Isaac and Rebecca’s relationship appears close and loving, except when Rebecca directs Jacob to deceive Isaac and steal the blessing meant for Esau. The sages suggest that Isaac knew all along that the man before him was Jacob, disguised as Esau. Is it possible that Isaac and Rebecca were both in on the plan from the start?

Rebecca’s ruse to secure a blessing for Jacob is misguided and generates suffering for both her and her son.

Why are Israelites blessed with agricultural abundance while the Edomites live in a semi-arid land and are forced to hunt? Isaac’s blessing is an etiological story to explain this reality from an Israelite perspective.

The patriarchs Isaac and Jacob are both described as blind from old age when they give blessings to the next generations. Eli the priest and Ahijah the prophet are also blind. How did the biblical authors use disability as a narrative device?

Abraham and Isaac’s sojourn in Gerar and Beersheba, and their covenants with the local ruler Abimelech, reflect the historical circumstances of Judea during the Persian period. They are living in the Promised Land, struggling with the local people, but they come to terms with the friendly and God-fearing ruler.

Abraham, Isaac and David are literally or figuratively blind to YHWH’s intentions. It is their wives who take decisive action to shape Israel’s future.

Abraham and Isaac each dig a well in Beersheba and make a treaty with King Abimelech. Which story came first?

In the Torah, Nimrod and Esau are hunters, Isaac enjoys game, and the legal collections take it for granted that hunting for food is common and permissible. Once Judaism decided that even wild animals must be ritually slaughtered, the Jewish attitude towards hunting took a sharp negative turn.

Why does Esau in Jewish tradition come to be known as עשו הרשע “Esau the Wicked”? The answer has to do with the history of Judea’s relationship with Esau’s eponymous descendants, the Edomites, and the connection Jews made between them, Rome, and Christianity. The negative view of Esau is expressed nowhere more forcefully than in Rashi’s commentary.

Rashi (Rabbi Solomon b. Isaac) wrote the most famous Jewish Bible commentary in history. Over 900 years later, scholars still argue about the nature of the commentary: Is it an attempt to explain peshat, the plain meaning of the biblical text, or is it an anthology of midrash?

Behind the story of Jacob’s struggle with his older twin Esau, stands a political allegory, reflecting how Israel (=Jacob) first dominated Edom (=Esau) in the 10th-9th centuries B.C.E. and then lost control over it in the late 8th century.

In the Bible, Esau is the ancestor of the Edomites who live on Mount Seir, southwest of Judah. So how did the rabbis come to associate Esau and Edom with Rome? Two main factors are at work here: Christianity and Herod.

When geography makes or breaks a storyline

Abimelech, Michal, Sisera’s mother, and Jezebel all look through a window, but their experience is not the same.

After Jacob steals the blessing from Esau, the reactions of both Isaac and Rebecca present numerous narrative difficulties. A source-critical reading reveals two distinct portraits of Jacob: one Jacob who is reactive and on the run, and another who is proactive and purposeful.

Rebecca, informed by God of her sons’ destinies, thwarts her husband’s effort to bless Esau. The Torah thus portrays an assertive Rebecca in contrast to a weak and uninformed Isaac. Early Jewish interpreters took conflicting approaches to this unusual depiction of a patriarchal couple.

The current scholarship about the identity of the Philistines, who they were, when they came to the Levant, and why.