The BIRTHRIGHT — the firstborn's (bekhor) privilege: a double share of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:17), the headship of the family, and here, in the line of promise, the covenant blessing itself. Esau trades it for a bowl of stew (25:29-34) and 'despised' it (see bazah); Jacob will later steal the matching blessing (ch. 27). The New Testament makes Esau the type of the 'profane' person who sells the eternal for one meal (Hebrews 12:16). Genesis keeps overturning it — the younger again and again takes the bekhorah (Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh). ⭐ The double share is finally spelled out at Deuteronomy 21:17, and the two words it uses mean something else four chapters earlier. Pi shnayim, literally 'the mouth of two', stands in four verses of the Hebrew Bible: this one, where it is the firstborn's portion; Deuteronomy 17:6, where the identical string means 'at the mouth of two witnesses' and has nothing to do with inheritance; 2 Kings 2:9, Elisha asking Elijah for a double share of his spirit; and Zechariah 13:8, two parts in three cut off (neither of the last two yet on these pages). ⚠ And Deuteronomy 21 makes the birthright a duty rather than a gift: a father with a loved wife and a hated wife MAY NOT convert the preference into an estate, which is a law aimed squarely at Jacob's own household. → first discussed at Gen 25:31