Old Testament Characters (Part 6)
Jacob And Esau: The Need to Wait on God

The story told in Genesis 27-28 is the most picturesque and also the most
pathetic in the Bible. It is filled with many sensations and cannot be
read without moving us to tears, to pity or to indignation.

A. A declining father
Isaac was about 137 years old at this point, yet he acted as though he
would die very soon. Actually, he lived to be 180 (35:28). His
impatience to give Esau the blessing suggests that he was following his
own carnal plans, not God’s will.

Birthright involved the right as head of the family (Gen. 27:29) and a
double share of the inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17). This stripped Esau of
the headship of the people through which Messiah would come. Thus, the
lineage became Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Isaac knew God’s will even before the boys were born... Genesis 25:23:
"The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples
from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the
other, and the older will serve the younger.""

Had he forgotten the Word in 25:23, or was he trying to change God’s
plan? Note how he de-pended on his senses (feeling, eating, smelling).
Note also that feeding the body took priority over doing God’s will.
Isaac at one time laid himself on the altar and was willing to die for
the Lord. What a change!

B. A doubting mother
Rebekah, in trying to bring about what she knew to be God’s will for
Jacob, resorted to her own means to accomplish it, showing a lack of
faith in God. This brought about fraud and deceit.

"The end justifies the means?"

God never allows for unholy ways to further His own holy purposes.
Jacob’s falsehood made way for many more, as it always does when we
permit ourselves to become partners in deceit and fraud. Esau lost the
birthright and the blessing — on which he had set no value.

Rebekah had been told by God that Jacob would receive God’s blessing, yet
she schemed and plotted to make sure that Esau was left out. Instead of
going to God in prayer as she had years before, she depended on her own
plans, a practice that would be characteristic of Jacob in later years.

Rebekah paid dearly for her sin: she never saw her son again (see vv.
43-45). Esau deliberately acted to hurt her; and her bad example before
Jacob cost him twenty years of trial.

C. A deceiving son
Isaac ignored the irresponsible behavior of Esau: Genesis 25:27-34: "The
boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open
country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents. {28}
Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved
Jacob. {29} Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the
open country, famished. {30} He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some
of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom.)
{31} Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright." {32} "Look, I am
about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" {33} But
Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his
birthright to Jacob. {34} Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil
stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his
birthright."

One wonders how Jacob could say to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn
" (verse 19). How could he say, "I have done just as you told me"? He had
received no command from his father, but was doing as his mother had told
him. How could he say, "Eat of my venison" when he knew it did not come
from the field.

Jacob not only deceived in the matter of voice, the covering of his skin
and using Esau’s clothes, but he lied five times. He also presumed to
abuse God’s name as a basis for such deception when he said, "because the
Lord your God brought it to me."

It is a strange and perplexing story we have here. The instrument of the
Divine Blessing represented by a bedridden blind man, stimulated by
meat, was trying to cheat God by giving the family blessing to the son of
his own choice while excluding the divinely appointed heir.

It was out of these beginnings that God had to educate a people worthy of
Himself. We see in this picture God’s grace and man’s sinfulness.
Jacob, his father, his mother and his brother, all form a dark background
to the brightness of God’s amazing love.

God loved Jacob because of some sufficient reason in Himself, not because
Jacob was lovable.
   
Certainly Jacob knew God’s promise for his life, yet he listened to his
mother instead of to God. How the two of them hurried to finish the plot!
"Whoever believes will not act hastily" (Isa. 28:16). Rebekah must have
been a good cook to be able to make goat’s meat taste like venison.

Jacob is a perfect picture of the hypocrite: his voice and his hands do
not agree (what he says and what he does), and he deceives others. In v.
19 alone, Jacob tells his father three lies: "I am Esau" (he was Jacob);
"I have done" (his mother did it all); "eat of my venison" (it was goat’s
meat). And his kiss in v. 27 was equally as deceitful.

Did Jacob pay for this sin? Yes, many times. Laban deceived him about his
wives and repeatedly changed his wages. In addition, Jacob’s own sons
would one day kill a kid (37:31) and put its blood on Joseph’s coat to
deceive their father.

The Patriarchal Blessing was a form of a last will which was binding even
though given orally. The Nuzu tablets illustrate the binding nature of
oral blessings. "The dew of heaven" and the "fat places of the earth"
were assigned to Jacob. Both speak of blessing from God: the "dew" being
essential to vegetation in Canaan and the "fat" being emblematic of
prosperity.

