See Alter Notes on verses 25:30, 27:18, 27:32 and 27-34 contrasting translations and considering the power of the Hebrew Bible's literary style to evoke moral failings and pathos.
See Robert Alter The Art of Bible Translation and other references in the MS Collection Robert Alter on Sefaria.
JPS 2006 [MS emphasis added]
(יח) וַיָּבֹ֥א אֶל־אָבִ֖יו וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אָבִ֑י וַיֹּ֣אמֶר הִנֶּ֔נִּי מִ֥י אַתָּ֖ה בְּנִֽי׃ (יט) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יַעֲקֹ֜ב אֶל־אָבִ֗יו אָנֹכִי֙ עֵשָׂ֣ו בְּכֹרֶ֔ךָ עָשִׂ֕יתִי כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּ֖רְתָּ אֵלָ֑י קֽוּם־נָ֣א שְׁבָ֗ה וְאׇכְלָה֙ מִצֵּידִ֔י בַּעֲב֖וּר תְּבָרְכַ֥נִּי נַפְשֶֽׁךָ׃
(18) He went to his father and said, “Father.” And he said, “Yes, which of my sons are you?” (19) Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your first-born; I have done as you told me. Pray sit up and eat of my game, that you may give me your innermost blessing.”
Robert Alter The Five Books of Moses 2004 (copyrighted material) [emphasis added]
Alter's translation of verse 18, who vs which :
“18 And he came to his father and said, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”
JPS 2006
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר ל֛וֹ יִצְחָ֥ק אָבִ֖יו מִי־אָ֑תָּה וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אֲנִ֛י בִּנְךָ֥ בְכֹֽרְךָ֖ עֵשָֽׂו׃
And Yiżĥaq his father said to him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn ῾Esav.
Alter Notes:
18. “Who are you, my son? The inclination of several modern translations to sort out the logic of these words by rendering them as “Which of my sons are you?” ... [is incorrect].... Isaac’s stark question, as Tyndale and the King James Version rightly sensed, touches the exposed nerve of identity and moral fitness that gives this ambiguous tale its profundity.”
[MS emphasis added; Click on the Sefaria link to see that many modern translations use "Which of my sons are you?" But, The Rashi Chumash has "Who" not "Which."
Alter discusses the merits of the King James Version at length in The Art Of Bible Translation, chapter: The Eclipse of Bible Translation. For the pathos of the text, see Alter Notes Verses 27:32-34]
Alter Text Verses 27:32-34
32 And his father Isaac said, “Who are you?” And he said, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.”
33 And Isaac was seized with a very great trembling and he said, “Who is it, then, who caught game and brought it to me and I ate everything before you came and blessed him? Now blessed he stays.”
34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a great and very bitter outcry and he said to his father, “Bless me, too, Father!”
Alter Notes 27:32-34
32 Who are you? This is the very question Isaac put to Jacob, but, significantly, “my son” is deleted: Isaac is unwilling to imagine that a second “Esau” stands before him, and so at first he questions the interlocutor as though he were a stranger.
33 I am your son, your firstborn, Esau. The small but crucial divergences from Jacob’s response (verse 18) could scarcely be more eloquent. Esau begins by identifying himself as Isaac’s son—the very term his father had omitted from his question, and which Jacob did not need to invoke because it was part of the question. Then he (Esau) announces himself as firstborn—a condition to which he has in fact sold off the legal rights—and, finally, he pronounces his own name. ...”
34 “he cried out . . . “Bless me, too, Father!” Esau, whose first speech in the narrative was a half-articulate grunt of impatient hunger, had achieved a certain stylistic poise when he addressed his father after returning from the hunt, ... Now, however, faced with irreversible defeat, his composure breaks: first he cries out (*the Hebrew meaning is close to “scream” or “shout”), then he asks in the pathetic voice of a small child, “Bless me, too, Father.” Esau strikes a similar note at the end of verse 36 and in verse 38.
* In the text is וַיִּצְעַ֣ק צְעָקָ֔ה it a scream or shout?:
(לד) כִּשְׁמֹ֤עַ עֵשָׂו֙ אֶת־דִּבְרֵ֣י אָבִ֔יו וַיִּצְעַ֣ק צְעָקָ֔ה גְּדֹלָ֥ה וּמָרָ֖ה עַד־מְאֹ֑ד וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לְאָבִ֔יו בָּרְכֵ֥נִי גַם־אָ֖נִי אָבִֽי׃
(34) When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst into wild and bitter sobbing, and said to his father, “Bless me too, Father!”
(ל) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר עֵשָׂ֜ו אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֗ב הַלְעִיטֵ֤נִי נָא֙ מִן־הָאָדֹ֤ם הָאָדֹם֙ הַזֶּ֔ה כִּ֥י עָיֵ֖ף אָנֹ֑כִי עַל־כֵּ֥ן קָרָֽא־שְׁמ֖וֹ אֱדֽוֹם׃
(30) And Esau said to Jacob, “Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down, for I am famished”—which is why he was named Edom.
---//---//---//---//---//
Alter text of verse 25:30. Consideration of a "vernacular" Hebrew:
30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me gulp down some of this red red stuff, for I am famished.” Therefore is his name called Edom.
Note on Verse 25:30 [MS: Here Alter discusses a possibility that the verb "gulp"was not a verb used in Biblical Hebrew, ie, a literary Hebrew, but rather from a vernacular Hebrew that later was written down in the Mishna.]
30 Let me gulp down some of this red red stuff (emphasis added)
- “Although the Hebrew of the dialogues in the Bible reflects the same level of normative literary language as the surrounding narration, here the writer comes close to assigning substandard Hebrew to the rude Esau. The famished brother cannot even come up with the ordinary Hebrew word for “stew” (nazid) and instead points to the bubbling pot impatiently as (literally) “this red red.” The verb he uses for “gulping down” occurs nowhere else in the Bible, but in rabbinic Hebrew it is reserved for the feeding of animals. This may be evidence for Abba ben David’s contention that rabbinic Hebrew developed from a biblical vernacular that was excluded from literary usage: in this instance, the writer would have exceptionally allowed himself to introduce the vernacular term for animal feeding in order to suggest Esau’s coarsely appetitive character. And even if one allows for semantic evolution of this particular verb over the millennium between the first articulation of our text and the Mishnah, it is safe to assume it was always a cruder term for eating than the standard biblical one.”
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר עֵשָׂ֜ו אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֗ב הַלְעִיטֵ֤נִי נָא֙ מִן־הָאָדֹ֤ם הָאָדֹם֙ הַזֶּ֔ה כִּ֥י עָיֵ֖ף אָנֹ֑כִי עַל־כֵּ֥ן קָרָֽא־שְׁמ֖וֹ אֱדֽוֹם׃
and ῾Esav said to Ya῾aqov, Give me to swallow, I pray thee, of that red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom (red).