Esau Blocked Jacob's Burial and a Deaf Warrior Cut Off His Head

The funeral of Jacob was the grandest procession in the ancient world. And it ground to a halt at the entrance to the family tomb because Esau was blocking the door.

Targum Jonathan on Genesis 50, the ancient Aramaic translation from first-century Palestine, turns Jacob's burial into an epic in three movements: the royal ceremony in Egypt, the journey through Canaan, and the violent confrontation at the cave of Machpelah. Each movement expands what the Hebrew Bible compresses. What the Torah describes in a few verses, the Targum stretches into a scene that includes an ivory bed inlaid with precious stones, a eulogy comparing Jacob to a cosmic tree, seventy days of mourning that ended a regional famine, and a decapitation that settled a property dispute when all legal argument had failed.

How Egypt Mourned Jacob

The Targum describes the deathbed preparations with royal precision. Joseph laid his father "upon a couch of ivory framed with pure gold, inlaid with precious stones, and secured with cords of fine linen." Fervent wines were poured and costly perfumes burned. The chiefs of Esau's house stood in attendance. Then Judah, called in the Targum "the Lion of Judah, the strength of his brethren," delivered the eulogy.

Judah's speech compared Jacob to a date palm, a vine, and a cedar: a tree whose shade protected everyone near it, whose fruit sustained the nations, whose roots ran deeper than ordinary soil. He was mourning in the language of botany because the human vocabulary for Jacob's significance had already been exhausted.

Egypt mourned for seventy days. The Targum connects Jacob's death directly to the end of the famine: "While Jacob lived, the famine ceased on his account." When he died, the famine resumed. The agricultural crisis paused out of respect for one man's presence. The Ginzberg synthesis of these traditions, preserved among 1,913 texts in our collection, documents how Jacob's righteousness was understood as holding natural catastrophe at bay during his lifetime.

The Procession Through Canaan

The funeral procession was enormous. Chariots, horsemen, the elders of Egypt, all of Joseph's household, his brothers, and the chiefs of Canaan formed the cortege. The Targum notes that the kings of Canaan saw the procession and came out not to attack but to pay their respects, because Jacob's reputation had preceded his death. Even foreign rulers understood that the patriarch of this particular family required a particular acknowledgment.

The route through Canaan was not incidental. Jacob had specified in his oath to Joseph that he was to be buried in the cave of Machpelah, the tomb Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite with a public transaction witnessed by the entire community, the first recorded real estate purchase in the Torah. The deed was not in dispute. The tomb belonged to the family. But Esau had other ideas.

Esau's Legal Claim at the Cave

Esau arrived at Machpelah before the procession and declared that the remaining burial space in the cave was his. Jacob's portion had already been used for Leah's interment, Esau argued. The remaining plot belonged to the oldest son.

This argument required a title deed to refute it. Joseph sent a messenger back to Egypt to retrieve the document Jacob had signed transferring his burial rights. The legal process took time. The coffin sat at the entrance to the cave while lawyers were dispatched over a journey of days. The entire procession waited.

The broader midrash-aggadah tradition, across 3,205 texts, preserves multiple versions of this confrontation. Some place Naphtali as the messenger who ran for the documents. All versions agree that the legal approach took too long. The resolution came from a different direction entirely.

Chushim Son of Dan

Chushim, a son of Dan, was deaf. He could not follow the Hebrew arguments being made about the burial rights. He could only see that his grandfather's coffin had been sitting in the sun while men argued near it. He asked someone what was happening and was told that Esau was blocking the burial until the documents arrived from Egypt.

Chushim did not evaluate the legal merits of the case. He picked up a weapon and cut off Esau's head. Esau's head rolled into the cave of Machpelah. His body fell at the entrance. The legal dispute was resolved.

The Talmudic tradition in tractate Sotah, part of the aggadic tradition, preserves the detail that Esau's head specifically rolled to rest at Isaac's feet inside the cave, fulfilling a kind of dark symmetry: the son who disrespected his father's house in life was brought back into proximity with him in death, headless.

What the Targum Is Teaching

The Targum's version of the burial confrontation is not simply a story about a violent resolution to a property dispute. It is a claim about the limits of legal process when the fundamental dignity at stake is too great to wait for documents. Chushim's deafness is structurally significant: he was the one person at the scene who could not be drawn into the argument, who could not be detained by the rhetoric, who could only see what was visible and respond to what was plainly wrong.

The person who cut through was the person who could not hear the reasons for delay. This is the Targum's own commentary on when legal patience ends and decisive action becomes the only answer.

Read the full account in Esau Blocked Jacob's Burial Until a Deaf Warrior Cut Off His Head, and see the larger context of the Israel-Esau conflict in Esau Attacks Jacob with Four Thousand Warriors.