And these [are] the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begot Isaac:
Narrative of Jacob (Gen 25:25-34)
19 34 (P and J). Esau and Jacob. Esau sells his Birthright
Gen 25:19-20 are from P, Gen 25:21-34 from J.
19. And these are the generations ] See Gen 25:12. With this familiar formula (cf. Gen 2:4) commences the next section from P, which deals with the story of Isaac and his two sons, Esau and Jacob.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– LIII. Birth of Esau and Jacob
20. padan, Paddan, plowed field; related: cut, plow.
25. esav, Esaw, hairy, or made.
26. yaaqob, Jaaqob, he shall take the heel.
27. tam, perfect, peaceful, plain. The epithet refers to disposition, and contrasts the comparatively civilized character of Jacob with the rude temper of Esau.
30. ‘edom, Edom, red.
The ninth document here begins with the usual phrase, and continues to the end of the thirty-fifth chapter. It contains the history of the second of the three patriarchs, or rather, indeed, as the opening phrase intimates, of the generations of Isaac; that is, of his son Jacob. Isaac himself makes little figure in the sacred history. Born when his mother was ninety, and his father a hundred years of age, he is of a sedate, contemplative, and yielding disposition. Consenting to be laid on the altar as a sacrifice to God, he had the stamp of submission early and deeply impressed on his soul. His life corresponds with these antecedents. Hence, in the spiritual aspect of his character he was the man of patience, of acquiescence, of susceptibility, of obedience. His qualities were those of the son, as Abrahams were those of the father. He carried out, but did not initiate; he followed, but did not lead; he continued, but did not commence. Accordingly, the docile and patient side of the saintly character is now to be presented to our view.
Gen 25:19-26
The birth of Esau and Jacob. The son of forty years. Hence, we learn that Isaac was married the third year after his mothers death, when Abraham was in his hundred and fortieth year. Bethuel the Aramaean. As Bethuel was a descendant of Arpakshad, not of Aram, he is here designated, not by his descent, but by his adopted country Aram. By descent he was a Kasdi or Kaldee. Sarah was barren for at least thirty years; Rebekah for nineteen years. This drew forth the prayer of Isaac in regard to his wife. The heir of promise was to be a child of prayer, and accordingly when the prayer ascended the fruit of the womb was given. Rebekah had unwonted sensations connected with her pregnancy. She said to herself, If it be so, if I have conceived seed, why am I thus, why this strange struggle within me? In the artlessness of her faith she goes to the Lord for an explanation. We are not informed in what way she consulted God, or how he replied. The expression, she went to inquire of the Lord, implies that there was some place of worship and communion with God by prayer. We are not to suppose that she went to Abraham, or any other prophet, if such were then at hand, when we have no intimation of this in the text. Her communication with the Lord seems to have been direct. This passage conveys to us the intimation that there was now a fixed mode and perhaps place of inquiring at the Lord. The Lord answers the mother of the promised seed. Two children are in her womb, the parents of two nations, differing in their dispositions and destinies. The one is to be stronger than the other. The order of nature is to be reversed in them; for the older will serve the younger. Their struggles in the womb are a prelude to their future history.
Gen 25:24-26
The twins are born in due time. The difference is manifest in the outward appearance. The first is red and hairy. These qualities indicate a passionate and precocious nature. He is called Esau the hairy, or the made up, the prematurely developed. His brother is like other children. An act takes place in the very birth foreshadowing their future history. The second has a hold of his brothers heel, as if he would trip him up from his very birth. Hence, he is called Jacob the wrestler, who takes hold by the heel.
Gen 25:27-34
The brothers prove to be different in disposition and habit. The rough fiery Esau takes to the field, and becomes skilled in all modes of catching game. Jacob is of a homely, peaceful, orderly turn, dwelling in tents and gathering round him the means and appliances of a quiet social life. The children please their parents according as they supply what is lacking in themselves. Isaac, himself so sedate, loves the wild, wandering hunter, because he supplies him with pleasures which his own quiet habits do not reach. Rebekah becomes attached to the gentle, industrious shepherd, who satisfies those social and spiritual tendencies in which she is more dependent than Isaac. Esau is destructive of game; Jacob is constructive of cattle.
Gen 25:29-34
A characteristic incident in their early life is attended with very important consequences. Jacob sod pottage. He has become a sage in the practical comforts of life. Esau leaves the field for the tent, exhausted with fatigue. The sight and smell of Jacobs savory dish of lentile soup are very tempting to a hungry man. Let me feed now on that red, red broth. He does not know how to name it. The lentile is common in the country, and forms a cheap and palatable dish of a reddish brown color, with which bread seems to have been eaten. The two brothers were not congenial. They would therefore act each independently of the other, and provide each for himself. Esau was no doubt occasionally rude and hasty. Hence, a selfish habit would grow up and gather strength. He was probably accustomed to supply himself with such fare as suited his palate, and might have done so on this occasion without any delay. But the free flavor and high color of the mess, which Jacob was preparing for himself, takes his fancy, and nothing will do but the red red. Jacob obviously regarded this as a rude and selfish intrusion on his privacy and property, in keeping with similar encounters that may have taken place between the brothers.
It is here added, therefore was his name called Edom, that is, Red. The origin of surnames, or second names for the same person or place, is a matter of some moment in the fair interpretation of an ancient document. It is sometimes hastily assumed that the same name can only owe its application to one occasion; and hence a record of a second occasion on which it was applied is regarded as a discrepancy. But the error lies in the interpreter, not in the author. The propriety of a particular name may be marked by two or more totally different circumstances, and its application renewed on each of these occasions. Even an imaginary cause may be assigned for a name, and may serve to originate or renew its application. The two brothers now before us afford very striking illustrations of the general principle. It is pretty certain that Esau would receive the secondary name of Edom, which ultimately became primary in point of use, from the red complexion of skin, even from his birth. But the exclamation that red red, uttered on the occasion of a very important crisis in his history, renewed the name, and perhaps tended to make it take the place of Esau in the history of his race. Jacob, too, the holder of the heel, received this name from a circumstance occurring at his birth. But the buying of the birthright and the gaining of the blessing, were two occasions in his subsequent life on which he merited the title of the supplanter or the holder by the heel Gen 27:36. These instances prepare us to expect other examples of the same name being applied to the same object, for different reasons on different occasions.
Sell me this day thy birthright. This brings to light a new cause of variance between the brothers. Jacob was no doubt aware of the prediction communicated to his mother, that the older should serve the younger. A quiet man like him would not otherwise have thought of reversing the order of nature and custom. In after times the right of primogeniture consisted in a double portion of the fathers goods Deu 21:17, and a certain rank as the patriarch and priest of the house on the death of the father. But in the case of Isaac there was the far higher dignity of chief of the chosen family and heir of the promised blessing, with all the immediate and ultimate temporal and eternal benefits therein included. Knowing all this, Jacob is willing to purchase the birthright, as the most peaceful way of bringing about that supremacy which was destined for him. He is therefore cautious and prudent, even conciliating in his proposal.
He availed himself of a weak moment to accomplish by consent what was to come. Yet he lays no necessity on Esau, but leaves him to his own free choice. We must therefore beware of blaming him for endeavoring to win his brothers concurrence in a thing that was already settled in the purpose of God. His chief error lay in attempting to anticipate the arrangements of Providence. Esau is strangely ready to dispose of his birthright for a trivial present gratification. He might have obtained other means of recruiting nature equally suitable, but he will sacrifice anything for the desire of the moment. Any higher import of the right he was prepared to sell so cheap seems to have escaped his view, if it had ever occurred to his mind. Jacob, however, is deeply in earnest. He will bring this matter within the range of heavenly influence. He will have God solemnly invoked as a witness of the transfer. Even this does not startle Esau. There is not a word about the price. It is plain that Esaus thoughts were altogether on the morsel of meat. He swears unto Jacob. He then ate and drank, and rose up and went his way, as the sacred writer graphically describes his reckless course. Most truly did he despise his birthright. His mind did not rise to higher or further things. Such was the boyhood of these wondrous twins.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 25:19-23
The generations of Isaac.
—
The holy seed
1. God hath a special care to commend unto posterity the line of His Church, and His providences towards it.
2. The eminent line of the Church visible begins from Abraham (Gen 25:19).
3. The holy seed run not foolishly nor hastily into the marriage covenant, but in maturity and prudence.
4. God separates the mother of His Church from all superstitious relations. In calling any to His Church God separates them from corrupt relations (Gen 25:20). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Lessons
1. In Gods answer of prayer the greatest mercies may be given in, with the greatest temptation.
2. Hard temptations may sometimes cause gracious souls to be discontented with their mercies.
3. In such temptations gracious hearts make their resource to God to know His mind and do it (Gen 25:22). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Lessons
1. Jehovah vouchsafes answers to His troubled petitioners suitable to their desires.
2. God hath by natural symptoms in some declared the two great parties of the world and of the Church.
3. Gods oracle hath foretold heavy divisions between them.
4. God hath so ordered that the people of the world may be outwardly stronger than the Church.
5. It is Gods oracle that the greatest in the world shall serve the least in the Church.
6. The preferring or undervaluing of creatures either for outward or inward, temporal or eternal good, depends wholly upon Gods will (Gen 25:23). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Rebekahs barrenness
The intended mother of the promised seed was left for twenty years childless–to contend with the doubts, surmises, evil proposals, proud challengings of God, and murmurings, which must undoubtedly have arisen even in so bright and spirited a heart as Rebekahs. It was thus she was taught the seriousness of the possession she had chosen for herself, and gradually led to the implicit faith requisite for the discharge of its responsibilities. Many young persons have a similar experience. They seem to themselves to have chosen a wrong position, to have made a thorough mistake in life, and to have brought themselves into circumstances in which they only retard, or quite prevent the prosperity of those with whom they are connected. In proportion as Rebekah loved Isaac, and entered into his prospects, must she have been tempted to think she had far better have remained in Padanaram. It is a humbling thing to stand in-some other persons way; but if it is by no fault of ours, but in obedience to affection or conscience we are in this position, we must, in humility and patience, wait upon Providence as Rebekah did, and resist all morbid despondency. This second barrenness in the prospective mother of the promised seed was as needful to all concerned as the first was; for the people of God, no more than any others, can learn in one lesson. They must again be brought to a real dependence on God as the Giver of the heir. The prayer with which Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren was a prayer of deeper intensity than he could have uttered had he merely remembered the story that had been told him of his own birth. God must be recognized again and again and throughout as the Giver of life to the promised line. Learn, therefore, that although God has given you means of working out His salvation, your Rebekah will be barren without His continued activity. On His own means you must re-invite His blessing, for without the continuance of His aid you will make nothing of the most beautiful and appropriate helps He has given you. It was by pain, anxiety, and almost dismay, that Rebekah received intimation that her prayer was answered. In this she is the type of many whom God hears. Inward strife, miserable forebodings, deep dejection, are often the first intimations that God is listening to our prayer and is beginning to work within us. (M. Dods, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 19. These are the generations of Isaac] This is the history of Isaac and his family. Here the sixth section of the law begins, called toledoth yitschak; as the fifth, called chaiye Sarah, which begins with Ge 23:1, ends at the preceding verse.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
19. these are thegenerationsaccount of the leading events in his life.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And these [are] the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son,…. Moses, having given the genealogy of Ishmael and his posterity, returns to Isaac, the other son of Abraham, with whom and his children the following part of his history is chiefly, if not altogether concerned:
Abraham begat Isaac; for the further confirmation of his being his proper legitimate son this clause is added.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
According to the plan of Genesis, the history ( tholedoth ) of Isaac commences with the birth of his sons. But to give it the character of completeness in itself, Isaac’s birth and marriage are mentioned again in Gen 25:19, Gen 25:20, as well as his age at the time of his marriage. The name given to the country of Rebekah (Gen 25:20) and the abode of Laban in Gen 28:2, Gen 28:6-7; Gen 31:18; Gen 33:18; Gen 35:9, Gen 35:26; Gen 46:15, viz., Padan-Aram, or more concisely Padan (Gen 48:7), “the flat, or flat land of Aram,” for which Hosea uses “the field of Aram” (Hos 12:12), is not a peculiar expression employed by the Elohist, or in the so-called foundation-work, for Aram Naharaim, Mesopotamia (Gen 24:10), but a more exact description of one particular district of Mesopotamia, viz., of the large plain, surrounded by mountains, in which the town of Haran was situated. The name was apparently transferred to the town itself afterwards. The history of Isaac consists of two stages: (1) the period of his active life, from his marriage and the birth of his sons till the departure of Jacob for Mesopotamia (Gen 25:20-28:9); and (2) the time of his suffering endurance in the growing infirmity of age, when the events of Jacob’s life form the leading feature of the still further expanded history of salvation (Gen 28:10-35:29). This suffering condition, which lasted more than 40 years, reflected in a certain way the historical position which Isaac held in the patriarchal triad, as a passive rather than active link between Abraham and Jacob; and even in the active period of his life many of the events of Abraham’s history were repeated in a modified form.
