Under Christian Rule, Nahmanides Defends Jacob and Vilifies Esau

For an account of Nahmanides’ life and thought, see Oded Yisraeli, Nahmanides: An Intellectual Biography (Stanford University Press, 2026); trans. of ר' משה בן נחמן: ביוגרפיה אינטלקטואלית (Magnes, 2020); Haviva Pedaya, הרמב"ן: התעלות – זמן מחזורי וטקסט קדוש [Nahmanides: Cyclical Time and Holy Text] (Am Oved, 2003).

Avraham Grossman, Rashi (Liverpool University Press, 2012), 101–106.

According to the Mishnah, Abraham underwent ten tests:

^{משנה אבות ה:ג} עֲשָׂרָה נִיסְיוֹנוֹת נִיתְנַסָּה אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ,           וְעָמַד בְּכוּלָּם.

^{m. Avot 5:3} Abraham our father was tested with ten trials… and withstood them all.

(Translations of rabbinic texts are the author’s and/or the editor’s.) As the Mishnah never lists the ten, this is debated. The famine is #4 in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (§26) and #2 in Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah (ad loc.).

Rashi’s interpretation fits with that of PDE:

^{פרקי דרבי אליעזר כו} נסיון הד׳: מיום שנברא שמים וארץ לא בא רעב אלא בימי אברהם, ולא בכל הארצות אלא בארץ כנען בלבד, לנסותו ולהורידו למצרים, שנא׳ ״ויהי רעב בארץ וירד אברם מצרימה״.

^{PDE §26} The fourth trial: From the day heaven and earth were created, there had been no famine except in the days of Abraham, and not in all the lands but in the land of Canaan alone, to test him and bring him down to Egypt, as it says (Gen 12:10), “There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt.”

Grossman, Rashi, 169–174, 194–195. While in his introduction to his commentary, Nahmanides showers Rashi with effusive, poetic praise, crowning his work as a superior locus of reference, at various points he critically departs from Rashi’s interpretation. On this, see B. Septimus, “Open Rebuke and Concealed Love: Nahmanides and the Andalusian Tradition,” ed. I. Twersky, Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 16–17.

Biblical texts are based on RJPS.

See b. Sanh. 108a; for the comparison between Noah and Abraham, see Gen. Rab. 30:10.

This is from Nahmanides’ revisions, which he composed in Israel.

On how Balaam, a great seer in the oldest sources, came to be portrayed as a villain within the Bible itself, see Alexander Rofé, “Balaam the Seer Is Recast as a Villain,” TheTorah (2019).

Ramban sustains this reading. Where Rashi (on Num 23:16), following Tanḥ. Balak 12 and Num. Rab. 20:16, has Balaam bless Israel against his will, Ramban has him bless Israel deliberately, out of reverence for God’s command (Ramban on Num 23:5 and 24:1).

The passage reads:

^{בראשית כה:לא} וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב מִכְרָה כַיּוֹם אֶת בְּכֹרָתְךָ לִי.‏ ^כה:לב וַיֹּאמֶר עֵשָׂו הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי הוֹלֵךְ לָמוּת וְלָמָּה זֶּה לִי בְּכֹרָה.‏ ^כה:לג וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב הִשָּׁבְעָה לִּי כַּיּוֹם וַיִּשָּׁבַע לוֹ וַיִּמְכֹּר אֶת בְּכֹרָתוֹ לְיַעֲקֹב.‏ ^כה:לד וְיַעֲקֹב נָתַן לְעֵשָׂו לֶחֶם וּנְזִיד עֲדָשִׁים וַיֹּאכַל וַיֵּשְׁתְּ וַיָּקׇם וַיֵּלַךְ וַיִּבֶז עֵשָׂו אֶת הַבְּכֹרָה.‏

^{Gen 25:31} Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” ^25:32 And Esau said, “I am at the point of death, so of what use is my birthright to me?” ^25:33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ^25:34 Jacob then gave Esau bread and lentil stew; he ate and drank, and he rose and went away. Thus did Esau spurn the birthright.  

The verse reads:

^{משלי  כג:כא} כִּי סֹבֵא וְזוֹלֵל יִוָּרֵשׁ וּקְרָעִים תַּלְבִּישׁ נוּמָה.

^{Prov 23:21} For guzzlers and gluttons will be impoverished, and drowsing will clothe you in tatters.

Nahmanides spends his entire gloss explaining technical/legal nuances of the word כַיּוֹם “today” in v. 31.

Nahum M. Sarna notes that “coming to meet” is a phrase “that can convey either amity or enmity”; see Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 224. For a detailed analysis of Esau’s intentions, see Jonathan Grossman, Jacob: The Story of a Family [Hebrew] (Rishon LeZion: Miskal—Yedioth Ahronoth and Chemed Books, 2019), 346–54.

Rashbam on Gen 32:7; Rashi on Gen 32:7, 12.

Ramban on Gen 32:17, echoing Rashi (ad loc.). Ramban uses the epithet (“wicked”) for Esau elsewhere as well; see, for example, his commentary on Gen 36:2; on Gen 36:40 and on Gen 49:31.

