, and he would end up with 1/3 of his father’s assets upon Isaac’s death, but none of the responsibility. I didn’t know that anyone had actually taken this “soup” deal for the birthright seriously, because they were probably just stupid kids at the time, but apparently, they did. In the lecture on this chapter from the Torah Class, the lecturer references verse 36 of chapter 27 and comments, “By the time that we reach this chapter, the issue of the birthright has apparently already been resolved. Reluctantly, Isaac seems to have accepted it at some point before this scene, and Esau was most aware that it was the case.” This is confusing if we consider the “birthright” and the “blessing” to be the same thing, which I always had, but he continues, “My study of birthright and blessings shows that the two things aren’t necessarily connected. The matter of birthright, for the most part, is settled automatically at the birth of the first boy child… And there would be so ceremony nor ritual attached, so well was this thoroughly imbedded in both law and tradition of that era. So, the traditional blessings bestowed upon the family near the end of the family leader’s life meant something else.” So if the “birthright” is just the designation of who would receive the biggest portion and also the head of household responsibilities, then we could consider the “blessing” as the reading of the will. This means that everyone knows who is taking over the authority and will receive the biggest portion of the inheritance, but they don’t know exactly what who is going to get how much of what. So everyone knows that Jacob is going to be getting the head of household role, but they don’t know how much Isaac is going to split his stuff between the boys and that’s what the blessing is about. The lecturer continues, “So, while Isaac was not arguing over the technical aspect of who was DESIGNATED as firstborn, he was using his prerogatives to decide exactly who got what.”