TORAH
Gen. 25:19-28:9
HAFTORAH
Mal. 1:1-2:7
B’RIT HADASHAH
Rom. 9:6-16; Heb. 11:20; 12:14-17
Gen. 25:19-28:9
The essential lesson of this complex narrative comes from from Gen. 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
A predominant form of the theme of God’s sovereign plan of redemption throughout the Bible is seen as the interplay of opposites. One particular motif seen repeatedly is that of two brothers or close relatives in conflict. The Holy Spirit teaches with this motif that God is sovereign and that He elects—that is, sovereignly chooses—His people through the seeming paradox of human free will. In our narrative from Gen. 25:19—28:9, we see, through several dramatic scenes, that though humans are making decisions concerning the status, wealth and power of their families it is God, working in the background, who causes these decisions and subsequent actions to come to pass.
This story of the twins Jacob and Esau, illustrates the outworking of God’s salvific intentions and the promise He made to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3). God’s word in Gen. 3:15 sets up the dynamic of consequent history, which begins with the brothers Cain and Able (Gen. 4:1-2) and is also evident in the relationships of the three sons of Noah (9:25-27), Abraham and Lot (13:7-12), Isaac and Ishmael (21:9), Jacob and Laban (29-31) as well as Joseph and his brothers (37-50). The lesson is enunciated clearly and unequivocally in Gen. 50:15, 19-20, “When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.’ But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.’”
Joseph is testifying that the conflict between himself and his brothers was part of God’s plan to ultimately redeem for Himself a people. It is interesting that so often God chooses the younger over the older (Cain and Able), the weaker over the stronger (Jacob and Esau), women over men (Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel) as the instruments of His grace. The example of the Matriarchs is given as further evidence that God works sovereignly since all three women were barren and only conceived and gave birth under extraordinary (supernatural?) circumstances. It is also intriguing that Rebekah plots with the younger Jacob to bring about the fulfillment of God’s word to her that “the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”
Another motif from this portion of Scripture is that of birthright and blessing. Esau sold his birthright and all that it entailed. The birthright of the oldest Hebrew son was a double portion of all the possessions of his father, the remainder to be divided up between any other sons. But the birthright was more than just a determiner of one’s inheritance. In Genesis—which is partly the story of the formation of the Hebrew people—God determined that leadership was to be through the father and consequently through the eldest son—the “firstborn.” Under normal circumstances Esau would have become not only the Patriarch of his family, but—far more importantly—he would have been a son of the “promise” and accordingly would have been a link through whom the covenant promise made to his grandfather, Abraham, would be realized in due course.
But God—in the hidden recesses of His wisdom—chose Jacob instead. He determined this outcome before either boy was born when He loved Jacob but hated Esau. In the context, “loved” means chosen or preferred while “hated” means not chosen or preferred. The words do not represent affection and hostility. It is also worthy of note the moral similarities between Jacob and another man known as “a man after God’s own heart”—King David. (Yes, like Jacob, David was the youngest son. And like Jacob, David too was morally wanting, a great sinner in fact.) But one’s moral character was not—and still is not—the determiner of God’s sovereign grace. Abraham was a pagan gentile who undoubtedly practiced all sorts of heathenish idolatries before he was saved through faith—and who consequently became obedient to Ye’ hovah, the one true God.
God chooses whom He will, for reasons which are rarely, if ever, clear to us until they have come to pass. According to Paul, Esau was never a son of the promise, even though he was the rightful heir as Isaac’s firstborn. Nevertheless, Esau traded his birthright—essentially the promise or covenant given by God to Abraham—for nothing more than a bowl of lentil stew. (Judas traded His eternal security for thirty measly pieces of silver, the standard price, by the way, for a slave at the time.) At one level, I believe we can see this bowl of stew as representing the world because we are tied to this world through the food we consume. The idea of worldliness here is further supported when we consider that Esau was described as “a skillful hunter, a man of the field.” He was a man’s man. Jacob, on the other hand is described as a quiet (or peaceful) man, dwelling in tents. He was, in other words, a wimp. Esau was probably a macho man an outgoing extrovert, a man of action, while Jacob was likely a milquetoast, a contemplative and perhaps deceptive—the name Jacob can mean both “deceiver” and “may God protect”—introvert.
In any event, the blessing that was intended by the simple Isaac for his son Esau was appropriated by the connivance of Rebekah, who was the instrument God had chosen to ensure the promise would go to His chosen one, Jacob. In almost the very same words as those spoken to Abraham by God in Gen. 12:3 and again by the rogue prophet Bala’am in Num. 24:9b, “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you” Isaac blesses Jacob the real son of the promise, “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you. And of course, Bala’am was speaking an oracle concerning the nation of Israel, the ancestor and namesake of which was Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel (Gen. 32:28) which means “God strives.” And what was God “striving” to do but to bring to pass His enduring promise for a whole people, the Hebrew people, the Israelites, the true remnant, of which we, as Gentiles, now belong as grafted in branches. This is why God said to Rebekah, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided” (Gen. 25:23a). The division—as we come to understand at a deeper level of apprehension—is not just between two brothers; it is not just between two nations, Israel and Edom along with their descendants. Rather it is between two kingdoms: the fallen Kingdom of Satan and the redeemed Kingdom of Christ, the Messiah—God’s ultimate “Chosen or Anointed One.” In our story, using Gen. 3:15 to unlock the hidden meaning, Jacob stands for “her offspring” that is, the children of the promise, while Esau stands in as “your offspring”, that is, the children of the Serpent, Satan.
The main purpose of this story—and the commentary on it by Paul from Romans—is the absolute sovereignty of God and His ensuing omnipotence to make good on His promise of redemption. This is why He first makes up the rules of His covenants with His people but then goes to great pains in order to fulfill them in ways that seem to human reasoning as arbitrary and perhaps irrational. The narrative we’ve been considering is a prime example. God will ensure that His promises will not be appropriated by creatures though He uses their decisions and actions, carried out by their own free will, to sovereignly bring about His own good purpose. Indeed, Ye’ hovah will always have the last laugh!
AMEN
Addendum:
This passage (Gen. 25:19—28:9) is a very good example of the four levels of Biblical interpretation: the simple (plain, “literal”), the hinted (secondary or implied), the comparative (analogical, symbolic) and the spiritual (mystical, deeply hidden).
The simple sense is an historical recounting of the birth and early lives of two brothers. The hinted sense is found in the statement that these two brothers also represent two historical people groups or nations. We see the events of the selling the birthright for a bowl of stew and later, the deceitful presentation of the meal to Isaac in order to obtain blessing as being highly symbolic. Even the names of the brothers, especially of Jacob, have symbolic meaning. Finally, we understand, in light of Gen. 3:15 that in Jacob and Esau, we are dealing with spiritual or mystical truth regarding the establishment of God’s kingdom and the ultimate role of the Messiah in the redemption of God’s people.
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