The "peoples" or foreign nations were to be subject to Jacob, and he was
to have lordship over his own brethren. The promise made to Abraham
(Genesis 13:16) was repeated by Isaac to Jacob in chapter 28:3.
   
D. A despairing brother
At birth his body was hairy and red "and they called his name Esau" (Gen.
25:25,30; 27:11,21-23). The second born twin, Jacob, father of the nation
Israel, held Esau's heel at birth (Gen. 25:22-26); thus depicting the
struggle between the descendants of the two which ended when David lead
Israel in the conquest of Edom.

Esau blamed Jacob for all his problems failing to realize that the
character flaw revealed in his selling of his birthright followed him all
of his life. Esau received a blessing, but neither he nor his descendants
were to occupy the fertile land of Palestine (Gen. 27:39). At age 40 he
married two Hittite wives (Gen. 26:34-35).

Years later the two brothers were reconciled when Jacob returned from
Mesopotamia. Esau had lived in the land of Seir. As Jacob neared
Palestine, he made plans for confronting his wronged brother and allaying
his anger. Esau, with an army of 400, surprised Jacob, his guilty
brother, and received him without bitterness (Gen. 33:4-16).

The two reconciled brothers met again for the final time at the death of
their father (Gen. 35:29). Though their hostility was personally
resolved, their descendants continue to this day to struggle against one
another.

Hebrews 12:17 indicates that Esau sought the blessing with tears, yet
found no place for real repentance for his sins. Remorse, yes, but not
sincere repentance. He was sorry for what he had lost, not sorry for what
he had done.

In v. 33, Isaac trembled when he realized that God had overruled his
plans. Esau’s tears could not change Isaac’s mind or alter the blessing.
Esau retaliated by plotting to murder his brother, and he deliberately
hurt his parents by stirring up trouble with his marriage to heathen
wives. The grace of God did not fail, but Esau failed the grace of God.

Sin in the home always brings heartache and misunderstanding:
· Had Isaac and Rebekah not "taken sides" with their two boys
· had they continued to pray about matters as in their early married life
· had they allowed God to have His way; then affairs would have been
different.
· As it was, all of them suffered because of their unbelief and
disobedience.
· We never get too old to be tempted—or to fail!

His selfish sorrow and resentment could not recall the choice he had made
or stand in the place of genuine repentance. "Esau, who for one morsel of
food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to
inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for
repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears." (Hebrews
12:16-17).
Sin may be the occasion of great sorrow, yet the sorrow can be without
true repentance for the sin committed. The repentance Esau sought was his
father’s, not his own. In sowing to the flesh he expected to reap both
the joys of the flesh and also the blessing of God.

Esau’s great and bitter cry is the cry of one who has rejected God, of
one who has trifled with God’s mercies and then sought to regain them
when it was too late. Esau is an example of those who care little for
God’s love but expect to receive his favor and blessings.
   
    G. The Blessing of Esau (Genesis 27:39-40)
There is only one mention of Isaac by the writer of Hebrews in his
examples of faith. "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning
things to come." (Hebrews 11:20). The blessings given to his sons
embraced the great future history of the two nations.

The prophecy given by Isaac was fulfilled in every detail. The Edomites,
descendants of Esau, dwelt at Mt. Seir on the south of the Dead Sea.
Isaac said to Esau, "By your sword you shall live, And you shall serve
your brother." The descendants of Esau were almost continually at war
with the Jews, always ready to join with their enemies.

When Nebuchadnezzer besieged Jerusalem, they encouraged him to utterly
destroy it. Throughout their history the descendants of Esau were a
different manner of people from those of Jacob.

    H. Reaction of Esau and Departure of Jacob (Genesis 27:41-28:5)
Angered that Jacob had stolen the blessing, Esau determined to murder his
brother. From this we begin to see the awful consequences of the mistakes
of Jacob and Rebekah. Thinking that Esau would forget his anger in a few
days, she persuaded Jacob to leave home.

As far as we know Rebekah never saw her favorite son again. On the
pretense that she feared Jacob would marry among the Hittites as Esau
had done, she persuaded Isaac to send Jacob to Paddanaram that he might
find a wife there.

Isaac seemed to keenly feel the grief which Esau’s Canaanitish wives had
caused him and was willing to send Jacob to his brethren. He here regards
Jacob as the son through whom the promised seed or race would be
continued, and he transferred the blessing of Abraham to the son whom he
had neglected.

