The Purposely Unclear Prophecy | Parshas Toldos
Who is it that decides what prophecies actually mean?
The parsha begins with a moment that seems to belong to Rivka alone, but in reality, it is the beginning of the story of Yaakov and Esav.
ויתרוצצו הבנים בקרבה — the children struggled within her.
ותאמר אם כן למה זה אנכי — she asks why this is happening.
ותלך לדרוש את־ה׳ — she turns to seek clarity from HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
— Bereishis 25:22
Whatever ויתרוצצו might mean, Rivka senses that something weighty is happening, something that requires interpretation. So she seeks out an answer. And indeed, an answer she receives:
שני גוים בבטנך ושני לאמים ממעיך יפרדו — two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will emerge and diverge.
ולאם מלאם יאמץ ורב יעבד צעיר — one will prevail over the other, and rav ya’avod tza’ir.
— Bereishis 25:23
There is much to explore here, but for now we will focus solely on the final phrase:
רב יעבד צעיר — “rav ya’avod tza’ir.”
Who Is Serving Whom? The Question the Pasuk Leaves Open
There is a very basic question we must ask on this verse: who is serving whom?
If this sentence had been written in English, the answer would be obvious. English uses word order to determine subject and object. Whoever appears first is the subject — the one performing the action. Whoever appears second is the object — the one receiving it. So if you translated the Hebrew literally into English, you would assume the elder serves the younger.
But Hebrew does not work like that.
Hebrew has a word — את — which marks the direct object of a verb. The direct object is the person or thing to which the action is happening. In our case, that means: who is being served? Serving is the action. The one being served is the direct object of that action.
If the pasuk had said:
רב יעבד את הצעיר
it would clearly mean that the elder serves the younger.
If the pasuk had said:
את הרב יעבד צעיר
it would clearly mean that the younger serves the elder.
As such, the prophecy could have clearly indicated who will be the master and who will be the servant. It could have clearly told us who will be serving whom.
But it chose neither form.
It left the phrase open — suspended — grammatically balanced between two possible readings. The ambiguity is built into the structure of the words themselves.
And so we ask: why would a prophecy avoid telling us the very thing it seems to be describing?
First Tension Between the Brothers: The Story of the Lentils
The narrative moves on. Yaakov and Esav grow up, and we come upon our first tension between the two of them in the story of the lentils and the selling of the bechorah. As we all know, Esav agrees to sell the bechorah to Yaakov, and within that story we find an interesting Rashi. He informs us that the bechorah is a type of avodah.
Now isn’t that word avodah interesting?
Because after all, in the prophecy we were told that one son will serve (עובד) the other. And so we can begin to wonder: is the avodah of the bechorah perhaps the avodah being referenced in the nevuah?
If we think about it, that actually makes a great deal of sense.
Let’s revisit the prophecy under consideration. It is a nevuah — which means that there must be something interesting, something surprising, something that pushes against the normal order of things. Otherwise, why give a prophecy at all?
If God came down and told Rivka that the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning, that would not be surprising. But if He told her that the sun would not rise at all tomorrow — or that it would rise in the west — that would be surprising.
So for a nevuah to have any substance, it must teach us something that we would not expect to be.
With that in mind, consider the bechorah.
What do we not expect?
We do not expect the younger son to have the avodah of the bechorah. That is not the natural order of things.
And yet, that is exactly what happens here.
Now, if we understand that the bechorah is a type of service — a form of avodah that one brother does on behalf of the others — then we can begin to fit that into our nevuah. Rav ya’avod tza’ir could mean:
את הרב יעבד צעיר — “the younger will serve the elder.”
But what kind of service?
Spiritual service.
The younger son will perform the avodah on behalf of the elder.
That would be the chidush.
That is the surprising element.
That is the unexpected reversal.
There will be tension between them, but the resolution might be that the younger one becomes the spiritual servant of the older — performing the avodah in his place.
This interpretation seems so plausible that one almost wonders why it did not happen.
Let us hold that thought as we continue the story.
The Brachos: Where the Ambiguity Returns
The narrative continues, and we arrive at the next encounter between Yaakov and Esav. Yaakov, dressed as Esav, enters his father’s tent and receives the brachos that Yitzchak intended for his elder son. And within this scene, Yitzchak gives the following blessing to Yaakov — whom he believes at that moment to be Esav:
הוה גביר לאחיך וישתחוו לך בני אמך
“Be a gevir to your brothers, and the sons of your mother will bow to you.”
This is an interesting pasuk. What does Yitzchak think he is giving Esav? He believes he is appointing him as a gevir over Yaakov. But this raises an immediate problem: what exactly is a gevir?
According to the Sforno and the Netziv, a gevir is not a type of eved. It is not a term of slavery or servitude. Rather, it refers to some form of political authority, a position of leadership and governance. Yitzchak is giving Esav political responsibility. He is appointing him — or so he thinks — to oversee the affairs and worldly concerns of the household and the nation.
But he is not making Yaakov into Esav’s slave.
Authority is not ownership.
Leadership is not avdus.
So have we discovered an interpretation of our ambiguous nevuah?
Not yet.
A gevir is not a master in the sense that resolves rav ya’avod tza’ir. The ambiguity remains unresolved.
But the story is not finished.
When Esav Returns: The Collapse of Ambiguity
Esav returns. He discovers what has happened. And he insists — absolutely insists — on receiving a bracha of his own. Yitzchak resists at first, but ultimately he relents and gives Esav a bracha that he had never planned to give him.
And in this second blessing, we suddenly encounter a striking line:
ועל חרבך תחיה
ואת אחיך תעבד
“By your sword you shall live, and your brother you shall serve.”
Did you catch that?
“You, Esav, will serve your brother.”
Here it is.
The prophecy comes alive.
The elder — Esav — will serve the younger — Yaakov.
The ambiguity collapses. The nevuah takes on a specific, concrete form.
And so it seems we have finally discovered the meaning of rav ya’avod tza’ir.
Or have we?
What If Esav Never Insisted?
Let us pause for a moment and imagine that Esav had never demanded this second bracha. Imagine he had accepted the situation as it stood. What then?
What would have become of our nevuah?
Because if Esav had never insisted, it seems that he would never have been made a servant. And if he had never been made a servant, then there would be no fulfillment of the nevuah. Correct?
Or perhaps — not correct.
Perhaps even if Esav had never become a slave, we still could have interpreted the nevuah coherently. Because we must remember: the prophecy was inherently ambiguous. And inherent ambiguity is an invitation to multiple interpretations.
So let us recall what we explored earlier:
It may very well have been that if Esav had not insisted on his own bracha, the nevuah would have been understood in terms of the avodah of the bechorah. In that case, the chidush would have been that Yaakov performs the spiritual avodah on behalf of Esav, serving him in a spiritual capacity through the responsibilities of the bechorah.
That interpretation fit beautifully with the grammar and with the story — and it could have become the peshat.
But that is not what happened.
Esav could not handle the situation.
He insisted. He demanded his bracha. He needed it.
And in so doing, he became a servant to Yaakov — activating a different interpretation of the nevuah.
And so the words rav ya’avod tza’ir came to mean that the elder — the rav — became almost like a slave to the younger, the tza’ir.
Human agency became the interpreter of Divine ambiguity.
Through their decisions the peshat of the nevuah took shape. Not because it had to, but because that is the path the brothers in general, and Esav in particular, chose for themselves.
Their actions wrote the story.
Their choices shaped the destiny.
And in the interpretive space carved out by three ambiguous words, the future was set.