The name Jehovah prevails in the historical development of the tholedoth of Isaac, in the same manner as in that of Terah; although, on closer examination of the two, we find, first, that in this portion of Genesis the references to God are less frequent than in the earlier one; and secondly, that instead of the name Jehovah occurring more frequently than Elohim, the name Elohim predominates in this second stage of the history. The first difference arises from the fact, that the historical matter furnishes less occasion for the introduction of the name of God, just because the revelations of God are more rare, since the appearances of Jehovah to Isaac and Jacob together are not so numerous as those to Abraham alone. The second may be explained partly from the fact, that Isaac and Jacob did not perpetually stand in such close and living faith in Jehovah as Abraham, and partly also from the fact, that the previous revelations of God gave rise to other titles for the covenant God, such as “God of Abraham,” “God of my father,” etc., which could be used in the place of the name Jehovah (cf. Gen 26:24; Gen 31:5, Gen 31:42; Gen 35:1, Gen 35:3, and the remarks on Gen 35:9).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Birth of Esau and Jacob. | B. C. 1837. |
19 And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac: 20 And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-aram, the sister to Laban the Syrian. 21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD. 23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. 24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 And the first came out red, all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. 26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them. 27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. 28 And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
We have here an account of the birth of Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah: their entrance into the world was (which is not usual) one of the most considerable parts of their story; nor is much related concerning Isaac but what had reference to his father while he lived and to his sons afterwards. For Isaac seems not to have been a man of action, nor much tried, but to have spent his days in quietness and silence. Now concerning Jacob and Esau we are here told,
I. That they were prayed for. Their parents, after they had been long childless, obtained them by prayer, Gen 25:20; Gen 25:21. Isaac was forty years old when he was married; though he was an only son, and the person from whom the promised seed was to come, yet he made no haste to marry. He was sixty years old when his sons were born (v. 26), so that, after he was married, he had no child for twenty years. Note, Though the accomplishment of God’s promise is always sure, yet it is often slow, and seems to be crossed and contradicted by Providence, that the faith of believers may be tried, their patience exercised, and mercies long waited for may be the more welcome when they come. While this mercy was delayed, Isaac did not approach to a handmaid’s bed, as Abraham had done, and Jacob afterwards; for he loved Rebekah, ch. xxiv. 67. But, 1. He prayed: he entreated the Lord for his wife. Though God had promised to multiply his family, he prayed for its increase; for God’s promises must not supersede, but encourage, our prayers, and be improved as the ground of our faith. Though he had prayed for this mercy very often, and had continued his supplication many years, and it was not granted, yet he did not leave off praying for it; for men ought always to pray, and not to faint (Luke xviii. 1), to pray without ceasing, and knock till the door be opened, He prayed for his wife; some read it with his wife. Note, Husbands and wives should pray together, which is intimated in the apostle’s caution, that their prayers be not hindered, 1 Pet. iii. 7. The Jews have a tradition that Isaac, at length, took his wife with him to mount Moriah, where God had promised that he would multiply Abraham’s seed (ch. xxii. 17), and there, in his prayer with her and for her, pleaded the promise made in that very place. 2. God heard his prayer, and was entreated of him. Note, Children are the gift of God. Those that continue instant in prayer, as Isaac did, shall find, at last, that they did not seek in vain, Isa. xlv. 19.
II. That they were prophesied of before they were born, and great mysteries were wrapped up in the prophecies which went before of them, Gen 25:22; Gen 25:23. Long had Isaac prayed for a son; and now his wife is with child of two, to recompense him for his long waiting. Thus God often outdoes our prayers, and gives more than we are able to ask or think. Now Rebekah being with child of these two sons, observe here,
1. How she was perplexed in her mind concerning her present case: The children struggled together within her. The commotion she felt was altogether extraordinary and made her very uneasy. Whether she was apprehensive that the birth would be her death, or whether she was weary of the intestine tumult, or whether she suspected it to be an ill omen, it seems she was ready to wish that either she had not been with child or that she might die immediately, and not bring forth such a struggling brood: If it be so, or, since it is so, Why am I thus? Before, the want of children was her trouble, now, the struggle of the children is no less so. Note, (1.) The comforts we are most desirous of are sometimes found to bring along with them more occasion of trouble and uneasiness that we thought of; vanity being written upon all things under the sun, God thus teaches us to read it. (2.) We are too apt to be discontented with our comforts, because of the uneasiness that attends them. We know not when we are pleased; we know neither how to want nor how to abound. This struggle between Jacob and Esau in the womb represents the struggle that is maintained between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, [1.] In the world. The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent have been contending ever since the enmity was put between them (ch. iii. 15), and this has occasioned a constant uneasiness among men. Christ himself came to send fire on earth, and this division,Luk 12:49; Luk 12:51. But let not this be offence to us. A holy war is better than the peace of the devil’s palace. [2.] In the hearts of believers. No sooner is Christ formed in the soul than immediately there begins a conflict between the flesh and spirit, Gal. v. 17. The stream is not turned without a mighty struggle, which yet ought not to discourage us. It is better to have a conflict with sin than tamely to submit to it.
2. What course she took for her relief: She went to enquire of the Lord. Some think Melchizedek was now consulted as an oracle, or perhaps some Urim or Teraphim were now used to enquire of God by, as afterwards in the breast-plate of judgment. Note, The word and prayer, by both which we now enquire of the Lord, give great relief to those that are upon any account perplexed. It is a great relief to the mind to spread our case before the Lord, and ask counsel at his mouth. Go into the sanctuary, Ps. lxxiii. 17.
3. The information given her, upon her enquiry, which expounded the mystery: Two nations are in thy womb, v. 23. She was now pregnant, not only with two children, but two nations, which should not only in their manners and dispositions greatly differ from each other, but in their interests clash and contend with each other; and the issue of the contest should be that the elder should serve the younger, which was fulfilled in the subjection of the Edomites, for many ages, to the house of David, till they revolted, 2 Chron. xxi. 8. Observe here, (1.) God is a free agent in dispensing his grace; it is his prerogative to make a difference between those who have not as yet themselves done either good or evil. This the apostle infers hence, Rom. ix. 12. (2.) In the struggle between grace and corruption in the soul, grace, the younger, shall certainly get the upper hand at last.
III. That when they were born there was a great difference between them, which served to confirm what had been foretold (v. 23), was presage of the accomplishment of it, and served greatly to illustrate the type.
1. There was a great difference in their bodies, v. 25. Esau, when he was born, was rough and hairy, as if he had been already a grown man, whence he had his name Esau, made, reared already. This was an indication of a very strong constitution, and gave cause to expect that he would be a very robust, daring, active man. But Jacob was smooth and tender as other children. Note, (1.) The difference of men’s capacities, and consequently of their condition in the world, arises very much from the difference of their natural constitution; some are plainly designed by nature for activity and honour, others as manifestly marked for obscurity. This instance of the divine sovereignty in the kingdom of providence may perhaps help to reconcile us to the doctrine of the divine sovereignty in the kingdom of grace. (2.) It is God’s usual way to choose the weak things of the world, and to pass by the mighty, 1Co 1:26; 1Co 1:27.
2. There was a manifest contest in their births. Esau, the stronger, came forth first; but Jacob’s hand took hold of his heel, v. 26. This signified, (1.) Jacob’s pursuit of the birthright and blessing; from the first, he reached forth to catch hold of it, and, if possible, to prevent his brother. (2.) His prevailing for it at last, that, in process of time, he should undermine his brother, and gain his point. This passage is referred to (Hos. xii. 8), and hence he had his name, Jacob, a supplanter.
3. They were very unlike in the temper of their minds, and the way of living they chose, v. 27. They soon appeared to be of very different dispositions. (1.) Esau was a man for this world. He was a man addicted to his sports, for he was a hunter; and a man who knew how to live by his wits, for he was a cunning hunter. Recreation was his business; he studied the art of it, and spent all his time in it. He never loved a book, nor cared for being within doors; but he was a man of the field, like Nimrod and Ishmael, all for the game, and never well but when he was upon the stretch in pursuit of it: in short, he set up for a gentleman and a soldier. (2.) Jacob was a man for the other world. He was not cut out for a statesman, nor did he affect to look great, but he was a plain man, dwelling in tents, an honest man that always meant well, and dealt fairly, that preferred the true delights of solitude and retirement to all the pretended pleasure of busy noisy sports: he dwelt in tents, [1.] As a shepherd. He was attached to that safe and silent employment of keeping sheep, to which also he bred up his children, ch. xlvi. 34. Or, [2.] As a student. He frequented the tents of Melchizedek, or Heber, as some understand it, to be taught by them divine things. And this was that son of Isaac on whom the covenant was entailed.
4. Their interest in the affections of their parents was likewise different. They had but these two children, and, it seems, one was the father’s darling and the other the mother’s, v. 28. (1.) Isaac, though he was not a stirring man himself (for when he went into the fields he went to meditate and pray, not to hunt), yet loved to have his son active. Esau knew how to please him, and showed a great respect for him, by treating him often with venison, which gained him the affections of the good old man, and won upon him more than one would have thought. (2.) Rebekah was mindful of the oracle of God, which had given the preference to Jacob, and therefore she preferred him in her love. And, if it be lawful for parents to make a difference between their children upon any account, doubtless Rebekah was in the right, that loved him whom God loved.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 19-23:
The chronological chart affirms that Isaac married Rebekah three years after his mother’s death. Although Bethuel was a descendant of Arphaxad just as was Isaac, he is here designated as a Syrian or Aramaean because of the country where he lived.
Rebekah was barren during the early years of her marriage to Isaac. This was a cause of concern to Isaac, so he interceded on her behalf with the Lord (Jehovah). Jehovah heard his prayer, and Rebekah conceived. During her pregnancy, Rebekah became acutely aware of a conflict within her womb. When she enquired of Jehovah as to the meaning of this, the Lord revealed that there were in reality two nations within her womb. There was rivalry before birth, and this rivalry would continue for ages to come. The present-day conflict between Jew and Arab (some of whom are descendants of Esau) confirms this Divine revelation.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
19. These are the generations of Isaac. Because what Moses has said concerning the Ishmaelites was incidental, he now returns to the principal subject of the history, for the purpose of describing the progress of the Church. And in the first place, he repeats that Isaac’s wife was taken from Mesopotamia. He expressly calls her the sister of Laban the Syrian, who was hereafter to become the father-in-law of Jacob, and concerning whom he had many things to relate. But it is chiefly worthy of observation that he declares Rebekah to have been barren during the early years of her marriage. And we shall afterwards see that her barrenness continued, not for three or four, but for twenty years, in order that her very despair of offspring might give greater lustre to the sudden granting of the blessing. But nothing seems less accordant with reason, than that the propagation of the Church should be thus small and slow. Abraham, in his extreme old age, received (as it seems) a slender solace for his long privation of offspring, in having all his hope centred in one individual. Isaac also, already advanced in years, and bordering on old age, was not yet a father. Where, then, was the seed which should equal the stars of heaven in number? Who would not suppose that God was dealing deceitfully in leaving those houses empty and solitary, which, according to his own word, ought to be replenished with teeming population? But that which is recorded in the psalm must be accomplished in reference to the Church, that
“
he maketh her who had been barren to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of many children.” (Psa 113:9.)
For this small and contemptible origin, these slow and feeble advances, render more illustrious that increase, which afterwards follows, beyond all hope and expectation, to teach us that the Church was produced and increased by divine power and grace, and not by merely natural means. It is indeed possible, that God designed to correct or moderate any excess of attachment in Isaac. But this is to be observed as the chief reason for God’s conduct, that as the holy seed was given from heaven, it must not be produced according to the common order of nature, to the end, that we learn that the Church did not originate in the industry of man, but flowed from the grace of God alone.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 25:19. These are the generations.] The ninth document here begins with the usual phrase, and continues to the end of the thirty-fifth chapter. It contains the history of the second of the three patriarchs, or rather indeed, as the opening phrase intimates, of the generations of Isaac, that is, of his son Jacob. (Murphy.)
Gen. 25:21. And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren.] This barrenness lasted twenty years, as may be inferred from Gen. 25:26. For his wife. Lit. before his wife, it is the same term as occurs in ch. Gen. 30:38, where Jacob laid the rods before, i.e. in front of, the flocks. But there can be no doubt here that the word has the force of for or in behalf of: acquiring this meaning through that of having reference to, in regard of. (Alford.) The term means before, opposite to, his wife, which Luther understands as referring to his intent desire for his object; having nothing in his eye but this. (Jacobus.)
Gen. 25:22. And she went to inquire of the Lord.] Kalisch interprets this of her having recourse to Gods prophet, Abraham, who still survived. Knobel and Keil understand that she went to some place where Jehovah was adored, and where priests were wont to give responses in His name. But there is no sufficient evidence for either of these opinions, and it seems more likely to suppose that she inquired of the Lord directly in the way of immediate prayer.
