riginal Hebrew) so pointed?" "It is to teach that
Esau did not come to kiss him, but to bite him; only the neck of Jacob
our father became as hard as marble, and this blunted the teeth of the
wicked one." "And what is taught by the expression 'And they wept'?"
"The one wept for his neck and the other for his teeth."

_Midrash Rabbah_, chap. 78.

Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai in Sifri deliberately controverts this
interpretation, and Aben Ezra says it is an "exposition fit only
for children."

Esau said, "I will not kill my brother Jacob with bow and arrow, but
with my mouth I will suck his blood," as it is said (Gen. xxxiii. 4),
"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and they
wept." Read not "and he kissed him," but read, "and he bit him." The
neck of Jacob, however, became as hard as ivory, and it is respecting
him that Scripture says (Cant. vii. 5), "Thy neck is as a tower of
ivory,"--so that the teeth of Esau became blunted; and when he saw that
his desire could not be gratified, he began to be angry, and gnashed his
teeth, as it is said (Ps. cxii. 10), "The wicked shall see it and be
grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth."

_Pirke d'Rab. Eliezer_, chap. 36.

See also the previous quotation from the Midrash Rabbah. The
Targum of Jonathan and also the Yerushalmi record the same
fantastic tradition. In the latter it is given thus, "And Esau
ran to meet him, and hugged him, and fell upon his neck and
kissed him. Esau wept for the crushing of his teeth, and Jacob
wept for the tenderness of his neck."

Abraham made a covenant with the people of the land, and when the angels
presented themselves to him, he thought they were mere wayfarers, and he
ran to meet them, purposing to make a banquet for them. This banquet he
told Sarah to get prepared, just as she was kneading cakes. For this
reason he did not offer them the cakes which she had made, but "ran to
fetch a calf, tender and good." The calf in trepidation ran away from
him and hid itself in the cave of Machpelah, into which he followed it.
Here he found Adam and Eve fast asleep, with lamps burning over their
couches, and the place pervaded with a sweet-smelling odor. Hence the
fancy he took to the cave of Machpelah for a "possession of a
burying-place."

Ibid.

Shechem, the son of Hamor, assembled girls together playing on
tambourines outside the tent of Dinah, and when she "went out to see
them," he carri