From Eden to Esau: The Spiritual Power of Eating and Desire in Scripture

 this episode of the Scripture Study Podcast, Susan Petersen and Cindy Madsen explore the theology of food in the biblical story of Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25–28). They examine how food and appetite drive key narrative moments, including Esau selling his birthright for stew and Jacob's deceptive meal securing Isaac's blessing. Drawing on rabbinic commentaries and scholars like Gordon Wenham and Norman Wirzba, they highlight parallels with the Garden of Eden and discuss how food symbolizes desire, deception, and spiritual consequence, ultimately reflecting deeper truths about gratitude, community, and humanity's dependence on God.


00:00 Introduction
05:17 Food and Appetite in Genesis 25 & 27
12:02 Meal Scenes as Narrative Structure
16:30 Food’s Symbolic Burden and Obligations
20:19 Theology of Food in Jewish Life
24:43 Parallels with the Garden of Eden
30:25 Food Temptation Pattern in Genesis
36:22 Introduction to Theology of Food
39:40 Esau’s Character and the Birthright
43:41 Rebecca’s Role and Parental Favoritism
47:11 Jacob’s Character Arc and Deceit Motif
53:18 Conclusion: Food, Banquet, and Restoration

Join Us

The Scripture Study Podcast is your midweek Bible boost—designed to help you grow in understanding, confidence, and love for God’s word.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend!


Resources

Come Follow Me
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/come-follow-me

Midrash
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/midrash-101/

Biblical Commentary on Genesis by Gordon Wenham
https://www.logos.com/product/208093/genesis-2-vols

Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating by Norman Wirzba
https://archive.org/details/foodfaiththeolog0000wirz

Essays on Agriculture and Food Responsibility by Wendell Berry
https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/34

Join Us

The Scripture Study Podcast is your midweek Bible boost—designed to help you grow in understanding, confidence, and love for God’s word.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Scripture Study Podcast. I am Susan Peterson. And I'm Cindy Madsen. We're so glad you're here with us. The Scripture Study Podcast is designed to be your midweek Bible boost. Let's dig in.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Welcome back to the Scripture Study Podcast. I am Susan Peterson. And I'm Cindy Madsen. Hi, Cindy.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hi, Susan. How are you? So good. Are you ready to talk about part two of Isaac Jacob? And we're going to move into the theology of food.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Yes, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. In the last episode, we look kind of laid the groundwork for that this conversation we're going to have. So if you've not listened to that, I would suggest going back and listening to that one first. But other than that, let's get started. All right.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Okay, so in Judaism, the Torah, the five first books, often the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the Torah is divided into 54 readings, which are read out loud in the weekly Shabbat meetings at the synagogue. And synagogues will refer to these weekly readings as the Parasha. Each parasha has a name that comes from the first significant word in that reading. The length of each of these readings depends on the week, but usually it's three to six chapters. When naming a specific parasha reading, one replaces the H in the word parashah, which is P-A-R-A-S-H-A-H, with a T. And so the weekly reading in the Torah cycle, in this Torah cycle that we're going to talk about, is called Parshat Toldat. Okay. All right. So Toldat means generations. And this section comprises Genesis 25, verse 19 through 28, verse 9, which starts with, and these are the, here's the word tol dot of Isaac, the generations of Isaac. And it's kind of like our come follow me readings. It's a it's common for them to discuss the parshaw of the week. So they'll write about this, they'll discuss this, and this will kind of be a source for ethical, spiritual, and moral lessons in daily life, which is what we do with the come follow me sections with the application of how that section of reading, how does it apply to your life?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And have you noticed that if you're diligent in your come follow me, your life kind of plays out into the theme? That's a really good point. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

I hadn't thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

It does. Like it kind of plays out. Your life becomes scripture in a way. Yes. So true.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