Gen. 25:23. Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels: and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.] This response is in the form of poetical parallelism. The two nations were the Edomites and the Israelites. Their hostility commenced at the time of the Exodus, at the very beginning of their national existence. The Israelites in the end subjected the Edomites.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 25:19-23
THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF ISAAC
I. It is chiefly distinguished by the patient and retiring graces. He was not a man of activity and heroic boldness, like his father Abraham. He was rather a man of a patient, obedient spirit, of quiet meditative habits, altogether docile, gently susceptible to impressions, and retiring. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews notices him only as blessing Jacob and Esau concerning things to come (Heb. 11:20). His child-like enquiries and patient silence upon Moriah (Ch. 22), his love to Rebekah (Ch. 24), his communion with Isaac at the burial of his father, his residing at the well Lahai Roi (Ch. 25), his mourning three years for his mother,such characteristic acts and events in his life show what manner of man he was. He was distinguished by those graces and virtues, which, though in the sight of God are of great price, yet make but little noise in the world. Isaac does not fill any large place in the history. The patient side of the saintly character is here portrayed. There are few exciting incidents in the lives of such men, and therefore the world is heedless of their worth.
II. It was not exempt from great trial. He had heard of the promise that the family, of which he was now the chief, should multiply and become a great nation; yet he was still childless though he had been married for twenty years. It seems that he must be taught that the promised blessing is to come not as a matter of course, but as a gift of special favour. He must be exercised in the patience of faith. The great trial he now endured drives him to God (Gen. 25:21). In earnest supplication he tells the Lord of his perplexity. It speaks well for the quiet confidence of his faith that he did not resort to any carnal expedient like his father Abraham. His immediate trial is removed, but only to make way for another. The very blessing which is granted in answer to his prayer becomes itself a new source of anxiety (Gen. 25:22). But that anxiety is relieved by further revelations of the future (Gen. 25:23).
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 25:19. The ninth document here begins with the usual phrase, and continues to the end of the thirty-fifth chapter. It contains the history of the second of the three patriarchs, or rather indeed, as the opening phrase intimates, of the generations of Isaac, that is, of his Son Jacob. Isaac himself makes little figure in the sacred history. Born when his mother was ninety, and his father a hundred years of age, he is of a sedate, contemplative, and yielding disposition. Consenting to be laid on the altar as a sacrifice to God, he had the stamp of submission early and deeply impressed upon his soul. His life corresponds with these antecedents. His qualities were those of the son, as Abrahams were those of the father. He carried out, but did not initiate; he followed, but did not lead; he continued, but did not commence. Accordingly the docile and patient side of the saintly character is now to be presented to our view.(Murphy.)
The history now returns to the Son of Promise. Throughout the whole of the Old Testament, though the history may diverge to notice other interests and peoples, yet it invariably returns to the chosen family whence the Messiah was to spring. That the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus is the internal principle of Revelation.
Gen. 25:20-21. Sarah was barren for at least thirty years; Rebekah for nineteen. This drew forth the prayer of Isaac in regard to his wife. The heir of promise was to be a child of prayer, and accordingly when the prayer ascended the fruit of the womb was given.(Murphy).
When Bethuel, and Milcah, and Laban took leave of Rebekah, saying, Be thou the mother of thousands of millions, they doubtless expected to hear of a very numerous family. And she herself, and her husband would, as believing the Divine promise, expect the same. But Gods thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways. Abrahams other sons abound in children, while he in whom his seed is to be as the stars of heaven for multitude, lives childless. In this manner God had tried his father Abraham; and if he be heir to his blessings, he must expect to inherit a portion of his trials. Isaac had received Rebekah in answer to prayer; and let him not expect to receive seed by her in any other way.(Fuller.)
Isaac entreated the Lord constantly and instantly, as the word signifies; he multiplied prayer, which (as those arrows of deliverance, 2Ki. 13:19) must be often iterated, ere the mercy can be obtained. And the Lord was entreated of him. Though it were long first, even full twenty years. God knows how to commend His mercies to us, and therefore holds us long in suspense. Manna, lightly come by, was as lightly set by.(Trapp).
Under similar circumstances the husband and wife fast and pray, and make a vow before the temple that, should their desire be granted, they will make certain gifts (specifying their kind), or they will repair the walls, or add a new wing to the temple; or that the child shall be dedicated to the deity of the place, and be called by the same name; or they go to a distant temple which has obtained notoriety by granting the favours they require. I have heard of husbands and wives remaining for a year together at such places to gain the desire of their hearts.(Roberts.)
Prayer leads the way to the ultimate solution of all the perplexities of Gods people.
The trials of faith bring about that entire dependence upon God which prayer requires.
Gen. 25:22. She is no less troubled with the strife of the children in her womb than before with the want of children. We know not when we are pleased; that which we desire ofttimes discontents us more in the fruition; we are ready to complain both full and fasting. Before Rebekah conceived, she was at ease; before spiritual regeneration, there is all peace in the soul: no sooner is the new man formed in us, but the flesh conflicts with the spirit. There is no grace where is no unquietness. Esau alone would not have striven: nature will ever agree with itself. Never any Rebekah conceived only an Esau, or was so happy as to conceive none but a Jacob; she must be the mother of both, that she may have both joy and exercise. This strife began early; every true Israelite begins war with his being. How many actions which we know not are not without presage and significance.(Bishop Hall.)
Even the very answers to prayer may give rise to new sources of perplexity.
There are very different opinions as to the manner in which she went to inquire of the Lord. Some think it was simply by secret prayer; but the phrase, to inquire of the Lord, in general usage signifies more than praying; and from its being said that she went to inquire, it is more probable that she resorted to some established place, or some qualified person for the purpose of consultation. We are told, 1Sa. 9:9, that Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake:Come and let us go to the seer; for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer. As Abraham was now living, and no doubt sustained the character of a prophet (Gen. 20:17), she may have gone to him, and inquired of the Lord through his means. The Rabbinical writers, as usual, abound with fanciful conceits on this subject, but they are not of sufficient importance to deserve recital; nor can anything beyond conjecture be advanced upon this passage.(Bush).
Under the pressure of trials we may even become discontented with our mercies.
Gen. 25:23. A question might here arise as to the measure of light which such a communication, made in such circumstances, was fitted to throw on the plan and purpose of God, and the extent to which it was a revelation of His will, for the guidance of the parties interested at the time. It plainly established a distinction between Jacob and Esau while the children were not yet born, and it made that distinction hereditary. Moreover, it put the distinction upon a principal altogether opposed to that which naturally would have approved itself to the minds of the men of that generationa principle only to be explained by its being resolved into an act of sovereignty (Is. 55:8). Farther, as to the amount of the distinction, it conveyed to Jacob and his descendants, not only the national but the religious pre-eminence, which was attached to the divinely-recognised seed of Abraham. It made him the heir, not only or chiefly of the temporal prerogatives and possessions usually centred in the first-born, but of the spiritual privileges also, whether associated with these or not, that belonged to the chosen race. It constituted him the father of the Saviourthe ancestor and head from whom He was to come, who, as the seed of the woman, was to bruise the serpents head, and in whom, as the seed of Abraham, all the families of the earth were to be blessed.(Candlish.)
Undoubtedly, she herself is the prophetess to whom God reveals the manner and future of her delivery. Jehovah speaks to her. The word of revelation, though dark, infuses into her an earnest yet hopeful feeling of joy, instead of maternal sadness and despondency. Two brothers, as two nationstwo nations, to contend and fight with each other from the very womb of the mother. The larger, or elder, and externally more powerful, governed by the smaller, the younger, and apparently the more feeble. In these three points the antithesis between Ishmael and Isaac is reflected again. The apostle (Rom. 9:12) dwells upon this passage as affording a striking illustration and proof of the doctrine he was then teaching. Isaac was chosen over Ishmael, but further still, Jacob was chosen over Esau, though they were of the same covenant mother, and prior to their birth. The choice, election, was of grace.(Lange.)
Observe here how the Jewish race is divided. All the previous history has been a division into two lines. First, the line of Abraham divides into that of Israel and Ishmael: Israel is chosen, Ishmael rejected. Then the line of Israel subdivides into those of Esau and Jacob. Jacob is chosen, and Esau rejected. And such is Gods way. Of the Jews carried away captive into Babylon, only a remnant returned. All those belonging to the visible Church are not members of the true invisible Church. There will be at the end of the world, we are told, one taken and the other left. Many are called but few chosena chosen few like the few separated from Gideons army. Of these two boys, Esau and Jacob, we see in one the gross man of the world, in the other a character far higher, though mixed with a certain craft or cunning. This sin was not repressed in youth, and it grew up with him into manhood. It is always so; unless the evil propensity is checked in childhood it will increase as life goes on, and that most wise saying is verifiedthe child is father to the man. Esau is called in the Epistle to the Hebrews a profanethat is, a worldly person. His life was one of impulse, wanting in reverence, without any sensitive appreciation of things not level to his senses. Imprudent, incontinent, unable to restrain himself, he sacrificed the future to the present; he looked not beyond the passing hour; he sold his soul for pottage. We can scarcely account for his being the best beloved of his father, except on the principle of like joining to unlike.(Robertson.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PART THIRTY-SEVEN
THE STORY OF ISAAC; THE TWINS AND THE BIRTHRIGHT
(Gen. 25:19-34)
1. Introduction
Having concluded the account of all that needed to be known about Ishmael and his progeny, the inspired historian now turns to the main theme of the Bible, that is, the history of the Messianic Line as continued through Isaac. The collateral branch is again put first and then dismissed (TPCC, 52). Gen. 25:19 of this section marks the opening of another chapter in the story of the unfolding of Gods Eternal Purpose.
We are pleased to introduce this Volume (IV) with the following excerpt verbatim (SIBG, 254): REFLECTIONSBefore I part with Abraham, the celebrated patriarch, let me, in him, contemplate Jesus the everlasting Father. How astonishing his meeknesshis kindness to menhis intimacy with, fear of, obedience to, and trust in his God! He is the chosen favorite of JEHOVAHthe father and covenant-head of innumerable millions of saved men. To him all the promises relative to the evangelical and eternal state of his church were originally made. All obedient at his Fathers call, he left his native abodes of bliss, and became a stranger and sojourner on earth, not having where to lay his head. At his Fathers call, he offered himself an acceptable sacrifice to God; by his all-prevalent intercession, and supernatural influence, he offers men salvation from sin and from the hand of their enemies; and, after long patience, he wins untold disciples in the Jewish and Gospel church. In his visible family are many professors, children of the bond-woman, the covenant of works, who, in the issue, are like Ishmael, or the modern Jews, whose unbelief brings them to misery and woe; others are children of the free-woman, the covenant of grace, and are, like Isaac, begotten to God because of their faith in Christ. Now let me observe, how invigorating is a strong faith in Gods promise; for God delights to add abundant blessings to such as, by courageous believing, give him the glory of his power and faithfulness. Often the best of men have little remarkable fellowship with God in old age, but must live even to the end by faith, and not by sight; while wicked families are loaded with temporal mercies for the sake of their pious progenitors. Promised events are often ushered in by the most discouraging appearances; and mercies must be long prayed and waited for ere they be granted. It is good when husbands and wives unite their supplications; for to spread our griefs before a throne of grace is the greatest and surest relief. How often much trouble and vexation attend what is too eagerly desired! But how tender is God, in fixing the temporal, and even eternal, states of persons according to their faith! And how early are children known by their doings! Yet in their education great care is to be taken in consulting their tempers and dispositions. Parents frequently expose themselves to future troubles by their partial regard to children. But why should we set our hearts on them, or any other worldly comfort, when we must so quickly leave them by death? At that time it should be the concern of parents so to dispose of their effects, that there may be no disputes after they are gone; and such deserve to have most assigned them as are likely to make the best use of it. How often the wisest worldlings act the most foolish part, while the Lord preserveth the simple! How marvelously God overruleth the sins of men, to the accomplishment of his purpose or the advancement of his glory! How dreadful, when men, even those who have had a religious education, gratify their sensual appetites at the expense of the temporal and eternal ruin of themselves and their seed; and when God permits them to be afterwards hardened in their sin, and standing monuments of that affecting truth, that numbers of the descendants of Gods children are sometimes left out of his church, and unacquainted with their parents blessings! (John Brown, D.D., LL.D.)
