מי אלה לך?, “what relations are these of yours? His question concerned all the women and children.

הילדים אשר חנן אלוקים את עבדך, “the children whom G’d has granted your servant.” Yaakov was conveying a lesson in good manners, not referring to his wives directly, letting Esau surmise that the women concerned were the mothers of these children.

ותגשן השפחות הנה וילדיהן ותשתחוין, “the maid-servants with their children approached and prostrated themselves.” In this instance no mention is made of the children prostrating themselves, as opposed to the verse describing both Rachel and Joseph as prostrating themselves. Other commentators say that originally, the sons of the maidservants did not prostrate themselves, saying that their mothers whose social status was inferior, prostrated themselves caused them to prostrate themselves, whereas they, being sons of Yaakov, would not do so. When they observed that the sons of both Leah and Rachel did prostrate themselves, the sons of the maid-servants felt that they could do no less.

מי לך כל המחנה הזה אשר פגשתי, “to whom belongs all this camp which I have encountered? Esau referred to the servants of Yaakov who had preceded him with the herds which have been described in detail as gifts which Esau had been reluctant to accept. Due to his arrogance, he had not deigned to speak to them, and therefore he had not known who they were. Now that he met Yaakov personally, he assumed that these herds had been sent by him, in view of his having previously met the angels that Yaakov had sent out. The thrust of his question was: “who is related to you who is so important that you have bothered to welcome him with such pomp and ceremony?” Yaakov replied simply that this was all in honour of his brother Esau.

כראות פני אלוקים ותרצני, “having seen you is like seeing an angel of G’d, and for becoming reconciled with me.” According to Rashi, Yaakov acknowledged Esau’s generosity in voluntarily reconciling himself with him. According to Nachmanides this was not the occasion when Yaakov mentioned any guilt at all. He simply told Esau that he would consider his accepting his gift as a source of great satisfaction, something comparable to being granted the vision of an angel. Looking at his brother’s face when it was well disposed towards him, was worth a great deal to him.

קח נא את ברכתי, “please accept my gift.” When man sends a totally free-willed gift, מנחה, such a gift is described as a ברכה, a blessing. The reason is that he voluntarily gives away something which G’d had blessed him with. A gift which one tenders to a king, on the other hand, is called מס, “tax.”

ויפצר בו ויקח, “insisted, and Esau accepted.” There is a Midrash which explains why Yaakov made a point of having Esau accept his gift. Formerly, Esau and Yaakov had sort of divided the world into two domains, the here and now, and the hereafter. Yaakov had chosen for himself the hereafter, whereas Esau had chosen the here and now. When Esau now found out that Yaakov had acquired a substantial amount of wealth in the here and now, he was liable to demand in exchange part of the hereafter for himself. Yaakov now offered him everything in order to forestall any such claim by Esau. Esau agreed in principle, but stipulated that in the event that any of his people would want to convert to Judaism that Yaakov would accept such converts. This is the meaning of Esau’s proposal in verse 13 and 15.

ומתו כל הצאן, “and all the flocks would die.” Yaakov did not say “and they will all die,” seeing the word “flocks” is the obvious subject, as he did not want to mention the word death in a way that could be understood as applying to the children. Alternately, he mentioned the צאן once more, seeing that they are the smaller animals, the goats and sheep, whereas he refrained from including the cattle in any such context. Esau knew that cattle are more hardy and that Yaakov’s excuse not to keep company with him could not be based on such a phony consideration.

למה זה, אמצא חן בעיניך, “why do that? Let me find favour in the eyes of my lord.” Yaakov absolutely did not want the company of Esau. This too, is an aspect of מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, that the patriarchs’ mode of conduct should serve as a model for their descendants when they find themselves in similar circumstances. We are to refrain from becoming chummy with the secular authorities of the country which hosts us when we are in exile, seeing that friendliness by such rulers reflects only what they can get out of us and not what we can get out of them.

ויבן לו בית, “he built himself a house.” It is possible that this was not an urban area and he had to build himself a house; alternately, the Torah reports that Yaakov built himself a very strong and solid house, one that could serve as a fortification against an attack by Esau.

ויבא יעקב שלם, “Yaakov arrived completely intact, etc.;” according to some commentators the word “Shalem” is the name of a place from which Yaakov proceeded to the city of Shechem, as we are told later that the men there were שלמים אתנו, the reference being to Yaakov and his sons as residing in “Shalem which is near us.” Ibn Ezra writes that the word שלם is an adjective, and describes Yaakov arriving there without mishap. The Torah mentions this as a prelude to the first major upset since he left Lavan, the rape of Dinah. Nachmanides writes that it would be too uncharacteristic for the Torah to report that Yaakov arrived somewhere without mishap, and that Shalem is another name for the city of Shechem. As long as he had remained in Sukkot, he was constantly afraid of Esau and his heart was not at peace. Once he had arrived in the land of Canaan he knew that he would shortly be reunited with his father and that he could enlist the help of his father or that the local people would help him out of respect for his father, and that the very merit of being back in the land of Israel, the Holy Land, would work in his favour. The G’d Who had protected him against all the dangers he had faced during his long journey home, would certainly continue to help while he was on the soil of Eretz Yisrael.

ויחן את פני העיר. “He encamped facing the city.” He had stayed there a while and acquired property, fields, vineyards, etc. He did not want to remain a guest anywhere again. His actions served to remind his descendants in the future that they should first conquer this city before moving on to dispossess the Canaanites of their land. Ibn Ezra explains that the whole verse was written to compliment the land of Israel, and to tell us that anyone owning property in the Land of Israel is as if he had already acquired a share in the world to come.