I love that. That's a really, really good point. Well, in preparing for this podcast, I read several rabbis through about the Parashat Toldat. And so I want to start off by reading parts of a commentary by Rabbi Yitzhak Arya Strymber. Okay. And this is it. In the beginning of this week's Torah reading, Isav or Esau sold his firstborn status to his brother Yaakov, Jacob, in exchange for a dish of lentils. This verse says that Isav despised the firstborn status, meaning he despised the special service of God, which was created to the one who had the firstborn status. In the end of this week's Torah reading, he regretted the sale and claimed that Yaakov had tricked him for having him to sell his firstborn status. This, says Rabbeinu Bekai, is a typical example of how the Yetzer Hera or the evil inclination works. The Yetzer Hera convinces a person to follow his lusts and fulfill his desires in life, which causes him to despise the service of God. At the time he does so, he feels like he is taking advantage of life and enjoying himself. But in the end, he will regret it and feel very pained about what he has done. Heeding the Yetzer Hera provides a fleeting sense of pleasure and satisfaction. But in the long run, he will not be happy with himself. The Birchas Peretz adds that Isav claimed that his brother Yaakov had tricked him, but in reality, he is the one who tricked himself. He fooled himself into thinking that he was getting the better end of the deal. But the Midrash says that he mocked Yaakov and felt like he was taking advantage of Yaakov. And in the end, he realized that he had acted foolishly, but it was too late. It wasn't just Esau who acted like this. People decide to indulge in materialistic pleasures instead of taking the time to study Torah and pursue other mitzvot or good deeds. At the time they do so, they feel good. They feel like they succeeded in living it up, but sooner or later they are left with a guilty feeling of emptiness and are consumed with guilt, ill feelings which outweigh all the pleasure they had at the time. They also trick themselves. And as bad as one feels in this world, the real regret will be in the next world when one sees with clarity how foolish he was for giving up infinite goodness for some fleeting pleasure. That's the end of his little discussion. So what was interesting to me as I read this was that uh Rabbi Strember, he highlights something that suddenly struck me as I was reading chapters 25 and 27. And that was the role that appetite plays in these chapters. I suddenly really noticed that. So I'm gonna run through what I noticed in Genesis chapter 25, and this is what it says. In chapter 25, verse 28, it says this. And Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his wild game. And the word for wild game is Said. That really struck me. Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his wild game, his Said. Well, then in chapter 27, verse 2, we read, Isaac said, Since I am so old, I could die at any time. Therefore, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out into the open fields and hunt down some wild game, some tzaid for me. Then prepare for me some savory food, matam. That's the Hebrew word, the kind that I love, and bring it to me. Then I will eat it so that I may bless barak you before I die. And then in verse 7, Rebecca repeats almost verbatim to Joseph what Isaac had said. This is what she says: Look, I overheard your father tell your brother Esau, bring me some wild game, Saeed, and prepare for me some savory food, Matam. Then I will eat it and bless Barak you. In verse 9, go now to the flock and bring from their two kids, kids of the goat, and I will make from them savory food, matam, for your brother, such as he loves. Verse 14. And Jacob went and fetched and brought them to his mother. Now that is so interesting because it parallels how Rebecca acts. We talked about that in the last one at the well. Rebecca is just this whirl of activity. And then now Jacob goes and he went, fetched, and brought. And now his mom's going to be a whirl of activity again in preparing the meal. And it says then, and his mother made savory food, matam, such as his father loved. Verse 17. Rebecca gives Jacob the savory food, matam, that she prepared. Verse 19. Jacob takes the food into Isaac and deceives him, saying, I am Esau, your firstborn. I've done as you told me. Now sit up and eat some of my wild game, Saeed, so that you can bless Barachmi. Verse 25. Isaac says, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's wild game, Sa'id, that my soul may bless Barachdi. Verse 31. Esau comes back from hunting and he makes savory food, Matam. He brings it to Isaac, and he says to Isaac, the same thing that Jacob said, My father, sit up and eat some of your son's wild game, Saeed. Then you can bless Barachmi. Isaac realizes something is very wrong, and he asks, Who are you? And Esau replies, just as Jacob had done, I am Esau, your firstborn. And then there's this poignant scene where Isaac is trembling exceedingly. He baraked him. And then Esau cried with a great cry, exceedingly bitter, and said, Bless me also, my father. It's so sad. Isaac tells him, Your brother came with deceit and has taken away your blessing, and the word for blessing, Berakah. And Esau said, Is not he rightly called by the name Ya'a'kov? For he has supplanted Akhav, which means to take by the heel, to supplant, these two times. It's such a sad, sad story. And there are obviously some very, very healthy, unhealthy family dynamics going on here. But what I noticed in chapter 25 and 27 is that Isaac loved Esau because of