What Does Genesis 27:38 Mean?
And Esau said to his father, Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.THE KEY
“Blessing” and “bless me” grow from one Hebrew root, but Esau’s tears expose the question beneath his plea: is there any good left to speak over him?
THE MEANING
You hear a person reaching for a place in a good he fears has already been exhausted. The repeated “my father” and “me also” make the plea intimate, while the raised voice and tears give the loss a body. The verse lets the grief stand without pretending the blessing can simply be replaced.
THE ROOT
בָּרְכֵנִי
barekhni
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the same root family also includes the knee.
The plea בָּרְכֵנִי (barekhni, bless me) and the word בְּרָכָה (berakhah, blessing) share the root ברך (barakh, bless). Its branch בֶּרֶךְ (berekh, knee) keeps an image of bending near the abstract English word: blessing belongs to an embodied word family.
ALSO GROWS
berakhah: Blessing
בְּרָכָה
This is the blessing Esau asks his father to speak over him.
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
This branch preserves the root family’s association with bending or kneeling.
barukh: Blessed
בָּרוּךְ
This form describes one who receives or bears a blessing.
וַיֵּבְךְּ
vayyevk
GROWS FROM
בכה
To weep or cry.
The verb translated “wept” belongs to בכה (bakah, to weep), whose noun branches include בְּכִי (bekhi, weeping) and בְּכִיָּה (bekhiyyah, lamentation). The same root returns in Genesis 33:4 for the brothers’ tears, linking this anguish with a later shared moment without making either one disappear.
ALSO GROWS
bekhi: Weeping
בְּכִי
The noun carries the same root from Esau’s verb into the broader experience of crying.
bekhiyyah: Lamentation or weeping
בְּכִיָּה
This branch shows the root extending from tears into expressed grief.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets weeping make grief visible and audible without requiring it to be concealed.
I am spent with my groaning; all the night I make my bed swim; I melt my couch with my tears.Jesus wept.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.THE THREAD
And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept.The root בכה (bakah, to weep) appears here for Esau’s tears and there for the brothers’ shared tears at an embrace. The same word holds his grief and their meeting without making either one cancel the other.
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