And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red [pottage],.... Or, "with that same red l, red"; not knowing what it was, or what it was made of, and therefore only calls it by its colour; and the word being doubled, may denote that it was very red; or he, being in haste and greedy of it through hunger, repeats it in a quick and short way: this pottage was made of lentiles, as we learn from Genesis 25:34; which sort of food was much in use with the Egyptians, Egypt abounding with lentiles; and particularly Alexandria was famous for them, from whence they were carried into other countries, as Austin m relates. The lentiles of Pelusium, a city in Egypt, are made mention of by Virgil n and Martial o, for which that place was famous; where, as Servius says p, lentiles were first found, or where they grew the best; and, in the Misnah q, an Egyptian lentil is spoken of, as neither large nor small, but middling. Pliny r speaks of two sorts of it in Egypt, and says he found it in some authors, that eating of these makes men even tempered, good humoured, and patient; and observes s, that they delight in red earth, or where there is much ruddle, or red ochre, from whence they may receive a red tincture; and the pottage made of them is of such a colour. And Dr. Shaw t says, that lentiles dissolve easily into a mass, and make a pottage or soup of a chocolate colour, much used in the eastern countries: and, as Scheuchzer observes u, coffee is of the bean kind, and not unlike a lentil, and makes a red decoction. The colour of it took with Esau, as well as it was sweet and savoury, as Athenaeus w reports; and especially, he being faint and hungry, desires his brother to give him some of it, and even to feed him with it:
for I [am] faint; so faint that he could not feed himself, or however wanted immediate sustenance, and could not wait till other food he had used to live upon was dressed:
therefore was his name called Edom; not from his red hair, but from this red pottage; for Edom signifies "red", and is the same with the names Pyrrhus and Rufus.
l מן-האדם האדם הזה "de rufo, rufo isto", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius; so Piscator, Schmidt. m Comment. in Psal. xlvi. tom. 8. p. 174. n Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228. o Martial. l. 13. epigr. 9. p In Virgil. ut supra. (Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228) q Misn. Celim. c. 17. sect. 8. r Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 12. s lbid. c. 17. t Travels, p. 140. Ed. 2. u Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 78. w Deipno Sophist. l. 4. c. 14, 15.