the food. Okay. The Zaid or the Maqtam that Esau provided him. He provides him wild game, Zaid. And in the very next verse, it says that Jacob was cooking food. He's cooking a mess of pottage or stew, however your translation. When Esau is born, he's described as red. And when he asks Jacob for some of the stew, he says, literally, feed me, please, with this red, red stuff, because I'm starving. And it really struck me in reading chapters 25 and 27 that food was playing a big part. So remember, we talked about in the first part of this podcast. When you see repetition, the author is telling you, pay attention. And so I was paying attention. Yes. And I thought there's a lot about food in here. Yeah. And I looked into this, and sure enough, other scholars have noticed this because there is nothing new under the sun. Yes. As Ecclesiastes tells us, I'm not that unique. So I looked into it. I found there are several biblical scholars that see food and appetite as a narrative device connecting several scenes in these chapters. And they also know that Isaac's favoritism, just like I said, it comes from his enjoyment of Esau's savory food, his meat, his Zaid.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Well, and also probably the eating together and the time that they're spending together. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Now we don't know on that because it doesn't say that. All it says is he loved him because he provided food. Got it. So that's what's interesting. So they conclude that there is a theme of physical appetite that shapes the family dynamics and the inheritance. They talk about this fact. The Jacob-Esau cycle is structured using the literary pattern of meal scenes and appetite to organize the story. So, first of all, appetite creates favoritism. Isaac loves Esau because he eats his wild game, his Zaid. And that's Genesis 25 and 28. Okay. Appetite transfers the birthright. Esau sells the birthright for lentil stew because he's starving. And that's in Genesis 25, 29 through 34. Then the third thing, appetite becomes the condition for blessing. Isaac requests Zaeid, venison, before he will give a blessing. And that's in Genesis 27, verses 3 through 4. And then food enables the deception. Rebecca prepares goat meat disguised as venison. And then Jacob is able to deceive Isaac because of the food. So every turning point in this story involves food. Yeah. The repetition of meals turns food into the mechanism through which inheritance passes. Gordon Wenham, who's a really good scholar, I think. He's coming from the evangelical Protestant perspective. But anyway, in his biblical commentary, the biblical commentary that he wrote on Genesis, he notes this ironic narrative structure. The appetite repeatedly determines who receives the blessing. And he highlights the contrast between the brothers' relationships to food. Esau is a hunter who provides food. Jacob is a pastoralist, right? Like he's tending the sheep and everything, who cooks food. And Gordon Winham argues that this distinction frames the entire narrative cycle. He says that Esau's impulsive appetite explains why he sells the birthright and ultimately loses the blessing. This story repeatedly shows food influencing major covenantal decisions. The narrative contrasts short-term bodily desire versus covenantal value. The Genesis text itself emphasizes the result. Quote, thus Esau despised his birthright. Now remember, it is not common for biblical authors to make a didactic point. It is not common for them to say, this is why this occurred. Okay. Okay. So when it does happen, like in describing Rebecca as not only a virgin, but a virgin who had never known a man. Like that's very specific. Yeah. They're telling, they're describing her instead of letting the dialogue describe her. This is the point that they're making. Esau despised his birthday. So Gordon Wenham argues, and this is what it initially occurred to me, that the text is also subtly criticizing Isaac as well as Esau, because Isaac is also influenced by his appetite. Scholars will argue that this food motif illustrates, first of all, that it illustrates immediate appetite versus covenantal inheritance. Esau values present hunger over future blessing. Secondly, physical senses versus discernment. Because Isaac has not curbed his bodily sense of taste and smell, he is vulnerable to deception. And thirdly, reversal through domestic skill. Jacob wins inheritance not through strength, but through cooking and preparation. The story repeatedly shows the covenant passing through the kitchen rather than the hunting field. In an article that I read called Food's Symbolic Burden, David Kramer makes a really interesting observation. And this is what he says, and again, about parashat tola dat. It has often been noted, and properly so that parashat toladat is framed by two stories of deceit and dishonesty. What has been neglected, however, is the recognition that central to both stories is the symbolic manipulation of food and drink. The role of food and drink in these and other stories is more than mere convention, more than a mere setting of scene. In fact, food carries a heavy symbolic burden. And by taking note of the manipulations of food in these stories, we gain access to meanings we otherwise would have missed. Esau trades his birthright for the lentil stew, but Jacob also gives him bread and drink. Kramer asks, is there significance to the fact that Jacob offers more and Esau takes more than Esau has requested? The answer lies, I think, this is still Kramer, in the consequence of such exchanges on relationships. An