2. Review
It will be recalled that Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, was born in the south country (the Negeb), doubtless at or near Beersheba (Gen. 21:14; Gen. 21:31), when his father was 100 years old and his mother about ninety (Gen. 17:17, Gen. 21:5). When the divine Promise was made to Abraham that Sarah should bear a son, after she had passed the age of childbearing, Abraham laughed, with some degree of incredulousness, it should seem, although some commentators hold that it was joyous laughter (Gen. 17:17-19). When the Promise was reiterated later, by a heavenly Visitant, at this time Sarah, who was eavesdropping, laughed within herself with laughter that bespoke sheer incredulity, for which she was promptly reprimanded by the Visitant (Gen. 18:9-15). Then when the Child of the Promise was born, Sarah joyfully confessed that God had prepared this laughter for her and her friends (Gen. 21:6). To memorialize these events and the faithfulness of God, Abraham named the boy Isaac (laughing one, one laughs). Isaac was circumcised on the eighth day (Gen. 21:4), and as the Child of Promise he had higher privileges than Ishmael had, Abrahams son by the handmaid, Hagar (Gen. 17:19-21, Gen. 21:12, Gen. 25:5-6). Later, to exhibit (prove) Abrahams faith, God commanded him to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Isaac was then a youth (Gen. 22:6), perhaps 25 years old, as Josephus says, but he filially acquiesced in the purpose of his father. When Abraham had laid him upon the altar, and thus shown his readiness to give all that he possessed to God, the angel of the Lord forbade the sacrifice and accepted a ram instead, thus testifying against child-sacrifices practised by the Canaanites and many other idolatrous peoples, and teaching to all men that human sacrifices are an abomination to the Lord (Gen. 22:1-18), (DDB, 337). This was an unparalleled demonstration of personal faith on Abrahams part. Tradition puts the offering on Mount Moriah in the Old City of Jerusalempresent site of the Dome of the Rock. Abraham left the servants and walked in silence to the hilltop. Isaac carried the wood and Abraham the knife. After a time the boy asked his father, Where is the lamb for a burnt-offering? Abraham replied that God would see to it. As Dr. Speiser puts it, The boy must by now have sensed the truth. The short and simple sentence, And the two of them walked on together, covers what is perhaps the most poignant and eloquent silence in all literature. At the last momentbut only at the last momentan angel stayed Abraham as he raised his knife to destroy his son and all his hopes. The awful ordeal was over (ELBT, 98).
Abraham, now well advanced in years, bought for its full value from Ephron the Hittite the Cave of Machpelah, near the oak of Mamre, with the field in which it stood, and there he buried Sarah. Here Abraham himself was buried by his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael; also were buried there later, Isaac and Rebekah, his wife, and Jacob and his wife Leah. Abrahams last care was for the marriage of his son Isaac to a woman of his own kindred, to avoid a possible alliance with one of the daughters of the Canaanites. He sent the aged steward of his house, Eliezer, formerly of Damascus, on the long journey to Haran, in Mesopotamia, where Nahor, Abrahams brother, had settled. Providentially, at the end of the journey, a sign from God indicated that the person he sought was a maiden named Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor. The whole narrative is a vivid picture of pastoral life, and of the simple customs then used in making a marriage contract, not without characteristic touches of the tendency to avarice in the family of Bethuel, and particularly in his son Laban (Gen. 24:30). The scene of Isaacs meeting with Rebekah seems to exhibit his character as that of quiet pious contemplation (Gen. 24:63). Isaac was forty years old when he married, and his residence was by Beer-la-hai-roi (the well of La-hai-roi) in the extreme south of Palestine (Gen. 25:62, Gen. 26:11; Gen. 26:20) (OTH, 89). The courtship of Rebekah is one of the highlights of the sagas of the Patriarchs (HBD, 603). The story of the wooing of Rebekah is a literary masterpiece. Its sketch of the faithful, trusted steward, of the modest, brave, beautiful maiden and of the peace-loving husband is inimitable. It is almost like a drama, each successive scene standing out with vividness. It has much archaeological value, also, in its mention of early marriage customs, of the organization of the patriarchs household, and of many social usages. Religiously it suggests the providential oversight of God, who directed every detail. Chapter twenty-four of Genesis with chapters eighteen and twenty-two are worth reading frequently (HH, 39). To Isaac Abraham gave the bulk of his great wealth, and died, apparently at Beersheba, in a good old age, an old man, and full of years (Gen. 25:8). His age at death was 175 (Gen. 25:7). His sons Isaac and Ishmael met at his funeral and buried him in the Cave of Machpelah (Gen. 25:1-10). Ishmael survived him just 50 years, and died at the age of 137 (Gen. 25:17). Thus the Saga of Abraham came to its end. Shall we not firmly believe that his pilgrimage of faith was crowned with a glorious fulfilment in that City to which he was really journeyingthe city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God? (Heb. 11:10, Gal. 4:26, Rev. 21:2).
Isaac continued to live in the south country (Gen. 24:62). In disposition he was retiring and contemplative; affectionate also, and felt his mothers death deeply (DDB, 337). (Cf. Gen. 24:63; Gen. 24:67). But after all, this seeming tendency toward introversion may have been lack of strength of character: it should be noted how susceptible he was to Rebekahs machinations. His life was the longest of those of the Patriarchs: he married at the age of 40, and died at 180 (Gen. 25:20, Gen. 35:28); yet though the longest, it has been described rightly as the least eventful. In comparison with the careers of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, that of Isaac manifests the earmark of mediocrity.
3. The Birth of the Twins (Gen. 25:19-26)
19 And these are the generations of Isaac, Abrahams son: Abraham begat Isaac: 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife. 21 And Isaac entreated Jehovah for his wife, because she was barren: and Jehovah was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, wherefore do I live? And she went to inquire of Jehovah.
23 And Jehovah said unto her,
Two nations are in thy womb,
And two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels:
And the one people shall be stronger than the other people;
And the elder shall serve the younger.
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 And the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. 26 And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on Esaus heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.
Gen. 25:19the usual formula for introducing a new section: see under toledoth (in the index).
A Second Delay in the Fulfilment of the Messianic Promise occurs here, Gen. 25:19-21. In Abrahams case, the delay continued until some time after Sarah had passed the age of childbearing; in the case of Isaac and Rebekah, it continued through the first twenty years after their marriage. During this time Isaac was entreating Yahweh, because his wife continued to be barren. Again, in this continuing test (proof) of his faith, Isaac followed in the steps of his father: he maintained implicit faith in God. And he kept on speaking to God about the matter. (Gods delays are not necessarily refusals). With this prolonged barrenness of Rebekah we might well compare the cases of Sarah, and Rachel (Gen. 29:31), the mothers of Samson (Jdg. 13:2), Samuel (1Sa. 1:2), and John the Baptizer (Luk. 1:7). The protracted sterility of the mothers of the patriarchs, and other leading men amongst the Hebrew people, was a providential arrangement, designed to exercise faith and patience, to stimulate prayer, to inspire a conviction that the children born under extraordinary circumstances were gifts of Gods grace, and specially to foreshadow the miraculous birth of the Savior (CECG, 188).
The Pre-natal Struggle of the Twins (Gen. 25:22-23). When the conception actually occurred and Rebekah felt the twins struggling in her womb, she went to inquire of Yahweh. According to Abraham Ibn Ezra, her complaint, wherefore do I live?literally, why then am I?meant, Why in view of my longing for children must my pain be so great? Immediately there was an answer from God. How was this divine answer communicated? Some modern interpreters would have it that there was a sanctuary at hand, where there was an altar at which such oracular utterances were received. Some will say that Rebekah resorted to a native Philistine shrine at Gerar, others that presumably this sanctuary was at Beersheba (Gen. 26:33; cf. Exo. 33:7-11). We see no valid reason for such an assumption. The opinion . . . that she repaired to a native Philistine shrine at Gerar, supported by the tithes of all Monotheists in that district, is inconsistent with her relation to Jehovah, the covenanted God of the Hebrews; and the hypothesis that in the family place of worship at Beersheba there might have been an oracle, is equally at variance with the usages of that early period. A great many conjectures have been made as to the mode of her consultationsome, as Luther, supposing that she would apply to Shem; others, to Melchizedek or to Abraham (Gen. 20:7), who was still living. But she could not inquire either by shrine or by prophets (Exo. 18:15; 1Sa. 9:9; 1Sa. 28:6; 2Ki. 3:11), for both of these belong to the institutions of the theocracy. The only solution of the difficulty is, that Rebekah had prayed earnestly for light and direction, and that she had received an answer to her prayers in the way usual in the patriarchal agein a vision or a dream (CECG, 1889). It is significant that the Divine communication here follows the form of the speech of the angel of Jehovah to Hagar (Gen. 16:10-12) in that both are couched in parallelisms. Whether communicated directly to herself, or spoken through the medium of a prophet, the Divine response to her interrogation assumed an antistrophic and poetical form, in which she was informed that her unborn sons were to be founders of two mighty nations, who, unequal in power, should be divided in rivalry and antagonism from their youth (PCG, 317).
The struggling of the twins in Rebekahs womb presaged that they and their posterity would live at variance with one another, and differ greatly in their religion, customs, laws, etc. The Edomites (Idumeans), descended from Esau, were at first the stronger people (ch. 36), but the Israelites, sprung from Jacob, under David (2Sa. 8:14), again under Amaziah (2Ch. 25:11-12), and finally under John Hyrcanus, about 126 B.C., subdued them. Indeed Hyrcanus subjugated them completely and put them under a Jewish governor (Josephus, Antiq. 13, 9, 1). (Idumea, pertaining to Edom, was the name used by the Greeks and Romans in slightly different spelling, for the country of Edom), As a matter of fact, Jacobs obtaining the birthright and the blessing (Gen. 25:29-34; Gen. 27:29; Gen. 27:37; Gen. 27:40) rendered him and his posterity superior to Esau and his Edomite seed.
The Birth and Naming of the Twins (Gen. 25:24-26). The first to come forth from the womb was named Esau which means hairy; the name Edom, which was given to Esau and which became the name of his descendants, the Edomites, means red. (Cf. Gen. 25:30; Gen. 36:1-8). That redness and hair marked the present strength of Esaus body, and the savage and cruel disposition of him and his posterity (2711, 40, 41; Oba. 1:10; Eze. 25:12; Eze. 35:1-9). Rashi derives Esau from Asab (he made) and so translates the name, completely made, meaning that he was developed with hair like a child several years old (SC, 141). And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold of Esaus heel, Jacob took hold of his heel, as if he would have drawn him back, so that himself might have been born first, or as if he would overthrow and suppress him, as he afterwards did, Gen. 25:33, ch. 27. And rightly was he named Jacob, a heel-holder, or supplanter, on that account, ch. Gen. 27:36 (SIBG, 254). Popular etymologies: Esau is red, admoni, his other name being Edom, Gen. 25:30; Gen. 36:1; Gen. 36:8; he is like a mantle of hair, sear, and is destined to dwell in the land of Seir, Num. 24:18. According to this passage, Jacob Yaaqob, gets his name from gripping the heel (aqeb) of his twin, but in Gen. 27:36 and Hos. 12:3-4 the name means that the child has supplanted (aqab) his brother. In fact, however, the probable meaning of the name (abbreviated from Yaaqob-El) is May Yahweh protect! (JB, 43, n.). Skinner (ICCG, 359360) on Gen. 25:25 : tawny or red-haired is a play on the name Edom; similarly, all over like a mantle of hair is a play on Seir the country of the Edomites.
Mount Seir is the range of mountains extending southward from the Dead Sea, east of the rift known as the Arabah, almost to the Gulf of Aqabah. Mount Seir is first mentioned in Scripture as being inhabited by the Horites (Gen. 14:6): these were the Hurrians, non-Semites, who, between 1750 and 1600 B.C. invaded N. Mesopotamia from the eastern highlands and spread over Palestine and Syria. They are a people now well-known from the cuneiform tablets from ancient Nuzi and other sites. The mention of Esaus removal to Mount Seir follows immediately the account of Isaacs death and burial (Gen. 35:27-29, Gen. 36:1-9). The Israelites were forbidden to enter this region, as Jehovah had given it to Esau for a possession (Deu. 2:1-12; cf. Jos. 24:4). Chieftains of the Horites were called the children of Seir in the land of Edom (Gen. 36:20-30; cf. Ezek., ch. 35, esp. Eze. 35:15; also 1Ch. 4:42, 2Ch. 20:10; 2Ch. 20:22-23). Esau is represented as having dispossessed the Horites of Mount Seir (Gen. 32:3; Gen. 36:20 ff.; Deu. 2:1-29, Jos. 24:4). Undoubtedly these various passages indicate the fusion of cultures that almost always followed invasion or infiltration of an inhabited area by a different people: the tendency of the invaders to adopt many of the customs and laws of the people whom they dispossessed is an oft-repeated fact of history. We have noted heretofore the influence of Hurrian culture in the events related in Genesis in the lives of the patriarchs; we shall see this influence again in the story of Jacob and Esau in re the disposition of the birthright. (See Speiser, ABG, 194197). Other interesting facts of the history of Seir are recorded in the Old Testament. We read, for example, that Simeonites pushed out the Amalekites who had hidden in Seir (1Ch. 4:42-43). The majesty of God was associated with the awesome grandeur of Mt. Seir (Deu. 33:2, Jdg. 5:4). King Amaziah of Judah (c. 800783 B.C.) went to the Valley of Salt, and smote of the children of Seir ten thousand, and then proceeded to pay homage to their gods (2Ch. 25:11-24). Isaiah tells us that his words, Watchman, what of the night? came out of Seir (Isa. 21:11).
4. The Prophetic Communication (Gen. 25:23)
Before proceeding with our study we must underscore here the very heart and core of the Divine communication to Rebehah. It is embodied in the last sentence: And the elder shall serve the younger.
