Genesis 1 1 When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him, he called his older son Esau and said to him, "Son!""Yes, father!" he replied. 2 Isaac then said, "As you can see, I am so old that I may now die at any time. 3 Take your gear, therefore--your quiver and bow--and go out into the country to hunt some game for me. 4 2 With your catch prepare an appetizing dish for me, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my special blessing before I die." 照我的嗜好给我作成美味,拿来给我吃,好叫我在未死以前祝福你。" 5 Rebekah had been listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. So when Esau went out into the country to hunt some game for his father, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "Listen! I overheard your father tell your brother Esau, 黎贝加对自己的儿子雅各伯说:"我听见你父亲对你哥哥厄撒乌说: 7 ‘Bring me some game and with it prepare an appetizing dish for me to eat, that I may give you my blessing with the LORD'S approval before I die.' 你去给我打点猎物来,作成美味,叫我吃了,好在死前当着上主的面祝福你。" 8 Now, son, listen carefully to what I tell you. 9 Go to the flock and get me two choice kids. With these I will prepare an appetizing dish for your father, such as he likes. 到羊群里去,给我拿两只肥美的小山羊来,我要照你父亲的嗜好,给他作成美味, 10 Then bring it to your father to eat, that he may bless you before he dies." 你端给父亲吃,好叫他死前祝福你。" 11 "But my brother Esau is a hairy man," said Jacob to his mother Rebekah, "and I am smooth-skinned! 12 Suppose my father feels me? He will think I am making sport of him, and I shall bring on myself a curse instead of a blessing." 万一我父亲摸我,必以为我哄骗他,我必招来咒骂,而不是祝福。" 13 His mother, however, replied: "Let any curse against you, son, fall on me! Just do as I say. Go and get me the kids." 母亲对他说:"我儿,咒骂归于我,你只管听我的话,去给我拿来。" 14 So Jacob went and got them and brought them to his mother; and with them she prepared an appetizing dish, such as his father liked. 15 Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esau that she had in the house, and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear; 16 and with the skins of the kids she covered up his hands and the hairless parts of his neck. 又用小山羊的皮,包在他的手上和他光滑的颈上, 17 Then she handed her son Jacob the appetizing dish and the bread she had prepared. 18 Bringing them to his father, Jacob said, "Father!""Yes?" replied Isaac. "Which of my sons are you?" 雅各伯来到他父亲前说:"我父!"他答说:"我在这里!我儿,你是谁?" 19 Jacob answered his father: "I am Esau, your first-born. I did as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your special blessing." 雅各伯对父亲说:"我是你长子厄撒乌。我已照你吩咐的作了。请坐起来,吃我作的野味,好祝福我。" 20 But Isaac asked, "How did you succeed so quickly, son?" He answered, "The LORD, your God, let things turn out well with me." 21 Isaac then said to Jacob, "Come closer, son, that I may feel you, to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not." 22 So Jacob moved up closer to his father. When Isaac felt him, he said, "Although the voice is Jacob's, the hands are Esau's." 雅各伯就走近他父亲依撒格前;依撒格摸着他说:"声音是雅各伯的声音,手却是厄撒乌的手。" 23 (He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy, like those of his brother Esau; so in the end he gave him his blessing.) 依撒格没有分辨出来,因为他的手,像他哥哥厄撒乌的手一样有毛,就祝福了他。 24 Again he asked him, "Are you really my son Esau?" "Certainly," he replied. 25 Then Isaac said, "Serve me your game, son, that I may eat of it and then give you my blessing." Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate; he brought him wine, and he drank. 依撒格说:"我儿!递给我,叫我吃了你作的野味,好祝福你。"雅各伯于是递过去,他吃了;又给他拿了酒来,他也喝了。 26 Finally his father Isaac said to him, "Come closer, son, and kiss me." 他父亲依撒乌就对他说:"我儿!你前来吻我。" 27 As Jacob went up and kissed him, Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes. With that, he blessed him, saying, "Ah, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of a field that the LORD has blessed! 他就前去吻了父亲。他父亲一闻到他衣服上的香气,就祝福他说: "看!我儿子的香气,像上主祝福的肥田的香气。 28 "May God give to you of the dew of the heavens And of the fertility of the earth abundance of grain and wine. 29 "Let peoples serve you, and nations pay you homage; Be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you." 愿众民服事你,万国叩拜你!愿你作你兄弟的主人,你母亲的儿子叩拜你!凡诅咒你的,必受诅咒;凡祝福你的,必受祝福。" 30 Jacob had scarcely left his father, just after Isaac had finished blessing him, when his brother Esau came back from his hunt. 依撒格一祝福了雅各伯,雅各伯刚由他父亲依撒格面前出来,他哥哥厄撒乌打猎回来了。 