agreed-upon sale, such as the exchange of the stew for the birthright, creates a defined relationship, the details of which are negotiated in advance. But a gift, the bread and the drink, once accepted, creates unstated obligations and puts the party who accepts in a sort of subservient or obligated position. For this reason, you are unlikely to accept a gift from someone you do not know. And you will insist on reciprocating a gift if you want to insist, symbolically, on remaining in a position of equality with the gift giver. But Esau accepted and did not reciprocate. His inferior status was thereby established. He was the dependent one, subject to the will of others. Jacob, on the other hand, provided an abundance. He was the master of his own fate. Kramer goes on to note that when Jacob deceived Isaac and brought him the savory meat that Isaac had requested of Esau, Jacob also brought more than had been requested, wine and bread. Kramer said that once having accepted the food, Isaac then owed Jacob a blessing and blesses him with not only the dew of the heaven and the fats of the earth, this is literally translated, but also with plenty of corn, which is a word for grain, corn and wine. So bread and wine. For Jacob, his own food generosity has paid off. By contrast, Esau brings his father only savory meat, and Isaac's blessing of him excludes the mention of corn and wine. In other words, Kramer says, He who gives much food receives much food, a sign of blessing and abundance. In return, he who does not so provide will similarly not be blessed. And finally, in the article, Kramer notes that the connection of food and blessing is repeated in chapter 27, when we are told that there is a famine in the land. Isaac was going to go to Egypt to escape the famine because Egypt was the breadbasket of the Mediterranean. But the Lord tells him to remain in Canaan, promising to bless him and his offspring. And Isaac planted in the land, and he reaped in that year 100fold, and the Lord blessed him. Remember, blessing is expressed through the abundance of food. Kramer closes his article with this observation Why then is food so central to these narratives? The answer, I believe, is that food is religiously significant. For more than we might sometimes like to admit, of course, on one level we know this. Moreover, this eating system has always been central to Jewish identity. One thing almost all ancient writers know about Jews is that we do not eat pork. But when I say that food is religiously significant, I mean far more than this. Let me illustrate. As a consequence, my Shabbat begins not on Friday night, but on Friday morning. It is at that time that I go shopping, always at my favorite market, and imagine the Shabbat dishes I will prepare. Then, when the shortness of time demands, I undertake my preparations, which often take hours. But this is not a burden, it is a blessing. When I do not shop and cook, I feel that something is missing, that I have been cheated out of a part of my Shabbat. Then in the evening, when I watch my friends and family eating what I have prepared, I get great pleasure. It is at that moment that my Shabbat is complete. Judaism, he says, is not only a religion, a formal ritual and Torah, it is and always has been a religion of the kitchen, a way of life in which the masters of the kitchen, usually the women, were real religious virtuosi, sustaining the body and soul together. And Judaism has always believed in the importance of the body and soul together. Food matters, and it has always mattered Jewishly. I loved that article. So the covenant passed. Through the kitchen. Okay, love. All right. In fact, the structure of the section underscores this point. Several scholars point out that Genesis 25 through 27 forms a chiastic structure. Okay. And that food scenes mark the key turning points. Food and appetite anchor the structure of the narrative. Remember that a chiasm is a common literary pattern found in the Bible. Right? You'll have A, point A, point B, point C, then you'll repeat point B and then point A. So it's A, B, C, B, A. So A and A1 are parallel, B and B1 are parallel, C is the hinge point. So here is a proposed chiastic structure of Genesis 25 through 27. Okay, A. Isaac's appetite creates favoritism. This is Genesis 25, 28. Isaac loves Esau because he eats his game. Rebecca favors Jacob. So food introduces the family division. Okay. B, the birthright is exchanged for stew. It's in Genesis 25, 29 through 34. Jacob cooks stew. Esau sells his birthright. So food becomes the mechanism for transferring inheritance. Here's the hinge point. C, the hinge point of the chiasm. Isaac requests venison before he will give the blessing. And that's Genesis 27, 1 through 4. Isaac asks Esau to hunt and prepare a meal so he can bless him. Food becomes the condition for the covenantal blessing. Okay, now we're going to turn. B1. Rebekah and Jacob prepare deceptive food. Genesis 27, 5 through 29. Jacob serves goat meat disguised as venison. So the food exchange repeats, but now it transfers the blessing instead of the birthright. And finally, A1, the next A, Esau returns with real game. Genesis 27, 30 through 40. Esau brings the venison Isaac requested, but he's too late. Food again exposes the broken family relationship. So the center, C, highlights the moment when food becomes the gateway to the covenantal blessing. You know, I often say you can trace everything back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Yes. Well, you're going to be happy to know. Okay. This story is no exception. Let's do it. All right. The Jacob and Esau