mess of pottage

mess of pottage

Something of little, trivial, or no value but which appears to be attractive or valuable on first reckoning. An allusion to Esau in Genesis 25:29–32, who sells to Jacob his birthright to his family's estate for a bowl of lentil stew (pottage). Only after the economic crash did it become fully clear what messes of pottage these sub-prime mortgages proved to be for first-time homeowners. If we allow our obsession with job creation to undermine the health of the environment, humanity will ultimately end up selling its birthright for a mess of pottage.
See also: mess, of, pottage
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a mess of pottage

LITERARY, OLD-FASHIONED
If someone exchanges something of lasting value for a mess of pottage, they foolishly exchange it for something of no lasting value. I think he has sold his soul for a mess of pottage. Note: A mess of pottage is a dish of vegetables. This expression comes from a story in the Bible, which tells how Esau was hungry and sold his privileges as first-born son to his brother Jacob in return for this meal. (Genesis 25:29-33)
See also: mess, of, pottage
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
See also:
  • a mess of pottage
  • pottage
  • strike out at (something or some place)
  • hit (something) out of the (ball)park
  • be at it hammer and tongs
  • go at it hammer and tongs
  • go at it tooth and nail
  • hammer and tongs
  • hammer and tongs, go at it
  • beat (one) to the draw
References in periodicals archive
And what mess of pottage have you acquired in exchange for the rights of a free people?
Compared with this the undeniable goods of the academy seem to me a mess of pottage. For the moment I must continue to book my ticket on the other line.
And this mess of pottage is being offered to the ex-Soviet people as payment for their revolutionary birthright--the ownership of the means of production.
To achieve this mess of pottage they are willing to let chaos spill across the land.
The Book of Genesis tells how Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage. Things did not end well for the House of Isaac.
Events may prove me wrong, but I think the city fathers of Manchester have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.
After forcing his starving brother, Esau, to give up his birthright in return for a mess of pottage, Jacob collaborates with his mother, puts on Esau's clothes, wraps animal hides around his arms to simulate his brother's hairy limbs, and walks up to his elderly father.
There are too many in Government on the business front, who would betray this nation for a mess of pottage.
Like Esau we were encouraged to sell our "birthright for a mess of pottage".
When, in what seems intended as a Cain and Abel reference, dirt farmer's son Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) offers to sell out his family's heritage for a metaphorical mess of pottage, Plainview heads for their California ranch, HW in tow as prop, to smooth-talk the old man into selling the drilling rights at a bargain price.
The tragedy is that the members of the Pulitzer family--Emily, Michael and their relatives--have traded their heritage for a mess of pottage--a very large mess of pottage, to be sure, but no more than that.
Subverting the biological rhetoric of Stribling's novel, Larsen's allusion thus recasts the trope of the birthright not as a natural law of the blood but as a cultural inheritance that can be robbed, lost, traded, tricked away, exchanged, bought, or "sold"-- in the words of Harlem Renaissance writer James Weldon Johnson in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man--"for a mess of pottage" (211).
Is there no other organisation in Wales to prevent the loss or is this another case of selling our birthright for a mess of pottage?
There must also be a resolve to hold on to this integrity and reputation and not trade it off for a mess of pottage. The tragedy of our situation is that the political space is being crowded with despicable quantities riding roughshod over their betters.
This will be the first time that a Prime Minister has sold his country for a 'mess of pottage'.