    II. Jacob’s New Beginning (Genesis 28:10-22)
The biography of Jacob comes closer to many of us than the history of the
other patriarchs. There are few Abrahams, not many Isaacs, but a great
many Jacobs.

Whatever we find ourselves by nature, if we yield ourselves to God He can
make us into vessels of honor, sanctified and precisely adapted for the
Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.

Are there not times when before God we have to identify with the nature
of Jacob, and in faith call on God as "the God of Jacob"? God had very
poor material in Jacob, but let us remember that Ja-cob chose and
accepted God as his God.

The blessing of his two sons was the last we have in the active life of
Isaac. Jacob now becomes the leading figure in the sacred history.
Abraham’s life was one of authority and decision, Isaac’s of submission
and quietness, and Jacob’s one of trial and struggle.
   
    A. Jacob’s Vision at Bethel (Genesis 28:10-15)
Jacob goes over Jordan alone, doubtful and comfortless, certainly not
like the son of Isaac. The earth is his bed and the stone his pillow. A
fugitive and a wanderer comes upon a certain place, and here God meets
Jacob.

He had just committed a great offense. His flight from home, his personal
loneliness, his fears about the future, all press heavy upon him. God, in
His great love and tenderness, shows Jacob a ladder reaching from earth
to heaven. The Lord Himself stands at the top and speaks to Jacob, the
object of His mercy. He reveals to Jacob that He is "God of Abraham your
father and the God of Isaac."

The dream of Jacob is the means of a divine revelation and promise. This
dream becomes more significant when you consider the feelings that Jacob
might have had as he lay down to rest.

Thoughts accusing and excusing one another would overwhelm him in his
loneliness. His circumstances would make him look into the very depths
of his soul. He had indeed obtained the blessing of his father, but as
yet had not received the divine sanction.

The vision represents, symbolically, what the divine promise declared in
words (verses 13-15) and forms a bridge between heaven and earth. At the
foot was a poor, helpless and forsaken man. Jacob here represents human
nature with its inability and helplessness. The angels of God ever
descend to bring help and give deliverance. This forsaken and helpless
man is to become the source of blessing and medium of salvation to the
whole world.

As we today look back on the fulfillment of the promise of blessing, we
know that this blessing was to be accomplished by the descent of the
fullness of the personal God into helpless and unworthy human nature,
through the incarnation of God in Christ.

In the immediate sense, the Lord seems to make a particular application
to Jacob and speaks as though that ladder were placed between heaven and
earth for Jacob only. "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever
you go." and "I will not leave you." The Lord reveals to us what we call
His particular providence over those who are His servants.

Wherever we are, he declares He sees us; He tells us He is with us. He
assures us He cares for us and pledges to keep us. How can we help but
catch a gleam of refreshing assurance through the study of His Word.

Today we need to be serving Him with confidence and joy. Regardless of
our circumstances, our separations and our losses, we are never deprived
of our best friend, when that friend is God and we take God’s promise for
ourselves. We cannot be lonely when God is with us. Let us put our trust
in Him.

    Jacob’s Response to the Revelation (Genesis 28:16-22)
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Proverbs 9:10). We
are told of Jacob’s fear probably to impress on us the profound awe with
which we should view God, beholding His majesty and His love and mercy.
It is a fear that has no torment. It is a fearful reverence which we
ex-perience through the nearness of God who loves us and gives us of His
power, blessing, holiness and grace. These benefits are realized in
Christ our Savior.

Jacob recognized the place of the revelation as holy; it became to him
the gateway to heaven. The revelation had given Jacob a new beginning.
The world that had been so bleak and empty to him is now filled with a
majestic Presence. When this revelation of God really comes home to a man
in his hour of need, he is roused to a new life.

Jacob dedicates the stone on which his head has rested and pours oil over
the top of it. He then makes a vow before the Lord, "If God will be with
me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and
clothing to put on, So that I come back to my father’s house in peace,
then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I have set as a
pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely
give a tenth to You."

At times of deliverance from life’s disparities we vow our future
faithfulness to God; yet our futures are marked with the grief and guilt
of vows forgotten and contracts broken. God yearns for a fellowship with
us in which we are committed to Him in devotion, service and faithfulness
to our vows. It is profound that God is faithful to us in our
unfaithfulness to Him.

Last modified: April 18, 2006