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Midrash Vayisau (Hebrew: מדרש ויסעו) is one of the smaller midrashim. This small midrash, "the heroic legend of the sons of Jacob," is based on Gen. xxxv. 5 and xxxvi. 6, and recounts the story of the wars of Jacob and his sons against the kings of the Amorites and against Esau and his army.
The beginning of its version of the former story is as follows: "Our teachers said that although they did not pursue after them this time, yet seven years later all the kings of the Amorites gathered themselves together against the sons of Jacob." That the legends contained in the Wayissa'u are very old may be inferred from the Book of Jubilees, xxxiv., xxxvii. et seq., and from the Testament of Judah (Emil Kautzsch, Apokryphen, ii. 97 et seq., 102 et seq., 471 et seq.); the midrash betrays its relationship to these old pseudepigraphical writings in many details. The war against the Amorites is treated at greater length in the Sefer ha-Yashar, pericope "Beshallaḥ." The midrash itself is contained in Yalḳ., Gen. 133, and is mentioned by Naḥmanides on Gen. xxxiv. 13, as "Sefer Milḥamot Bene Ya'aḳob."
Strack & Stemberger (1991) cite the opinion of G. Schmitt that the work was composed not later than the Bar Kokhba war. The text has been edited according to the Yalḳuṭ by A. Jellinek (B. H. iii. 1-5), and by S. Chones (in his edition of Rab Pe'alim, pp. 153 et seq.), and by Charles in his edition of the Book of Jubilees, Appendix II., Oxford, 1895.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 