story echoes the Adam and Eve story. Food is the trigger for the loss of inheritance in both stories. This is one of the strongest literary parallels. Eating results in losing privileged status. In both narratives, food decision leads to irreversible loss. The action happens quickly, but it has long-term covenantal consequences. Esau trading his birthright for lentil stew points to immediate appetite versus long-term inheritance. Well, this is a theme that is also present in the Adam and Eve narrative. Another repeated element is deception tied to food. In Genesis 3, Eve tells God that the serpent beguiled me, the serpent deceived me and persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. In Genesis 27, Jacob beguiles Isaac with a meal disguised as venison. And I should say Jacob and Rebecca. So in both cases, you have Adam and Eve, and Jacob and Rebecca are going to fall, have part in the deception and the fall, the fall because of deception. So both scenes include sensory deception, mistaken judgment, and irreversible consequences. You can see how the Jacob narrative is replaying the Eden pattern in a family setting, but with a twist, right? Because in this case, it's not the outsider, the serpent, who is performing the deception. It's the insiders, Jacob and Rebecca. There's wordplay that connects these two, and wordplay is probably one of my favorite things. Yes. So as I noted earlier, Hebrew is an especially good language for wordplay because all the words are built on roots made up of three consonants generally. Well, scholars have noticed that in this story, there is a linguistic cluster around the word red. Okay. In Hebrew, a dome. A dome. Like Adam. Yes, we're gonna play it. It's a lot like Adam. Yes, a dome. At birth, Esau is described as red and hairy. Esau asks when he's asking for the stew for the red, red, the red, red stuff. We just kind of add that in there. Esau, it says, becomes associated with Edom. And the verse, the scripture verse is 2530. It says, and Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I beg you, with that same red pottage, for I'm famished. Therefore was his name called Edom. All right. Both red and Edom are spelled with the Hebrew letters alef, dalit, and mem. Same exact letters. The only difference is in their vowel points. Edom typically starts with a Shiva under the Aleph, and it makes the E sound. Right? The E is really what it means. Yeah. All right. And the Shava looks like two little on the far right, there are one dot over another. And right next to that, you have two dots on the top and another dot on the bottom. That's called Shiva. And then for red, the difference is that it is marked underneath, it's aleph. It is marked with a camets. And it kind of looks like a T. Okay. And so you've got Edom and Adom. Ed dom adom. Okay, now, like you notice, here's the fun thing. Adam is also linguistically related to the same root. Aleph, dolet, mem. Again, in the Masoretic text, the only difference is in the vowel points. And there is a comments, the little T under both the Aleph and the Dalit. So in that respect, it's ah, ah, Adam. Adam, Adam, Adam, A Dom. That's the only difference. It's the ah and o sound in that middle one. So when you see this in Hebrew, this is deliberate for on the part of the Hebrew authors, right? It's creating this literary link between Adam, meaning humanity, or to mean the name of a person, and Adom, Esau. Okay, it gets even more interesting. The word for ground, Adama. Yes. Adam was taken from the red ground. And through their roots, these Hebrew words share this common connection to red, earthly, or ruddy. Those are the concepts. Adam is linked to the red ground, while Edom is linked to the red color itself. And it gets even more fun. Get even better. Love. Guess what the word for blood is? Dom. So it just has no olive, just the dalit and the mem. Esau is a hunter, and that involves a lot of killing and blood. And of course, Dom is red, right? Well, to further cement this make no mistake consistency rule that is common in any biblical narrative, look at the bloody fate of Esau as described in Isaac's blessing. This is what it says, Genesis 27, 40. And by your sword shall you live and serve your brother. And this is interesting because in Numbers 20, when the children of Israel are in the wilderness, Moses sends a message to the king of Edom saying, Thus says your brother Israel, right? Moses reminds the king of their relationship, and then he asks if they can pass the land. But Edom said to him, You will not pass through me, or I will come out against you with a sword. So this is a deliberate connection upon the part of the Hebrew authors. So some literary scholars argue that the Jacob-Esau story is part of a larger Genesis repeating narrative motif where eating decisions shape destiny, right? There's this food temptation pattern. And this is how the pattern goes: there's a desirable or significant food situation. A choice or temptation is introduced, a character acts wisely or unwisely, and the result brings blessing, loss, or reversal. So let's look at how the motif plays out. Again, it all starts with the first story in the Bible: Adam and Eve. The fruit is described as good and desirable and has the ability to make one wise. The temptation, this is the forbidden fruit, is introduced by Satan, and Adam and Eve eat what is forbidden by God. The result, loss of innocence and exile, and a ruptured relationship with God. So that's going to set the template. Food plus desire plus transgression leads to a consequence. In the Jacob and Esau story, Esau is starving, and the desirable