# Was Esau gay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 22, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129 "2006-01-22T18:24:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/1 "2006-01-22T18:24:42Z")
Snipped from the message board of Sodom & Gomorrah is this biblical verse supporting their viewpoint against gays: Romans 9:13! “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I HATED!” This made me curious. Is there some consideration that Esau was gay? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/2 "2006-01-22T18:34:15Z")
Esau has descendants mentioned in the Bible, so he may have just been adventurous. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/3 "2006-01-22T18:36:32Z")
I thought he was just hairy and had problems with delayed gratification. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/4 "2006-01-22T18:48:35Z")
Disclaimer: IANA Bible scholar. The context of the original quote, [Malachi 1,](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=46&chapter=1&version=31) is a prophecy against the Children of Israel, in which “Esau” means “the Edomites”, who were his descendents. > [@](#): > > An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. > > “I have loved you,” says the LORD. > "But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ > “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the LORD says. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” > > Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” > But this is what the LORD Almighty says: "They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the LORD. > > You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the LORD -even beyond the borders of Israel!’ If you read the whole thing, apparently the Israelites were bringing the castoffs of their flocks as sacrifices, thus incurring the Lord’s wrath, and presumably the Edomites were doing the same thing, thus incurring the Lord’s wrath, too. There’s a nifty breakdown of the Edomites [here](http://www.bible-topics.com/Edomites-The.html), in which it’s noted that the Bible says they were “strong and cruel, vindictive, idolatrous, superstitious, and the implacable enemies of Israel”. There are lots of reasons why people in the Bible incur the Lord’s wrath, and “Being gay” actually ranks pretty low on the list, no matter what the folks with an anti-gay agenda wanna think. I’d say that a people who were idolatrous enemies of Israel would get a red “hate” button from Yahweh pretty quick. Thus, “Esau have I hated.” Nothing to do with his sexual preferences. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/5 "2006-01-22T19:18:16Z")
Without seeing the post/board in question, I can only guess that this is meant as a response to the argument, “God is love. He doesn’t hate gays. He doesn’t hate anyone.”, by giving an example of God hating in the bible. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/6 "2006-01-22T20:43:21Z")
> [@Love Rhombus](#): > > Snipped from the message board of Sodom & Gomorrah is this biblical verse supporting their viewpoint against gays: Romans 9:13! “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I HATED!” > > This made me curious. Is there some consideration that Esau was gay? What would Esau have to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed in the time of Abraham and Lot, long before the birth of Jacob and Esau? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/7 "2006-01-22T20:51:20Z")
> [@Duck Duck Goose](#): > > . . . apparently the Israelites were bringing the castoffs of their flocks as sacrifices, thus incurring the Lord’s wrath . . . This sounds more like a condemnation of evolution than of homosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/8 "2006-01-22T22:19:53Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > This sounds more like a condemnation of evolution than of homosexuality. The whole idea of a sacrifice is that it represents a hardship for the guy making the sacrifice. If you give up meat for Lent, even though you _love_ hamburgers and steak and whatnot, then that’s a sacrifice. If you give up meat for Lent, but you’re a vegetarian who doesn’t eat meat anyway, then you’re not sacrificing anything. Similarly, sacrificing a castoff animal is cheating, because the animal meant nothing to you. Basically, they were sacrificing garbage. To be a proper sacrifice, the animal would have to be one that could have been valuable. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/9 "2006-01-22T23:02:05Z")
Esau took several wives (although what exactly their names, ethnicities and paternities were [has some confusion](http://www.rae.org/esauswives.html) from verse to verse) and had many children, so no. It would be more logical to assume that Jacob, who stayed in the tents with the women, was, but two wives and two concubines would seem to imply otherwise. Never look for logic when dealing with the Phelps and other whacked out Fundie hatemongers. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/10 "2006-01-22T23:47:01Z")
Nothing in Jewish traditional literature ever suggested that Esau was homosexual. He was (at least) a murderer, a thief, and an idolater, but not, as far as anything mentions, gay. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/11 "2006-01-23T11:48:31Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Nothing in Jewish traditional literature ever suggested that Esau was homosexual. He was (at least) a murderer, a thief, and an idolater, but not, as far as anything mentions, gay. thats all right - just as long as hes not gay. But seriously, any idea where edom is actually situated. Was it a part of the northern isreal kingdom? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/12 "2006-01-23T14:21:26Z")
scm1001: > [@](#): > > But seriously, any idea where edom is actually situated. Was it a part of the northern isreal kingdom? According to the maps in my _Living Torah_, Edom was south and east of the Dead Sea, parallel to the Negev Desert. [Wikipedia has a map that illustrates this.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edom) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-esau-gay/341129/13 "2006-01-23T22:21:04Z")
> [@scm1001](#): > > thats all right - just as long as hes not gay. > But seriously, any idea where edom is actually situated. Was it a part of the northern isreal kingdom? Much of what’s now Jordan and bits and pieces of Israel. Herod the Great, who was an Edomite (his family was forcibly converted to Judaism during a war a generation before his birth), was the grandson of the king of Petra (the city of carved stone cliffs most famously used in _Indiana Jones/Last Crusade_, which was an Edomite city-state. To get there, you take a left turn just before you get to Jerusalem headin’ south, and you go a ways and make you a right, and when you see the Co’Cola sign in Arabic you gone about a mile too far.