This has been interpreted by Calvanistic theologians to mean that Gods choice of Jacob over Esau in the Messianic development was completely arbitrary on His part. For example, note the following statement: Isaacs family is a further example of divine election, Gen. 25:23, even seemingly arbitrary. The choice, before birth, of Jacob over Esau indeed concerned national status, not salvation, Mal. 1:2-4; but it illustrates Gods bestowal of saving faith, a matter of pure race, irrespective of human worthiness, Rom. 9:10-13 (OHH, 43). Cf. TPCC, 52: The younger son is again chosen, for Gods will, which, though not understood by us, is supreme (Eph. 1:5; Eph. 1:9; Eph. 1:11). Kraeling (BA, 81) sees here an underlying substratum of national history mirrored in the basic idea that Esau (Edom) was outstripped by Jacob (Israel). It was only natural, however, that Edom as the elder people, should have had the more glorious history. He suggests, therefore, that three parallel explanations are offered, in the over-all story we are now considering, why it did not happen that way: 1) God willed it so, and predicted it even before the ancestral brothers were born (Gen. 25:23); 2) Esau sold his birthright (Gen. 25:29-34); 3) Jacob rather than Esau obtained the history-moulding blessing of the dying Isaac (Gen. 27:27 f.) We see no reason for these more or less labored attempts to explain the Divine communication to Rebekah about the varying fortunes of her twins, when, as a matter of fact, if Gen. 25:23 is taken simply as prophetic, all difficulties seem to vanish. The communication was to this effect: two sons were to be born, namely Esau and Jacob, and they were to become the progenitors of two peoples; moreover, the nation sired by the elder son was to serve the nation to be sired by the younger son. The word of Yahweh here had reference, not to individuals, but to nations (peoples): this fact is accepted by practically all Biblical scholars. Esau never served Jacob in his entire life; on the contrary, it was Jacob who gave gifts to Esau at the time of their reconciliation (Gen., ch. 33). The meaning of the passage is that God, as He had both perfect right and reason to do, had selected Jacob, and not Esau, to become the ancestor of Messiah. The statement, the elder shall serve the younger, was simply a prophetic announcement that at a future time the Edomites (descendants of Esau) should become servants of the Israelites (descendants of Jacob): the prophecy is clearly fulfilled in 2Sa. 8:14. The Apostle Paul, in Rom. 9:12-13, combines two different Scriptures. The first, it will be noted is Gen. 25:23, the verse we are now considering. But the second is found in Mal. 1:2-3, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. This statement was uttered several hundred years after both Jacob and Esau had long been dead. It referred to the two nations or peoples: it simply points out the fact that the Edomites suffered divine retribution because of their sins (cf. Gen. 32:3, ch. 36; Num. 20:14-21; Isa. 34:5-8; Oba. 1:21, etc.).
Did God arbitrarily select Jacob instead of Esau to become the ancestor of Messiah?. Of course not. The individual human being is predestined to be free. By virtue of having been created in the image of God, he has the power of choice, that is, within certain limits, of course, particularly within the limits of his acquaintanceship. (One could hardly choose anything of which one has no knowledge. Could a Hottentot who has never heard of ice, ever choose to go skating?). It follows, therefore, that the totality of mans free acts constitutes Gods foreknowledge. Strictly speaking, Gods knowledge embracesin a single thoughtall the events of the space-time world; hence, He can hardly be said to foreknow, but rather, speaking precisely, to know. If it be objected that foreknowledge in God implies fixity, we answer that the argument still holds, that the fixity is determined by mans free acts and not by arbitrary divine foreordination. To hold that God necessitates everything that man does, including his acceptance or rejection of redemption, is to make God responsible for everything that happens, both good and evil. This is not only unscripturalit is an affront to the Almighty. (Cf. Eze. 18:32, Joh. 5:40, 1Ti. 2:4, Jas. 1:13, 2Pe. 3:9). Foreordination in Scripture has reference to the details of the Plan of Redemption, not to the eternal destiny of the individual. The elect are the whosoever wills, the non-elect, the Whosoever wonts. (Rev. 22:17).
In Rom. 9:11, we are told expressly that God did choose before their birth which of the two sons of Isaac should carry forward the Messianic Line; hence, election in this instance was specifically not of works, but of him that calleth. Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of subsequent history, it did turn out to be one of works (works of faith, cf. Jas. 2:14-26) in the sense that their respective acts proved the one ancestor (Jacob) to be more worthy of Gods favor than the other (Esau). Hence, in view of the fact that men are predestined to be free, surely we are right in holding that this superior quality of Jacobs character was foreknown by God from the beginning. Although it may appear at first glance that the choice was an arbitrary one, our human hindsight certainly supports Gods foresight in making it. Of course, Jacobs character was not anything to brag about, especially in the early years of his life, but from his experience at Peniel, he seems to have emerged a changed man with a changed name, Israel (Gen. 32:22-32); certainly it was of nobler quality than that of Esau, as proved especially by their different attitudes toward divine institutionsrights and responsibilitiessuch as those of primogeniture (Exo. 13:11-16, Deu. 21:17). Hence the Divine election in this case was not arbitrary in any sense, but justly based on the Divine knowledge of the basic righteousness of Jacob by way of contrast with the sheer secularism (profanity) of Esau. (We may rightly compare, with the antics of Esau, the unspiritual attitude of church leadersthe clergyand church members toward the ordinance of Christian baptism, Think how this institution has been changed, perverted, belittled, ignored, and even repudiated by the professional theologians throughout the entire Christian era!).
It is important to observe that God chose Jacob, the younger, to be over his brother Esau before they were born. Before the children were born, neither having done anything good or bad, it was Gods declared purpose that the older should serve the younger (Rom. 9:10-13, Gen. 25:23). Subsequent events may lead us to condemn Jacob for his fraudulent methods of obtaining the family blessing. But that which Jacob sought was his by divine decree. Certainly God was within His sovereign right to make this choice. And assuredly the characters of Jacob and Esau that subsequently emerged showed Gods wisdom and foreknowledge in choosing Jacob (Smith-Fields, OTH, 9293). Let us not forget, however, that the choice was not an arbitrary one, but a choice emanating from the divine foreknowledge of the worthiness of Jacob above Esau, as demonstrated by what they didthe choices they madein real life. How can God use any man effectively who has little or no respect for His ordinances? (The birth of Jacob and Esau took place before Abraham died. Abraham was 160 years old, and Isaac sixty, at the time the twins were born, Gen. 21:5; Gen. 25:26; Gen. 25:7). (See my Genesis, II, pp. 237264).
5. Esau the Profane (Gen. 25:27-34).
27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28 Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: and Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 And Jacob boiled pottage: and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint: 30 and Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. 31 And Jacob said, Sell me first thy birthright. 32 And Esau said, Behold, I am about to die: and what profit shall the birthright do to me? 33 And Jacob said, Swear to me first; and he sware unto him; and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. 34 And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: so Esau despised his birthright.
Gen. 25:27In due time the twins were born. Esau grew up to become a skilful hunter, a man of the field. And Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. From the very first these boys were opposites in character, manners, and habits. The older was a man of the field, leading a roving, unsettled kind of life; the younger preferred a quiet domestic life, dwelling in tents, attending to his fathers flocks and herds. Esau becomes experienced in hunting, as opposed to Jacob who is a man of simple tastes, quiet, retiring. The over-all contrast, then, is between the aggressive hunter and the reflective seminomad (Speiser, ABG, 195). Jacob was ambitious and persevering, capable of persistence in selfish scheming or in nobler service; the latter, although frank and generous, was shallow and unappreciative of the best things. In the long run God can do more with the former type of men (Sanders, HH. 39). Thus it will be seen that the descriptions of the two boys are clearly antithetical. This contrast, moreover, persisted through the centuries between their respective progenies, the Israelites and the Edomites. As previously noted, the latter were inveterate enemies of the former, thus authenticating Gods pronouncement through Malachi, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Mal. 1:1, cf. again Rom. 9:13).
Gen. 25:28. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison. Isaac, himself so sedate, loves the wild, wandering hunter, because he supplies him with pleasures which his own quiet habits do not reach (MG, 368). And Rebekah loved Jacob. Rebekah becomes attached to the gentle, industrious shepherd, who satisfies those social and spiritual tendencies in which she is more dependent than Isaac, and thus the children please their parents according as they supply what is wanting in themselves. Esau is destructive of game; Jacob is constructive of cattle (MG, 368). Persons of quiet and retiring disposition, like Isaac, are often fascinated by those of more sparkling and energetic temperament, such as Esau; mothers, on the other hand, are mostly drawn towards children that are gentle in disposition and home keeping in habit (PCG, 320).
In those days, we are told, it was not an uncommon thing for the huntsman to come half-starved to the shepherds tent and ask for some food. In these circumstances the man of the field was pretty largely at the mercy of the tent-dweller. This seems to have been the condition in which Esau found himself, and when he scented the pottage which Jacob was boiling in his tent, he rushed inside and shouted, Feed me some of that red stuff, I pray, for I am faint with hunger. Jacob stewed something: an intentionally indefinite description, the nature of the dish being reserved for Gen. 25:34 (ICCG, 361). Let me gulp some of that red stuff there, cried Esau, some of that red seasoning, literally, some of that red red . . .in his excitement Esau seems to have forgotten the name of the dish. Therefore was his name called Edom, that is, because he had eaten the soup which was of a red brown color (adorn)another play on words (JB, 43). The name Edom, signifying red, at once marked his origin and color, and his excessive lust after the red pottage, and his selling his birthright to obtain it (SIBG, 254). Both marks characterize his sensual, hard nature (Lange, CDHCG, 499). It quite accords with the Oriental taste to fasten upon certain incidents in the life, or upon peculiar traits in the character, of individuals, as the foundation of a new name or soubriquet. The Arabians are particularly addicted to this habit. So are all people in an early state of society; and there is no ground to wonder, therefore, at the names of Isaacs sons being suggested by circumstances attending their birth, apparently of a trivial nature, especially as no fault can be found with them on etymological grounds (CECG, 190). Therefore his name was called Edom. There is no discrepancy in ascribing the same name both to his complexion and the color of the lentile broth. The propriety of a name may surely be marked by different circumstances. Nor is it unnatural to suppose that such occasions should occur in the course of life. Jacob, too, has the name given to him from the circumstances of his birth, here confirmed (A. Gosman, Lange, ibid., 500).
It is not surprising to read that Jacob took advantage of this opportunity to drive what we might properly call a hard bargain. Jacob said, Sell me first thy birthright, Gen. 25:31. Esau answered, in substance, Oh well, I am about to die of hunger, or perhaps, I am risking my life daily in the hunt, etc., of what use would the birthright be in any case? (A good example of rationalization). Jacob said, Swear to me first; and he sware unto him; and he sold his birthright unto Jacob, Gen. 25:33. As it turned out, there was no hard bargain at all; there was not even any haggling on Esaus part; with jaunty nonchalance, he tossed away, as if it were not worthy of his concern, the most precious privilege that God conferred on the firstbornthe right of primogeniture, the birthright.
What was the birthright) That is, what did it include?
The birthright was of little practical importance when there was an only son. Isaac was Abrahams only true heir, Ishmael not being of the seed of promise. Thus Isaac was the only one in the line of promise and the natural heir of his fathers possessions. But Isaacs wife bore him two sons, Esau and Jacob. Now the birthright assumed greater significance. Esau, as the firstborn, should have been the one through whom the people of God descended. But he foolishly sold that birthright for carnal considerations and lost it to Jacob. Jacob claimed the privileges of the birthright and from him came the twelve tribes of Israel. The firstborn received a double portion of the inheritance (cf. Deu. 21:16-17), and, at least before the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood, the firstborn in each family exercised the priestly prerogatives in the home after his fathers death (HSB, 42). This birthright entailed upon the possessor a double portion of the paternal inheritance (Deu. 21:16-17); a claim to his fathers principal blessing, and to the promise of Canaan, and a peculiar relation to God therein. . . . Altogether this is a most painful narrative. One does not know whether most to condemn the folly and recklessness of Esau, bartering his birthright for a mess of pottage; or the unbrotherly spirit and grasping selfishness of Jacob, refusing to a fainting brother a mouthful of food until he had given him all he possessed (SIBG, 254).
