And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red [pottage],.... Or, "with that same red , 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 Ge 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 relates.
The lentiles of Pelusium, a city in Egypt, are made mention of by Virgil and Martial , for which that place was famous; where, as Servius says , lentiles were first found, or where they grew the best; and, in the Misnah , an Egyptian lentil is spoken of, as neither large nor small, but middling.
Pliny 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 , 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 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 , 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 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.
hzh Mdah Mdah-Nm "de rufo, rufo isto", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius; so Piscator, Schmidt. Comment. in Psal. xlvi. tom. 8. p. 174. Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228. Martial. l. 13. epigr. 9. In Virgil.
ut supra. (Georgic. l. 1. ver. 228) Misn. Celim. c. 17. sect. 8. Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 12. lbid. c. 17. Travels, p. 140. Ed. 2. Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 78. Deipno Sophist. l. 4. c.