So Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me eat some of that red soup right now. I’m really tired and hungry.” Jacob said to Esau, “First, I want you to do something for me. You are the oldest son in our family. That means you are the most important son, and you will be the next leader for our family. But I want to be the most important son, instead of you. I want to be the next leader for our family. So you have to promise that you will let me be the most important son now, instead of you. Then you can eat some soup.” Esau said, “Look, I’m so tired and hungry that I’m going to die. So it doesn’t matter if I stop being the next leader for our family. I just need some food right now.” But Jacob said, “First, you have to make me that strong promise.” So Esau did what Jacob asked. He said to Jacob, “I promise that you can be the most important son in our family, instead of me, and you can be the next leader for our family.” Then Jacob gave Esau some of that soup with red beans in it, and some bread. Esau ate that red soup and bread, and then he got up and left. That’s the story about how Esau let Jacob be the most important son. So Esau wasn’t the most important son any more, but he didn’t care. Later on, people sometimes called Esau a different name. They called him Edom. That name means red, like that red soup.
Genesis 30:14Plain English VersionOne day, Leah’s oldest son Reuben went to the place where the wheat plants grow. At that time, some work-men were cutting down those wheat plants, to get the food from them. And Reuben found some special plants, called mandrakes, in that place. So Reuben took those mandrakes, and he gave them to his mother Leah. But Leah’s sister Rachel, she saw those mandrakes, and she wanted to have them. Rachel thought, “If I eat a mandrake, maybe I will have a baby.” You see, mandrakes were like bush medicine. People thought that if a woman eats a mandrake, it will help her have a baby. So Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of those mandrakes that your son found.” See the chapter |
5 Cross References
Then Leah got angry with Rachel. She said, “Listen, I married Jacob first, but he loved you and married you. It’s like you took my husband away from me. That’s really bad. And now, you want to take my son’s mandrakes too. No, you can’t have them.” But Rachel still wanted those mandrakes. So she said to Leah, “All right, if you give me your son’s mandrakes, you can sleep with Jacob tonight.” And Leah agreed.
Later on, while the sun was going down, Jacob finished working outside, and he came back home. Leah went out to meet Jacob, and she said, “You have to sleep with me tonight. You see, my son found some mandrakes, but I gave those mandrakes to Rachel, so that I can sleep with you. It’s like I paid for you with those mandrakes.” So that night, Jacob slept with Leah, like a man sleeps with his wife.