The birthright in this instance was of extraordinary significance, Esaus impatience was natural, for food is not readily procured in an Eastern tent, and takes time to prepare, Jacob seized the occasion to obtain Esaus birthright as the price of the meal; and Esau consented with a levity which is marked by the closing words of the narrative: thus Esau despised his birthright. For this the Apostle calls him a profane person, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright, and marks him as the pattern of those who sacrifice eternity for a moments sensual enjoyment (Heb. 12:16). The justice of this judgment appears from what the birthright was, which he sold at such a price, If he had received the birthright, he would have been the head of the family, its prophet, priest and king; and no man can renounce such privileges, except as a sacrifice required by God, without despising God who gave them. But more than this: he would have been the head of the chosen family; on him devolved the blessing of Abraham, that in his seed all families of the earth should be blessed; and, in despising his birthright, he put himself out of the sacred family, and so became a profane person. His sin must not be overlooked in our indignation at the fraud of Jacob, which . . . brought its own retribution as well as its own gain (OTH, 93). Disregard for positive divine ordinances (such as the birthright and the paternal blessing, in patriarchal times) is known in Scripture as profanity (from pro, before or outside, and fanum, temple, hence unholy); consequently this is the vilest insult that can be perpetrated against Goda fact which the sophisticated, the respectable, the worldly wise of humankind are usually too biased to understand or too proud in their own conceit to be willing to admit. This is the charge leveled against Esau: his profanity was such that he blithely and unconcernedly sold his birthright for a bowl of beans (Heb. 12:16, mess of meat). And this general irreligiousness of the paternal character seems to have passed down to his offspring (Num. 20:14; Num. 20:21; Jdg. 11:16-17; 2Sa. 8:14; Psa. 137:7; Eze. 25:12-14; Eze. 35:1-15; Amo. 9:11-12; Joe. 3:19; Oba. 1:1-20; 1Ti. 1:9).
Note the oath, Gen. 25:33. An oath is prostituted when it is exacted and given to confirm an improper and sinful contract; and a person is chargeable with additional guilt when, after entering into a sinful engagement, he precipitately confirms it by an oath. This is what Esau did: he despised or cared little about it in comparison of present gratification to his appetite: he threw away his religious privileges for a trifle; and hence he is stigmatized by the apostle as a profane person (Heb. 12:16, cf. Php. 3:19). There was never any meat, except the forbidden fruit, so dearly bought as the broth of Jacob (Bishop Hall). That Esau deserved to be superseded in his honors, in consequence of his irreligious character, cannot be denied nor doubted; for it is principally or solely on this transaction that the charge of profanity is founded. But what was justice on the part of God was cruelty on the part of Jacob, who had no right to make Esau the instrument of his own degradation and ruin. Besides, it was impolitic as well as wrong. For he might have concluded that, if God had not ordained him to possess the envied honors, he could never obtain them; and, on the other hand, if it was the decree of Providence, a way would be opened for his obtaining them in due time. Jacobs heart was right, but he sought to secure good ends by bad means (CECG, 190). Lange (CDHCG, 500): If Jacobs demand of an oath evinced ungenerous suspicion, Esaus giving of an oath showed a low sense of honor.
The pottage of lentils. The red lentil is still a favorite article of food in the east; it is a small kind, the seeds of which, after being decorcitated, are commonly sold in the bazaars of India. Dr. Robinson, who partook of lentils, says that he found them very palatable and could well conceive that to a weary hunter, faint with hunger, they would be quite a dainty (Bib. Res. I, 246), Kitto also says that he has often partaken of red pottage, prepared by seething the lentils in water, and then adding a little suet to give them a flavor, and that he found it better food than a stranger would imagine; the mess, he adds, had the redness which gained for it the name of adorn (Pict. Bib., Gen. 25:30; Gen. 25:34.) (OTH, Smith-Fields, 93, n.). This pottage brewed by Jacob was a soup, we are told, made of a decoction of lentils or small beans, called adas, which were and are extensively grown in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine (cf. 2Sa. 17:28; 2Sa. 23:11). (They were also included in Ezekiels recipe for bread-making in an emergency, Eze. 4:9). It is probable that Jacob made use of Egyptian beans, which he had procured as a dainty; for Esau was a stranger to it; and hence he said, Feed me, I pray thee, with that red, red (thing). The Hebrew red, includes the idea of a brown or chocolate color. This lentil soup is very palatable, particularly when accompanied with melted butter and pepper; and to the weary hunter, faint through hunger, the odor of the smoking dish must have been irresistibly tempting (CECG, 189).
Gen. 25:34, Esau did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way. A rather pathetic description of a character and life given over, one might say exclusively, to sensual self-satisfaction; yet a life that is paralleled millions and millions of times in practically every generation! Dr. Chappell, in one of his books of sermons on Old Testament characters, writes of Esau under the caption, The Story of a Fine Animal, The title is especially fitting.
6. Interesting Appraisals of the Characters of Esau and Jacob.
Speiser (ABG, 195): Esau is depicted as an uncouth glutton: he speaks of swallowing, gulping down, instead of eating, or the like. Skinner (ICCG, 362): Esaus answer reveals the sensual nature of the man: the remoter good is sacrificed to the passing necessity of the moment, which his ravenous appetite leads him to exaggerate. . . . The climax of the story is Esaus unconcern, even when he discovers that he has bartered the birthright for such a trifle as a dish of lentil soup . . . if Esau was defrauded, he was defrauded of that which he was incapable of appreciating. Again, ibid., the name Edom is a memento of the never-to-be-forgotten greed and stupidity of the ancestor (Gunkel).
Murphy (CG, 369370): Jacob was no doubt aware of the prediction communicated to his mother (Gen. 25:23), that the elder should serve the younger. A quiet man like him would not otherwise have thought of reversing the order of nature and custom. In after times the right of primogeniture consisted in a double portion of the fathers goods (Deu. 21:17), and a certain rank as the patriarch and priest of the house on the death of the father. But in the case of Isaac there was the far higher dignity of chief of the chosen family and heir of the promised blessing, with all the immediate and ultimate temporal and eternal benefits therein included. Knowing all this, Jacob is willing to purchase the birthright as the most peaceful way of bringing about that supremacy which was destined for him. He is therefore cautious and prudent, even conciliating in his proposal. He availed himself of a weak moment to accomplish by consent what was to come. Yet he lays no necessity on Esau, but leaves him to his own free choice. We must therefore beware of blaming him for endeavoring to win his brothers concurrence in a thing that was already settled in the purpose of God. His chief error lay in attempting to anticipate the arrangements of Providence. Esau is strangely ready to dispose of his birthright for a trivial present gratification. He might have obtained other means of recruiting nature equally suitable, but he will sacrifice anything for the desire of the moment, Any higher import of the right he was prepared to sell so cheap seems to have escaped his view, if it had ever occurred to his mind. Jacob, however, is deeply in earnest. He will bring this matter within the range of heavenly influence. He will have God solemnly invoked as a witness to the transfer. Even this does not startle Esau. There is not a word about the price. It is plain that Esaus thoughts were altogether of the morsel of meat. He swears unto Jacob. He then ate and drank, and rose up and went his way, as the sacred writer graphically describes his reckless course. Most truly did he despise his birthright. His mind did not rise to higher or further things. Such was the boyhood of these wondrous twins.
Leupold (EG, 712, 713): Fact of the matter is, Jacobs character is one of the hardest to understand; it is complicated; it has many folds and convolutions. But in this particular incident the Scriptural point of view must be maintained: Esau was primarily to blame . . . Jacob was really a spiritually minded man with appreciation of spiritual values and with distinct spiritual ambitions. Especially in the matter of carrying on the line of promise from which the Savior would come did Jacob have ambitions. The aspirations apparently, however, were begotten by the divine word of promise (Gen. 25:23). Yahweh had destined Jacob to pre-eminence. Jacob gladly accepted the choice and aspired to attain the treasure promised. His eagerness was commendable. His choice of means in arriving at the desired end was not always above reproach. He felt he had to help the good Lord along occasionally. He was not fully confident of Gods methods for arriving at the goal. He felt the need of occasionally inserting a bit of assistance of his own. Such an attitude was one of mistrust: confidence in human ingenuity rather than in divine dependabilityin one wordunbelief. But his spiritual aggressiveness was by no means to be despised, nor was it wrong. Approaching this incident with these facts in mind, we seem compelled to assume one thing in order to understand Jacobs request. It appears, namely, that the subject of the birthright . . . had been under consideration between the brothers on a previous occasion. It would also seem that Esau had made some derogatory remark about its value, or, had even spoken about his own readiness to part with the privilege. Otherwise we can hardly believe that Jacob would have made this special request without further motivation, or that Esau would have consented to the bargain without more ado. This, indeed, puts Jacob into a more favorable light, but so does our text (Gen. 25:34). Indeed, there is left on Jacobs part a measure of shrewd calculation in so timing his request that he catches Esau at a disadvantage, a form of cunning which we must condemn without reservation. Yet the act does not call for such strong criticism as: he was ruthlessly taking advantage of his brother, watching and waiting till he was sure of his victim. (Dods). Again, (ibid., 715): The last part of the chapter, Gen. 25:27-34, seems to us to come under a head such as Spiritual Aggressiveness, or even, The Right Goal but the Wrong Way. In any case, it should especially be borne in mind that the one censured by the text is Esau not Jacob.
Incidentally, there are commentators, Leupold included, who hold that the material blessings of the covenant may not have been fully revealed as far back as Jacobs time. According to Mosaic law of a later date the right of the firstborn involved a double portion of the fathers inheritance (Deu. 21:17) and supremacy of a kind not wholly defined over his brethren and his fathers house (Gen. 27:29; cf. Gen. 49:3). It would be well to note in this connection also the deference manifested by Jacob to Esau after the formers return from Mesopotamia (cf. Gen. 33:1-12).
Again, it is now known that under Hurrian lawa likely source of some of the patriarchal customsthe elder son could be designated as such by the testator contrary to the actual order of birth, that is, inheritance could be regulated by a fathers pronouncement irrespective of chronological precedence (Speiser, ABG, 195, 213). Selling inheritance rights far under value, has a Hurrian parallel: in Nuzi a brother transferred rights to a whole grove for only three sheep, apparently under duress (OHH, 43). The rigidity of the details of primogeniture seems not to have been firmly established until after the organization of the Theocracy.
Marcus Dods (EBG, 261265): It has been pointed out that the weakness in Esaus character which makes him so striking a contrast to his brother is his inconstancy. Constancy, persistence, dogged tenacity is certainly the striking feature of Jacobs character. He could wait and bide his time; he could retain one purpose year after year till it was accomplished. The very motto of his life was, I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me. (Gen. 32:26). He watched for Esaus weak moment, and took advantage of it. He served fourteen years for the woman he loved, and no hardship quenched his love. Nay, when a whole lifetime intervened, and he lay dying in Egypt, his constant heart still turned to Rachel, as if he had parted with her but yesterday. In contrast with this tenacious, constant character stands Esau, led by impulse, betrayed by appetite, everything by turns and nothing long. Today despising his birthright, tomorrow breaking his heart for its loss; today vowing he will murder his brother, tomorrow falling on his neck and kissing him; a man you cannot reckon upon, and of too shallow a nature for anything to root itself deeply in. . . . Esau came in hungry from hunting, from dawn to dusk he had been taxing his strength to the utmost, too eagerly absorbed to notice his distance from home or his hunger; it is only when he begins to return depressed by the ill-luck of the day, and with nothing now to stimulate him, that he feels faint; and when at last he reaches his fathers tents, and the savory smell of Jacobs lentils greets him, his ravenous appetite becomes an intolerable craving, and he begs Jacob to give him some of his food. Had Jacob done so with brotherly feeling there would have been nothing to record. But Jacob had long been watching for an opportunity to win his brothers birthright, and though no one could have supposed that an heir to even a little property would sell it in order to get a meal five minutes sooner than he could otherwise get it, Jacob had taken his brothers measure to a nicety, and was confident that present appetite would in Esau completely extinguish every other thought.
Which brother presents the more repulsive spectacle of the two in this selling of the birthright it is hard to say. Who does not feel contempt for the great, strong man, declaring he will die if he is required to wait five minutes till his own supper is prepared; forgetting, in the craving of his appetite, every consideration of a worthy kind; oblivious of everything but his hunger and his food; crying, like a great baby, Feed me with that red! So it is always with the man who has fallen under the power of sensual appetite. He is always going to die if it is not immediately gratified. He must have his appetite satisfied. . . . But the treacherous and self-seeking craft of the other brother is as repulsive; the cold-blooded, calculating spirit that can hold every appetite in check, that can cleave to one purpose for a lifetime, and, without scruple, take advantage of a twin-brothers weakness. Jacob knows his brother thoroughly, and all his knowledge he uses to betray him. He knows he will speedily repent of his bargain, so he makes him swear he will abide by it. It is a relentless purpose he carries outhe deliberately and unhesitatingly sacrifices his brother to himself. Still, in two respects, Jacob is the superior one. He can appreciate the birthright in his fathers family, and he has constancy. Esau might be a pleasant companion, brighter and more vivacious than Jacob on a days hunting; free and open-handed, and not implacable; and yet such people are not satisfactory friends. Often the most attractive people have similar inconstancy; they have a superficial vivacity, and brilliance, and charm, and good nature, which invite a friendship they do not deserve. . . .