See discussion in Albert I. Baumgarten, “Why Is Esau’s Kiss Dotted?” TheTorah (2018).

This passage comes from Nahmanides later revisions.

On Rashi’s portrayal of Esau, see Barry Dov Walfish, “The Denigration of Esau,” TheTorah (2020). On the rabbinic tradition that “Esau hates Jacob” and its modern afterlife, see Marty Lockshin, “‘Esau Hates Jacob’—But Is Antisemitism a Halakha?” TheTorah (2016).

The principle is often quoted as מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, a wording attested in Maharsha (R. Samuel Edels; 1555–1631), Ḥiddushei Aggadot on b. Avodah Zarah 8b, who already cites it as a sayingכי מעשה אבות סימן לבנים. Nahmanides’ own formulation is כל מה שאירע לאבות סימן לבנים “all that took place with the fathers is a sign for the sons” (Gen 12:6). He attributes it to “our Rabbis”; the rabbinic source is Tanḥ. Lekh Lekha 9. On the history of the saying, see Ben-Zion Fishler, "מעשה אבות סימן לבנים – גלגולה של אמירה" [The Deeds of the Fathers Are a Sign for the Children: The Evolution of a Saying], Sinai 131 (2003): 77–96; and, Alexander Klein, "מעשה אבות סימן לבנים" [The Deeds of the Fathers Are a Sign for the Children] (accessed Nov 10, 2026).

For the argument that the story itself was composed to prefigure the exodus, see Christoph Levin, “Abraham and Sarah in Egypt: A Story Composed to Prefigure the Exodus,” TheTorah (2020). See also Chapter 3 “The Typologies of Genesis,” in Marc Zvi Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (Routledge, 1995), 48–61.

On Nahmanides’ reading of Sarah and Hagar as a sign for their descendants, see David M. Freidenreich, “What Does Sarah’s Expulsion of Hagar Signify for Abraham’s Descendants?” TheTorah (2018).

Nahmanides on Genesis 12:10, 26:1, and 47:28. He states the threefold scheme compactly at the end of his treatise Torat HaShem Temimah.  

Gerson D. Cohen, “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 19–48. On the origins of the identification, see Israel J. Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 10–20. See also Malka Z. Simkovich, “Esau the Ancestor of Rome,” TheTorah (2018).  

Sefer ha-Ge’ulah (“The Book of Redemption”), in: כתבי רבינו משה בן נחמן, ed. Charles B. Chavel (Mossad HaRav Kook, 1963), 1:284; or in English, Writings of the Ramban, trans. Charles B. Chavel, new rev. ed. (Judaica Press, 2009), 2:651–652.

On the disputation, see R. Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and its Aftermath (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992); H. Maccoby, Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 2006), 95–150. For a graphic presentation of the events, see Nina Caputo and Liz Clarke, Debating Truth: The Barcelona Disputation of 1263, A Graphic History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

The next comment, on the messengers themselves (Gen 32:4), does fault Jacob, but even here, the fault is Jacob’s misjudgment, provoking a brother who was going his own way:

^{רמב"ן על בראשית לב:ד} וכבר תפשוהו החכמים על זה. אמרו בבראשית רבה: מחזיק באזני כלב וגו׳ – אמר לו הקב״ה: לדרכו היה מהלך, והיית משלח אצלו ואומר לו: כה אמר עבדך יעקב.

^{Ramban on Gen 32:4} The Sages already faulted him for this. They said in Genesis Rabbah (75:3): “[Like] one who grabs a dog by the ears…” (Prov 26:17)—the Blessed Holy One said to him: “He was going on his way, and you sent to him and said, ‘Thus says your servant Jacob’!”

Nahmanides does not call it wickedness, and nothing suggests that Jacob deserved what followed.

ועל דעתי: גם זה ירמוז כי אנחנו התחלנו נפילתנו ביד אדום, כי מלכי בית שני באו בברית עם הרומיים ומהם שבאו ברומה, והיא היתה סבת נפילתם בידם.

In my opinion, this too hints that we began our fall into the hands of Edom, for the kings of the Second Temple period made a treaty with the Romans, and some of them went to Rome, and this was the cause of their falling into their hands.

It is the typology that leads him to take this midrash seriously, since Jacob’s error prefigures the Second Temple kings’ treaty with Rome. On this midrash and Nahmanides’ use of it, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “If Jacob Is Returning to Canaan, Why Send Messengers to Esau in Seir?” TheTorah (2019).

Daniel 7 describes four beasts, which represent four successive kingdoms (Dan 7:17, 23). Nahmanides identifies the fourth, the most terrifying of them (7:7), with Rome, which, as noted above, he understands to include Christendom. His dispute with Ibn Ezra over this identification is discussed below.

For Ramban’s contention with Ibn Ezra concerning the identification of the final beast, see his discussion in Sefer ha-Ge’ulah, in: Writings of the Ramban, 2:679–683.