The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

HAYWARD A Portrait of the Wicked Esau 303
paraphrase bluntly warning Cain that evil deeds in this world will
receive their reward in the world to come. In the verse immediately
following, Neofiti records a famous dispute between Cain and his
brother, in the course of which he denies the world to come and the
rewards and punishments associated with it.
There can be no doubt that, at some point in its history, Neofiti has
linked Esau with Cain: for this we have the evidence of Gen. 25.34,
where Esau, like Cain, denies resurrection and the world to come, and
that of Gen. 27.41, yet to be discussed, where Esau compares and
contrasts himself with Cain. Neofiti's rendering of tryd in Gen. 27.40
seems to point in the same direction; Esau will have dominion over
Jacob precisely when the latter forsakes the Torah, which in ages past
Cain himself should have obeyed so as to retain his dominion over sin.
The association of the two characters was bound to arise, given that
both hated their righteous brothers, and could therefore be made to
represent all that was opposed to the Torah. Most dramatically was
this association made by Philo, De Sacrificiis 3-4; and in the same
treatise (14-18) he demonstrates that in temporal terms vice, being
represented by the elder brothers Cain and Esau, is unfortunately
senior to virtue. 26
As we have remarked, Neofiti makes explicit the link between Esau
and Cain in its translation of Gen. 27.41, which in the Hebrew
original reads:
And Esau [wystrn] bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing
with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said in his heart: The
days of mourning for my father shall approach; then I kill my brother
Jacob.
Neofiti translates the first sentence literally, and then addresses the
question why Esau should wait before killing his brother, translating
as follows:
I shall not do as did Cain, who killed Abel his brother during the life of
his father, so that he turned and fathered Seth, and called his name
according to his name. Behold, I shall wait until of the days of my
father's mourning approach; then I shall kill Jacob my brother, and I shall
be called killer and inheritor.
26. See also Sacr. 64, 135. Jub. 35.8 end-lOa, which is represented by a
Hebrew fragment from Qumran, links Esau to antediluvian wickedness by saying
that Esau's yeser had been evil since his youth, like those in the days of Nephilim
(Gen. 6.5) and the days of Noah (Gen. 8.21).