But Esaus despising of his birthright is that which stamps the man and makes him interesting to each generation. No one can read the simple account of his reckless act without feeling how justly we are called upon to look diligently lest there be among us any profane person as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright. Had the birthright been something to eat, Esau would not have sold it. What an exhibition of human nature! What an exposure of our childish folly and the infatuation of appetite! For Esau has company in his fall. We are all stricken by his shame. . . . Born the sons of God, made in His image, introduced to a birthright angels might covet, we yet prefer to rank with the beasts of the field, and let our souls starve if only our bodies be well tended and cared for. . . . Not once as Esau, but again and again, we barter peace of conscience and fellowship with God and the hope of holiness, for what is, in simple fact, no more than a bowl of pottage. (It is interesting to note the somewhat different picture of Esau that we find in chapter 33).
Esau is an example of how a man with a bad reputation can be more attractive than another who has managed to acquire a good one. In the O.T. estimates Esau has a black mark, while his brother Jacob has all the marks of favor. Jacob is listed as a prince in Israel, and the father of the twelve tribes of the chosen people; but the Edomites, whom the Jews hated, were called sons of Esau. Yet notwithstanding all that, in the choice of a companion as between Esau and Jacob, almost anyone would have chosen Esau. Among the assets on the plus side of the ledger the following might be named: (1) his physical vigor. Esau was rough but he was virile, and his old father Isaac turned to him instinctively because he knew that if there was anything he wanted done, Esau could do it; and as he grew old he leaned increasingly on Esaus strength. (2) He was a warmhearted man. Evidently he loved his father, as his father loved him. When Isaac was old and blind, the rough Esau was gentle with him and quick to respond to everything he wanted. . . . If Esau was careless about the particular advantages of the birthright, he was not careless about his fathers blessing. He wanted that, whatever else was lost. (3) He was not the kind of man who could hold a grudge. Cf. the reconciliation with Jacob on the latters return from Paddan-Aram (ch. 33, Gen. 33:4). What, then, was Esaus basic fault? He was a man who lived only in the immediate moment, and by the light only of what was obvious. . . . He showed that he did not care enough for lifes great possibilities to pay the price of present discipline. He must have what he wanted when he wanted it, and the consequences could go hang. That was the critical weakness of Esau and that was his condemnation. He lost tomorrow because he snatched so greedily at today. Consider his descendants in every generation, including ours: the young men who cannot let any long-range dedication stand in the way of appetite; the frivolous girl who says of something trivial, Ill die if I do not get it; the mature people for whom comfort always comes first and for whom anything like religious responsibility is ruled out if it is hard; the men in public office who will sell a birthright of great ideals to satisfy immediate clamor. Attractive traits will not save such people from ultimate dishonor (IBG, 665667).
7. Summarizations
Esau was a wild, savage kind of man, spending most of his time in hunting, learning the art of war, and the like (cf. Gen. 10:9, Gen. 16:12). Jacob was a sincere, mild, plain-dealing man, keeping much at home, attending to his household affairs, and to his fathers flocks and herds (cf. Gen. 6:9, Gen. 46:34). The early development of different propensities in Esau and Jacob is very remarkable, and the visible causes of their respective characters may be traced to the dispositions and partialities of the parents. Isaac loves venison, and first to please his father, and then to gratify his own acquired habits, Esau becomes a cunning hunter. Rebekah loves domestic retirement, finds her comfort in the society of her infant Jacob, and forms his future character on the model of her own. These things are to be carefully observed: (1) How early, and insensibly, some part of the character of a father or mother may be propagated in their children. (2) The consequent importance of well considering all the habits in which a child is indulged or encouraged, as part, and often the most influential part, of its education. (3) The danger of parental partialities, from which, in this remarkable instance, many of the future troubles of Isaac and Rebekah, and Esau and Jacob, arose (SIBG, 254).
The story of Esaus life may be written in four parts: (1) the sale of his birthright to Jacob for the mess of pottage (Gen. 25:27-34), which indicated that he despised his birthright and was willing to barter it away for a small consideration; (2) the marriages of Esau which were consummated with women who were not related to his fathers family, except for Mahalath who was his third wife and whom he married to placate his parents; (3) his failure to secure the patriarchal blessing just prior to the death of his father Isaac; (4) the re-establishment of brotherly relations with Jacob, and his departure from Canaan for Seir. Esau was careless, motivated by animal appetites, and revengeful after the blessing was stolen from him by Jacob (HSB, 42). (Cf. Gen. 26:34-35; Gen. 28:6-9; Gen. 27:18-41; Gen. 33:1-18).
FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING
Esau the Profane
Gen. 25:34, Heb. 12:16-17
Much has been improperly inferred and said about Esau, from variant points of view. The notion especially that he bears the broad seal of Gods reprobation is certainly dishonoring to God. Surely such forget, that by representing him as hated of God and predestined to woe, with all feeling minds they must enlist pity for his wretchedness, and sympathy on account of his doom. Thus reasoning, God has been greatly dishonored, and, in opposition to His solemn asseveration, he has been declared a respecter of persons (MSS, 315). (See discussion of Gen. 25:23, Mal. 1:2-3, Rom. 9:10-13 above). The simple fact is that Gods disapprobation of Esau was based on His known (or foreknown) profaneness of Esaus character. This profaneness certainly was not predestinated.
1. Note the characteristics of Esaus profane barter. As the firstborn he possessed many privileges: we find it difficult not to accept the fact that these privileges existed in patriarchal times (cf. again Deu. 21:15-17). These included (1) temporal privileges: pre-eminence of authority in the patriarchal family, and a double portion of the paternal estate; and in this case (2) spiritual privileges, viz., the descent of the priesthood in the family, from the firstborn (even before the Law), the genealogy of the Messiah through his seed, the peculiar and precious promises associated with the paternal blessing which took the form of a prophecy. All this Esau bartered for just one mess of pottage.
2. How is this profanity to be accounted for? (1) On the basis of his inconsideration. He did not weigh the matter, but acted hastily. (2) As a result of his voracious appetite, This was so strong he could not control it until food was prepared. (3) Especially as a consequence of his utter depreciation of divine ordinances. He was a worldly and carnal man. He lived in the here and the immediate now. He was deficient alike in personal piety towards God, and filial piety towards his father: the two are often wedded. Consider the Biblical examples of men and women of his ilk. E.g., Gehazi, Elishas servant, who, as a penalty for his avarice and lying about a talent of silver and two changes of raiment, and thus bringing the prophetic office into contempt, became afflicted with leprosy (2Ki. 5:20-27). Or, Ananias and Sapphira, who, retaining a portion of the price they had received for a piece of property, lied to the Holy Spirit about it (Act. 5:1-11). (They lied to the Holy Spirit by lying to the Apostle Peter who was inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit). And what shall we say of Judas who, for thirty pieces of silver, betrayed the Son of God into the hands of His enemies (Mat. 27:3-10, Act. 1:15-20); and of Herod, who for daring to receive the flattering adulation of the crowd, was eaten of worms (Act. 12:20-23). These all were surely bad bargains, equally with that of Esau. Are not millions in our day living the life Esau lived, and hence acting with equal profaneness? Those who sell themselves for vanity: note the outrageous adornmentsthe long sideburns, the thick beards, the foppish mustaches, the silly contention between the miniskirters and the midi-skirters, the subservience to the fashions of the momentwhat they say and what they dothe strict conformists, the slaves of passing fads who fool themselves into thinking they are just being free. Those who sacrifice truth, honesty, goodness, for the sake of money. Those who sacrifice themselves on the altars of pleasure. Those who barter their souls for riotous living. In many instances, these bargains are worse than that of Esau. He did obtain a gooda meal; he had his hunger alleviated. But think how often the sinner receives evil, and evil only, for the fearful price he pays!
In the first place, Esau is a fine animal, a strong, upstanding husky fellow who makes a pleasing impression upon any crowd in which he chances to be. He is possessed of a charming physical courage and daring. I do not think Esau would count for a straw on a moral stand, but physically he was unafraid. In the next place he is generous and open-handed and open-hearted . . . He is a breezy Bohemian type of man. He has a way of putting all his goods in the showcase and thus often winning an applause that is not his due. (There are many in our day who seem to think that practising a vice openly gives it a special kind of virtue). Now if you are a reader of modern fiction you have possibly been struck with the fondness of many of our present-day authors for the type of character that Esau represents. Did you ever notice with what delight many of our fiction writers picture the virtues of some worldling against the background of the failures and vices of some churchman? It seems to be a most joyful pastime with a certain type of author. The name of such books is almost legion. Take, for instance, The Calling of Dan Matthews. The only three characters in this book that the author would have us respect are an infidel doctor, a nurse who is a rank materialist and a preacher who is an utter coward and who gives up his Christ and his vocation for the love of a woman. Now there are folks that are like these, but they are not the folks who keep up the moral standards of the communities in which they live. Yet the author tires to make us believe that this is the case. . . . Take the work of that literary scavenger who took a stroll down Main Street. He is not without ability, But he is a self-appointed inspector of street gutters and sewers. He has an eye for the moral carrion of the community. Now whom does he seek to have us respect? Who are the ones that when sickness comes do the self-forgetful and the self-sacrificing deeds of service? Not the people of faith. Not those who believe in Christ. No, there are just two characters in the book that the author thinks are worthy of our admiration. There are only two who have fine, heroic qualities. One of them is a renegade Swede who is anchored to no place and who is mastered by no principles: a physical and a moral tramp. The other is a little bunch of feminine ignorance and conceit and ingratitude. She is the wife of the physician of the book. She is the one who plays the heroine when sickness comes to the Swedes house. But she sees nothing heroic in the common duties of life. She has no appreciation of her social relationships. As a wife she is a travesty and as a mother she is a cynical joke (MSBC, 116117).
Esau lived his life outside the temple: he was profane. His sin was secularism. His life is described in one graphic statement: He did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way. This sinsecularismwas the besetting sin of the people of the antediluvian world: in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away. This, our Lord tells us, will be the besetting sin of the age that will immediately precede His Second Coming: so shall be the coming of the Son of man (Mat. 25:37-39; cf. Mat. 3:13, Matt 3:2931, also Mat. 16:27). (See also Gen. 6:11-13). Can it be that we are now entering upon these last days? Even so, Come, Lord Jesus (Rev. 22:20).
REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART THIRTY-SEVEN
1.
What special significance does Gen. 25:19 have in relation to the over-all theme of the Bible?
2.
Review briefly the circumstances of the early life of Isaac?
3.
How old was Isaac at the time of his marriage to Rebekah?
4.
How old was Abraham at the time of his death?
5.
How old was Ishmael at the time of his death?
6.
In what region of Palestine did Isaac continue to dwell?
7.
How would you evaluate in general the life and character of Isaac?
8.
How long after their marriage did Isaac and Rebekah live without children?
9.
How many instances of the wifes protracted barrenness are related in Scripture? In what sense may each of these be described as a providential arrangement?
10.
What did Isaac do about this barrenness of Rebekah?
11.
What did Rebekah herself do about the pre-natal struggle of the twins? What was probably the method of her consultation with Jehovah about this experience?
12.
What reason may be given for rejecting the view that this consolation took place at some established oracular shrine? What were the means usually employed to communicate Divine revelations in the Patriarchal Age? Cite examples.
13.
What facts were presaged by the struggling of the twins in Rebekahs womb?
14.
When the older of the two was born, what was he named and why?
15.
When the younger was delivered what was he named and why?
16.
How were the names Esau, Edom, and Seir associated as to meaning?
17.
How was Mt. Seir later associated with the life of Esau and his descendants?
18.
Who were the Horites? Where was Mt, Seir geographically?
19.
What was Gods prophetic communication to Re-bekah? What was the most significant part of this communication?
20.
Does Gen. 25:23 teach us that Gods choice of Jacob instead of Esau to be the progenitor of Messiah was an arbitrary one? Explain your answer.
21.
What three parallel explanations are given of this Divine choice of the younger son above the older one?
22.
What do we mean by saying that when this communication, Gen. 25:23, is considered simply as prophetic, all difficulties vanish?
23.
Correlate Gen. 25:23, Mal. 1:2-3, and Rom. 9:12-13. In this connection, distinguish between Divine foreknowledge and foreordination.
24.
What is meant by the statement that God does not foreknow, but simply knows?
25.
Discuss the distinction between real time and mathematical time. Distinguish between time and timelessness.
26.
Explain our statement that Gods choice in this instance proceeded from His foreknowledge of the worthiness of Jacob above Esau, and of the Israelites above the Edomites, as demonstrated by their respective choices and deeds.
27.
How old were Abraham and Isaac respectively at the time the twins were born?
28.
How did the attitudes and pursuits of the two boys become indicative of their differences of character?
29.
What reasons may be given to explain Issacs preference of Esau, and Rebekahs preference of Jacob? Show how these parental preferences caused domestic chaos in this household.
30.
What lesson should we learn from this story about discord caused by such parental bias toward children? How was this folly of parental preference later repeated in the life of Jacob?
31.
What was the pottage that Jacob was cooking when Esau came to his tent?
32.
How is the name Edom associated with this pottage?
33.
What hard bargain did Jacob drive when Esau asked for food? Was it in any sense a hard bargain from Esaus point of view?
34.
What rationalization did Esau indulge to justify his nonchalant acceptance of Jacobs demand?