food situation, Jacob has to. The temptation is introduced. Sell me your birthright. Esau acts unwisely and trades his birthright for food. The result is immediate satisfaction. However, the ultimate consequence is a long-term loss of inheritance. So food here represents impulse, overpowering destiny. In Genesis 27, Isaac asks Esau to prepare a meal before he gives him a blessing. Got the situations introduced. Jacob and Rebekah deceive him using food. The result is that Jacob receives the blessing. In this situation, food becomes the vehicle of deception and blessing reversal. So how people handle basic appetites becomes a test of wisdom, trust, and moral responsibility. So look for this pattern as you read the Old Testament this year. What this pattern shows across these stories is that food is a basic human desire. Eating decisions reveal a character. The outcomes often involve reversal, gain to loss or loss to gain. Now, another similarity with the Garden of Eden story and the Jacob-Esau stories is that both stories emphasize sensory misjudgment. Their senses are going to deceive them. In the Garden, it is Eve's sense of sight. She sees that the fruit is good for food. It is pleasant to the eyes. It is desirable for wisdom. In Genesis 27, it is Isaac's sense of taste, right? The ma'a, the meal, or his desire for savory food, for savory wild game. His sense of touch, right? The hairy skins. He gets deceived by the goat skins that Rebecca put on Jacob's arm and neck. And the smell. Jacob is wearing Esau's garment. And so he says the voice is Jacob's, the smell is Esau's. So his senses are manipulated, and the result is misdirected blessing. Scholars often note that Genesis deliberately stresses the senses failing when food is involved. So watch for that. Finally, another thing that scholars notice about the Jacob-Esau cycle is that it domesticates the Eden pattern. In the Eden story, you have a cosmic fall in which humanity loses paradise because of the serpent's deceit. In the Jacob-Esau story, you have family conflict in which Esau loses his inheritance because of Jacob's deceit. Now, I want to make clear that the Genesis 25 through 27 story is not directly modeled on Genesis 3. It's not a mirror, but the author is using repeated motifs like food, appetite, deception, and the loss of status that echo earlier Genesis 1, 2, and 3. And that's a really common thing that biblical authors do. They echo and repurpose earlier biblical narratives to make their point. So the food scenes in the book of Genesis set up a pattern that occurs throughout the rest of the Bible. Meals become moments where God's purposes, human character, and relationship are revealed. If you think through what you've been reading about in Genesis, you will notice that there is a literary pattern in which key turning points revolve around food. These scenes appear at strategic moments and often mirror each other, showing how human choices about food affect their relationships with God, with family, and with the wider world. So when I went to Calvin Theological Seminary, one of my very dear friends was very interested in the theology of food. Okay. And I'd never heard of that. But what it is is that it is the study of how food relates to God, faith, and spiritual meaning. It explores how religious traditions understand food not just as nourishment, but as something more, something connected to creation, community, gratitude, morality, and worship. Usually scholars are studying concepts such as food as a gift from God. And most religious traditions see food as part of God's provision and in his creation. Food and spiritual practices, such as rituals like fasting or sacred meals, for example, the bread and the water in the sacrament, they connect eating with worship. And what is called the ethics of eating explores questions about justice and caring for the poor or stewardship of the earth and how food is produced. Shared meals often symbolize fellowship and unity. Prayers over meals acknowledge reliance on God and gratitude for his blessing of food. So a theology of food asks what eating, sharing, and producing food reveal about God, humans, and how we should live. My friend, she pointed me to a really interesting book. It's by Norman Weirsba. It's called Food and Faith, a Theology of Eating. And he's one of the most influential scholars on the theology of food today. And his work connects biblical theology, agriculture, ecology, and ethics. He argues that eating is a deeply theological act tied to creation, gratitude, and community. Weirsbutt talks a lot about themes like hospitality, the Eucharist, which means the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and care for the land and responsible food systems. So I just wanted to finish up this week's podcast by reading a passage from his book.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Okay. Okay. But let's chat real quick. Because what Cindy loves to do, and I'm sure you guys are all realizing this, is she likes to provide a lot of information. I do. And then, but we also need to talk about Jacob and Esau a little bit. Okay. Before we jump into the book. Because I want if I'm sure that will just we'll close on that. So I grew up thinking, oh, Esau's kind of like maybe not as smart as Jacob. Maybe just kind of the dumber brother or whatever. I don't think that's right, but I don't know how I feel now, is where I'm at. Yeah. Which I'm not trying to get you to tell me how to feel, but I do want to just talk through how we should feel about Esau. Well, and I have some questions. Why did Isaac not reverse a blessing?