31 Then he too prepared an appetizing dish with his game, and bringing it to his father, he said, "Please, father, eat some of your son's game, that you may then give me your special blessing." 32 "Who are you?" his father Isaac asked him. "I am Esau," he replied, "your first-born son." 33 With that, Isaac was seized with a fit of uncontrollable trembling. "Who was it, then," he asked, "that hunted game and brought it to me? I finished eating it just before you came, and I blessed him. Now he must remain blessed!" 依撒格不禁战栗起来,惊问说:"那么,是谁打了猎物给我送了来?并且在你未来以前, 34 On hearing his father's words, Esau burst into loud, bitter sobbing. "Father, bless me too!" he begged. 我已吃了,已祝福了他;他从此必蒙祝福。" 厄撒乌一听见他父亲说出这话,就放声哀号,对他父亲说:"我父,请你也祝福我!" 35 When Isaac explained, "Your brother came here by a ruse and carried off your blessing," 父亲答说:"你弟弟用诡计来夺去了你的祝福。" 36 3 Esau exclaimed, "He has been well named Jacob! He has now supplanted me twice! First he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing." Then he pleaded, "Haven't you saved a blessing for me?" 厄撒乌说:"他不是名叫雅各伯吗?他已两次欺骗了我:以前夺去了我长子的名分,现在又夺去了我的祝福。"继而问说:"你没有给我留下祝福吗?" 37 Isaac replied: "I have already appointed him your master, and I have assigned to him all his kinsmen as his slaves; besides, I have enriched him with grain and wine. What then can I do for you, son?" 38 But Esau urged his father, "Have you only that one blessing, father? Bless me too!" Isaac, however, made no reply; and Esau wept aloud. 厄撒乌对父亲说:"我父,你只有一个祝福吗?我父,你也得祝福我。"厄撒乌就放声大哭。 39 Finally Isaac spoke again and said to him: "Ah, far from the fertile earth shall be your dwelling; far from the dew of the heavens above! 40 "By your sword you shall live, and your brother you shall serve; But when you become restive, you shall throw off his yoke from your neck." 你要凭仗刀剑生活,要服事你的弟弟;但你一强盛起来,将由你的颈上,摆脱他的束缚。" 41 Esau bore Jacob a grudge because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, "When the time of mourning for my father comes, I will kill my brother Jacob." 厄撒乌因为他父亲祝福了雅各伯,便怀恨雅各伯,心下思念说:"为父亲居丧的日期已近,到时我必要杀死我弟弟雅各伯。" 42 When Rebekah got news of what her older son Esau had in mind, she called her younger son Jacob and said to him: "Listen! Your brother Esau intends to settle accounts with you by killing you. 有人告诉了黎贝加他大儿子厄撒乌所说的话;她便派人叫了她小儿雅各伯来,对他说:"看,你哥哥厄撒乌想要杀你泄恨。 43 Therefore, son, do what I tell you: flee at once to my brother Laban in 44 and stay with him a while until your brother's fury subsides 与他住些时日,直到你哥哥忿怒消失了。 45 (until your brother's anger against you subsides) and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back. Must I lose both of you in a single day?" 46 4 Rebekah said to Isaac: "I am disgusted with life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob also should marry a Hittite woman, a native of the land, like these women, what good would life be to me?" 黎贝加就对依撒格说:"为了这两个赫特女人,我厌恶得要死;假使雅各伯也从这地的女人中娶一个像这样的赫特女人为妻,我还活着做什么?" Footnotes(注解) 1 [1-45] What Jacob did in deceiving his father and thereby cheating Esau out of Isaac's deathbed blessing is condemned as blameworthy, not only by Hosea (Hosea 12:4) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 9:3), but also, indirectly, by the Yahwist narrator of the present story, who makes the reader sympathize with Esau as the innocent victim of a cruel plot, and shows that Jacob and his mother, the instigator of the plot, paid for it by a lifelong separation from each other. The story was told because it was part of the mystery of God's ways in salvation history--his use of weak, sinful men to achieve his own ultimate purpose. 2 [4] My special blessing: "the blessing of my soul." The same expression is used also in Genesis 27:19, 25, 31. In the context it must mean something like a solemn deathbed blessing, believed to be especially efficacious. 3 [36] He has now supplanted me: in Hebrew, wayyaqebeni, a wordplay on the name Jacob, yaaqob; see Jeremiah 9:3 and note, as well as Genesis 25:26. There is also a play between the Hebrew words bekora ("birthright") and beraka ("blessing"). 4 [27:46-28:9] This section, which is from the Priestly source and a direct sequel of Genesis 26:34-35, presents a different, though not contradictory, reason for Jacob's going to Paddan-aram: namely, to preserve racial purity among the chosen people. The account of Esau's marriages is given for the purpose of explaining the racial mixture of the Edomites, who were descended in part from tribes related to |