SPEAKER_00 39:16

The Bible does not tell us.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

The Bible doesn't tell us.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

And I think that's important. I've heard people make a lot of reasons. Okay. Well, he recognized that it was Jacob. Sure. Or he could have reversed it, but he chose not to. That is not what the text tells us. No. Like I said before, the text, the Torah trusts us to be able to hold really uncomfortable things. Yeah. Things that we might cringe at and live with that uncertainty. We don't know. I think with Esau, this is one of the really unusual places, like I said, where it does tell us about Esau's character. And it's very specific. And it says Esau despised his birthright. Yeah. So that is specifically telling us something about the character of Esau, which is he did not value the birthright blessing. So what the birthright blessing was was that when the father died, the inheritance would be divided equally among the sons, except a double portion would be given to the oldest son. And the reason was that he would be able to use that to care for his widowed mother and unmarried sisters. That was the reason for the double portion. And that is part of what the commandment to honor your father and your mother is about, right? It's also about this idea of caring for them. And in the New Testament, Jesus will specifically criticize some of the scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites about the fact that they are not doing this. They are not using their money to care for their parents. Got it. So we are specifically told that he despised his birthright. So he didn't value it. And this also could have something to do with, and then this part, scholars will maybe make a little bit of a leap. It's much more spelled out once you hit Moses. Yeah. So when we get to Exodus and it's talking about why the Levites are the priestly tribe, it says that God had required the firstborn of every family to serve as a priest, but that instead of doing that, now he's going to set it aside in this tribe. So we can also conclude that there were probably priestly duties connected with this birthright. And so the idea also is that Esau was despising the priestly duties connected with the birthright. So not just physically caring for his mother and sister, but the priestly duties that went along with it.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Right. It sounded like he resented it just a little.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah, or just didn't prize it. It was not a big deal to him. And you know, I mean, we can see that in our religious tradition too, in our church. Every deacon age boy is given the priesthood. And so some will hold that priesthood and understand the significance of it more than others. And obviously, when you're a young boy, you're not going to really understand that. But then they move on, right, into teacher and priest, and they're growing in their priesthood understanding. But then everybody who receives the Melchizedek priesthood when they turn what is 18, I think it is. Right. And so if every male has the priesthood, a lot of them really understand what they've got. They respect it, but it's also not respected, too. Yeah. Right. And I think you can say that same thing for women. Like biologically, unless there's a problem, every woman can conceive. And so children, which God says are his greatest blessing to us, are often not treasured as a blessing, right? Because it's kind of this thing we all do. So it's the same thing. If something is common, many times we do despise it. We don't sure.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Or sometimes there's responsibility that comes with, I know in my own life, I think I've talked about this here before. I fell away from the church when I was younger. And I can remember thinking, I despised and resented the fact that I was born a member because I wanted to satisfy these appetites that I had. Right. And so I think that in that sense, we can understand where Esau is coming from sometimes because there's a lot of responsibility. And sometimes it feels like, well, I didn't choose to be the firstborn or I didn't choose this or whatever. And so I think there's some of that there. Okay. And then what about Rebecca?

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Again, the Bible doesn't say and as a mother, you can be like, Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

She was trying to do what's right, whatever it says.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

It says the reason that Isaac loved Esau was because he prepared him food. Okay. And then it says, and Rebecca loved Jacob. Like there's no cave out there. It's Just she just loves him, right? There's no condition on her love. There is a condition on Isaac's love for Esau. So there the Bible is making a statement. He is allowing his appetite to influence his favoritism, right? Well, does he know about Rebecca's experience? Does he know that Esau sold the blessing? We don't know. Yeah. Does he know that God told Rebecca that two nations fight in your womb and the younger is gonna rule over the older? We don't know. We don't know. Does he know that it was Rebecca who prepared the food and told Jacob to deceive? We don't know. Yeah, we do not know. The Bible is silent on that part. Rebecca never tells us, as Isaac never tells us. And we shouldn't necessarily attach meaning to that, except for the fact that the Bible doesn't tell us. And it is trusting us to just hold that. And even though it makes us cringe, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Well, I'm just holding these things up because these are the uncomfortable things that we're not. We want definitive answers to because we're modern. Yes. And I think what I like to do is just sit in it and just be curious. Just be curious about them all. And again, at some point in your life, it'll mean one thing, and at another point it'll mean something else. And so just sitting with it.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

What's really funny is that obviously the Jews have wrestled with this for centuries. Yeah. And you'll have these midrash that'll talk about it. And they're kind of like stories that embroider on it. And all these stories are attached to the Torah, you know, and these scholars will read them and know them. We're not as comfortable doing that. Yeah. And we're not as comfortable telling stories about the text. Yeah. And I think there's good and there's bad. I mean, the good is that this is what the text says. We don't know. The bad is that sometimes we don't want to tell a story about it. And sometimes a story is a fun thing to do and helpful, but always keeping in mind it may or may not be the truth. And right now we just don't know. And we have to sit with the fact that we don't know and that the Torah is okay with that. That's our problem. We're the ones who want to know. It's not the Torah problem. It's not the problem of the Bible, it's a problem with us. Yeah. And there's a lot of uncomfortable stuff.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

And I will just end with this. It is our responsibility, though, to look at the fruits of both of all the decisions here and then make our decision. Yeah. Or help that have that help us help influence what we think.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

But absolutely. And I will say sometimes the purpose of the story will also be to identify and talk about the descendants of the story, because those are the nations that are surrounding Israel and that have interaction. So, like I read in Numbers about the king of Edom who would not let the children of Israel pass through his land. Yeah. And he pretty much verbatim quotes the blessing that was given to him by Isaac, right? So it's telling about these people and why they are. A lot of times that is the purpose of the story. I don't want to say that that's the only purpose. Scholars will say that's the only purpose. I do not think so. Those stories are telling us important things. And I would say in the Jacob and Esau story, and we're going to talk about this more in the next podcast, but we'll talk about this whole word motif of deceit. You'll see that play out through Jacob, the whole of Jacob's life. That's definitely a part of his character, but you also see his character arc as he goes from the low point of his deceit to a high point, you know? So you're going to see a character arc for Jacob. And you'll see him as just a superhuman character who's very fleshed out. Much more fleshed out than Isaac is. Of the three patriarchs, Isaac is the least fleshed out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. We're going to end with this really just an interesting statement about the theology of food. And I just want us to think about it in terms of just the fact that food plays such a big part in all of our lives, right? And I think one of the tragic things about our culture is that often our Western culture that you and I are in, is that often food has become the enemy. Yeah. We don't look at it as the great gift that God gave to us. But if you look in the Bible, so much of life revolves around food. And that food is used in these amazing celebrations of remembering the good of God. So Norman Weirsba, the book is called Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. And I also want to talk about a couple other authors who are fun to read that you might want to look at. And that would be Wendell Barry, writes a lot of essays on agriculture, food, responsibility with the earth. And also, so does David Sleet, who I've talked about when he talks about trees. And I talked about him in a past episode. So this is what Norman Weirsba says. He says this Why did God create a world in which every living creature must eat? This is a humbling, even terrifying question, particularly for people who are intimately involved in the finding, growing, and harvesting of food. Eating is no idle or trifling activity. It is the means of life itself, but also death. For any creature to live, countless seen and unseen others must die, often by being eaten themselves. Life as we know it depends on death, needs death, which means that death is not simply the cessation of life, but its precondition. Death is eating's steadfast accomplice. It is also each creature's biological end. For no matter how much or how well we eat, for the sake of life's preservation, we cannot erase our mortal condition. Why eat if eating, even vegetarian eating, implicates us in so much death? Why eat if eating is the daily reminder of our own need and mortality? We could try to imagine all creatures as self-subsisting, non-eating entities that never take a bite, and thus presumably avoid the realities of eating death. But then we would also have to envision a tasteless and lonely world without belonging and fellowship, a world without the very delights that accompany the procuring, preparing, and sharing of food. Eating joins people to each other, to other creatures and the world, and to God through forms of natural communion too complex to fathom. It introduces us to a graced world of hospitality, a creation that from the beginning and constantly through its soil absorbs death and makes room for newness of life. Eating involves us in a daily life and death drama in which, beyond all comprehension, some life is sacrificed so that other life can thrive. It establishes a membership that confirms all creatures as profoundly in need of each other and God to provide life's nutrition and vitality. Food is a holy and humbling mystery. Every time a creature eats, it participates in God's life-giving yet costly ways, ways that simultaneously affirm creation as a delectable gift and as a divinely ordered membership of interdependent need and suffering and help. Whenever people come to the table, they demonstrate with the unmistakable evidence of their stomachs that they are not self-subsisting gods. They are finite and mortal creatures dependent on God's many good gifts, sunlight, photosynthesis, decomposition, soil fertility, water, bees and butterflies, chickens, sheep, cows, gardeners, farmers, cooks, strangers and friends. The list goes on and on. Eating reminds us that we participate in a grace, saturated world, a blessed creation, worthy of attention, care, and celebration. Despite what food marketers may say, there really is no such thing as cheap or convenient food. Real food, the food that is the source of creaturely health and delight, is precious because it is a fundamental means through which God's nurture and love of the whole creation are exposed. Oh wow. Isn't that beautiful? So beautiful. And so, yeah, we close this episode out. I mean, having remembered like the first instance of eating, which drove us out of God's presence, right? Launched us on the hero's journey. And in Revelation, we are told that there will be a final banquet. And we will all be invited to the table of the bridegroom and the lamb and restored to God's presence through food.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

I love it. All right. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Scripture Study Podcast, your midweek Bible boost. Everything we mentioned on this podcast, if we said there would be a link to it, it is in the show notes wherever you find your podcast. Cindy Madsen currently does not believe in or participate in social media. However, if you would like to follow along with Susan Peterson, she can be found on Instagram at susan.m.peterson. Have a good week.