35.
What patriarchal privileges were included in the birthright? What special Messianic privileges in this particular case?
36.
On what grounds is Esau denounced in Scripture as a profane person?
37.
In what sense was the accompanying oath in this instance a source of additional guilt on Esaus part?
38.
What statement in Gen. 25:34 epitomizes Esaus attitude and life?
39.
How do Dr. Speiser and Dr. Skinner, respectively, appraise Esaus character and life?
40.
On what grounds does Leupold appraise Jacobs conduct in a more favorable light? Compare Murphys appraisal.
41.
What is the significance of Deu. 21:17 in relation to the patriarchal birthright?
42.
What light is thrown by Hurrian law upon this incident of the birthright?
43.
How does Marcus Dods compare the characters of the two sons?
44.
What three important lessons do we get from this story in regard to parental influence and conduct?
45.
What were the chief aspects of Esaus profane barter?
46.
How is this profanity to be accounted for?
47.
Review other Scriptural examples of such profanity.
48.
How is this profanity exemplified in the attitude of many professing Christians toward the ordinance of Christian baptism?
49.
What do we mean by saying that Esaus besetting sin was secularism?
50.
Where do we read that secularism was the over-all besetting sin of the antediluvian world? Also that it will be the over-all besetting sin of the age immediately preceding the Second Coming of Christ? What should these facts indicate to all Christians of the present generation?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
THE TLDTH ISAAC (Gen. 25:19 to Gen. 35:29).
THE BIRTH OF ISAACS SONS.
Abraham begat IsaacThe Tldth in its original form gave probably a complete genealogy of Isaac, tracing up his descent to Shem, and showing thereby that the right of primogeniture belonged to him; but the inspired historian uses only so much of this as is necessary for tracing the development of the Divine plan of human redemption.
The Syrian.Really, the Aramean, or descendant of Aram. (See Gen. 10:22-23.) The name of the district also correctly is Paddan-Ararn, and so far from being identical with Aram-Naharaim, in Gen. 24:10, it is strictly the designation of the region immediately in the neighbourhood of Charran. The assertion of Gesenius that it meant Mesopotamia, with the desert to the west of the Euphrates, in opposition to the mountainous district towards the Mediterranean, is devoid of proof. (See Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, 1, p. 304.) In Syriac, the language of Charran, padana means a plough (1Sa. 13:20), or a yoke of oxen ( 1Sa. 11:7); and this also suggests that it was the cultivated district close to the town. In Hos. 12:12 it is said that Jacob fled to the field of Aram; but this is a very general description of the country in which he found refuge, and affords no basis for the assertion that Padan-aram was the level region. Finally, the assertion that it is an ancient name used by the Jehovist is an assertion only. It is the name of a special district, and the knowledge of it was the result of Jacobs long-continued stay there. Chwolsohn says that traces of the name still remain in Faddn and Tel Faddn, two places close to Charran, mentioned by Yacut, the Arabian geographer, who flourished in the thirteenth century.
Isaac intreated the Lord.This barrenness lasted twenty years (Gen. 25:26), and must have greatly troubled Isaac; but it would also compel him to dwell much in thought upon the purpose for which he had been given to Abraham, and afterwards rescued from death upon the mount Jehovah-Jireh. And when offspring came, in answer to his earnest pleading of the promise, the delay would serve to impress upon both parents the religious significance of their existence as a separate race and family, and the necessity of training their children worthily. The derivation of the verb to intreat, from a noun signifying incense, is uncertain, but rendered probable by the natural connection of the idea of the ascending fragrance, and that of the prayer mounting heavenward (Rev. 5:8; Rev. 8:4).
The children struggled together.Two dissimilar nations sprang from Abraham, but from mothers totally unlike; so, too, from the peaceful Isaac two distinct races of men were to take their origin, but from the same mother, and the contest began while they were yet unborn. And Rebekah, apparently unaware that she was pregnant with twins, but harassed with the pain of strange jostlings and thrusts, grew despondent, and exclaimed
If it be so, why am I thus?Literally, If so, why am I this? Some explain this as meaning Why do I still live? but more probably she meant, If I have thus conceived, in answer to my husbands prayers, why do I suffer in this strange manner? It thus prepares for what follows, namely, that Rebekah wished to have her condition explained to her, and therefore went to inquire of Jehovah.
She went to enquire of the Lord.Not to Shem, nor Melchizedek, as many think, nor even to Abraham, who was still alive, but, as Theodoret suggests, to the family altar. Isaac had several homes, but probably the altar at Bethel, erected when Abraham first took possession of the Promised Land (Gen. 12:7), and therefore especially holy, was the place signified; and if Abraham were there, he would doubtless join his prayers to those of Rebekah.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Generations of Isaac, Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29.
BIRTH OF ESAU AND JACOB, Gen 19:19-26.
19. These are the generations of Isaac Thus characteristically this new section of the history opens . We have also a repetition of Isaac’s birth, his age at marriage, and the name, country, father, and brother of his wife .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 25:19 a
“This is the family history of Isaac, Abraham”
ISAAC ( Gen 25:19 to Gen 27:46 ).
After the heart warming record of the obtaining of a suitable wife for Isaac as a result of the direct activity of Yahweh little is told us about him. This is because during his lifetime important covenants and theophanies were few and therefore there was no recording in writing.
The family tribe over which he presided continued to be strong (Gen 26:16) and he clashed with Abimelech at Gerar but that is almost all we know about him apart from the birth of his children and his part in the continuation of the chosen line. But he did continue Abraham’s policy of allying his family with the family of Abraham’s father Terah and was upset when Esau departed from it (Gen 28:9). More dangerously (and with less justification) he also continued the policy of describing his wife as his sister. He seems to be a mirror image of his father but without his effectiveness and personality.
But his importance is that he was part of the fulfilling of God’s purposes. He was not charismatic, he was not outstanding, but he was chosen by God and was a necessary part of the chain that led up to Moses, then to David and finally to Jesus Christ. What Abraham began he had to hold on to and continue. And this he did, without fuss and without bravado. He was there when God wanted him.
We too may feel that we are not important, but if we are His and responsive to His words we too are an important part of the chain that leads to the fulfilling of His purposes. Isaac should be an encouragement to us all.
However, Isaac is seen later as an important member of those to whom the covenant was given ( 2Ki 13:23 ; 1Ch 6:16; Psa 105:9). In Amo 7:9; Amo 7:16 Isaac is used as another name to designate Israel.
Isaac and Jacob – the Family History of Esau ( Gen 25:19 to Gen 36:1 )
The family history of Esau takes us up to the death of Isaac (Gen 35:29) and while doing so describes the covenants in which Isaac participated, and the finding of wives for Jacob and the birth of his twelve sons. As the senior male of the family he had the responsibility of maintaining and preserving the important family covenant records. However the work would be done by a tribal scribe and he may not even have known much about it.
Gen 25:19 b
‘Abraham begat Isaac.’
Abraham is possibly a catch word connecting with the final word in the previous colophon, and this brief heading is therefore the title of a new tablet. But while Gen 25:19 to Gen 36:1 may make up a tablet in themselves they incorporate records made at various times which were originally on their own, for once more each of them was the record of a covenant.
The Birth of Esau and Jacob ( Gen 25:19-26 ) – the Sale of the Birthright ( Gen 25:27-34 ).
This section Gen 25:19-26 centres on Yahweh’s covenant in Gen 25:23, and this is followed by the record of the covenant between Esau and Jacob resulting in the exchanging of the birthright (25:27-34).
Gen 25:20
‘And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.’
Forty years is a round number. Thus the suggestion is that he was fully matured. The detail with which Rebekah is described demonstrates the importance placed on who she was.
If we take the age as roughly correct this was when Abraham was about one hundred and forty (see Gen 20:5). So if Sarah had died by this time she was probably approximately ten or so years younger than Abraham (she died at one hundred and twenty seven – Gen 23:1). Thus Abraham is still alive at this time, although feeling his age, and at the time of the births of Esau and Jacob when he is one hundred and sixty.
“Paddan-aram”. ‘The field or plain of Aram’, that is the area around Haran in Upper Mesopotamia north of the junction of the rivers Habur and Euphrates.
Gen 25:21 a
‘And Isaac entreated Yahweh for his wife because she was barren. And Yahweh was entreated of him.’
Quiet he may have been but one thing Isaac could do and that was pray. He knew how his father Abraham had had to pray in a similar way and he knew that because of the promises to Abraham a child would also be born to him. He had the quiet confidence that the Yahweh Who had found him a wife would now provide him with a child through that wife, for the one assumed the other.
So he prayed and his prayer was answered. We are given no detail of how he went about it, nor of what he prayed, for that was not considered important. The concentration is rather on the result of the prayer. And, as we are informed in Gen 25:26, this was twenty years after the wedding. Thus Isaac too, like his father, has had to possess his soul in patience.
“Ten years” was the time Abraham spent in Canaan before Sarai lost courage and gave her maid Hagar to Abraham (Gen 16:3). Thus Isaac and Rebekah, waiting for twenty years, are seen as very patient and we are intended to see in this his quiet confidence in Yahweh.
Gen 25:21-22
‘And Rebekah his wife conceived, and the children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why do I live?” And she went to enquire of Yahweh.’
Rebekah conceived, but the birth was to be a difficult one for she was having twins and she was aware that all was not right within. In those days death in child birth was a fairly common experience.
“The children struggled together within her.” She seems to have felt that death was near (‘why do I live?) and she goes to enquire of Yahweh. We are not told where she went, but it may well have been the cultic centre under the tamarisk tree at Beersheba (Gen 21:33). And Abraham the prophet may well have been the one through whom she enquired. But concentration is now on Isaac, and Abraham has slipped into the background so that he is disregarded. This has never been the story of a man, it is the story of God’s sovereign activity and covenants with man. The players, even Abraham, are secondary.
Gen 25:23
‘And Yahweh said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be separated even from your bowels. And the one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” ’
This theophany and covenant are the basis of this covenant record. In accordance with His promises to Abraham Yahweh now promises that from Isaac will come not one but two separate nations, clearly divided. The original promises do not need to be repeated. Isaac knows them by heart and they are a part of the tapestry of their lives.
But here there is a further twist. ‘The one shall be stronger than the other and the elder will serve the younger.’ Ironically the one who will be the stronger will be the one who serves. The main point is that it is the younger who will carry on over the family tribe as the chosen of Yahweh. Yahweh is in control of events and He chooses whom He will.
The use of the word ‘rab’ for ‘elder’ is rare. It is a description which occurs elsewhere only in second millennium cuneiform texts.
Whether ‘the one who is stronger’ is meant as Esau or Jacob depends on viewpoint. Esau was the efficient fighting man and leader of a powerful roving band, but in the end it was Jacob with his strength of purpose who prevailed to lead the tribe.
Gen 25:24-25
‘And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled behold there were twins in her womb. And the first came forth ruddy, all over like a hairy garment, and they called his name Esau.’
Esau was very red when born and covered with a mat of hair. The red may refer to the colour of his skin or to his covering hair. The name Esau probably reflects ‘hairy’ from the Arabic.
“Ruddy” ( ’athmonee). This connects with ‘Edom’ ( ’ethom – from the root ’thm red), a name given to Esau – see Gen 36:1; Gen 36:8.
Gen 25:26 a
‘And after that came forth his brother and his hand had hold of Esau’s heel, and his name was called Jacob.’
The name Jacob (ya‘aqov – in its lengthened form ya‘aqov-el) probably means ‘may God protect’. It was in frequent use among Semites. But by a play on words it relates to ‘eqeb (to clutch) thus signifying ‘the clutcher’.
The clutching of the heel was seen as significant in the light of the preceding prophecy. Even from the womb Jacob sought to supplant his brother.
Gen 25:26 b
‘And Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.’
Thus they had been married twenty years and Abraham was now approximately one hundred and sixty. All are certainly round numbers, the ‘twenty years’ indicating twice ten years (compare on 16:3), an extended and weary wait.
This short record of God’s covenant connected with the birth was probably written down immediately, as with all such covenants connected with a theophany, and later expanded to include the subsequent fulfilment now dealt with, which would also be a covenant record recording the covenant made between Esau and Jacob.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Genealogy of Isaac The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.
We find in Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29 the genealogy of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Heb 11:20 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when Isaac gave his sons redemptive prophecies, saying, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.” As Abraham’s genealogy begins with a divine commission when God told him to leave Ur and to go Canaan (Gen 12:1), so does Isaac’s genealogy begin with a divine commission predicting him as the father of two nations, with the elder serving the younger (Gen 25:23), with both nations playing roles in redemptive history, Jacob playing the major role. The first event in Isaac’s genealogy has to do with a God speaking to his wife regarding the two sons in her womb, saying that these two sons would multiply into two nations. Since his wife Rebekah was barren, Isaac interceded to God and the Lord granted his request. The Lord then told Rebekah that two nations were in her womb, and the younger would prevail over the elder (Gen 25:21-23). Isaac, whose name means laughter (Gen 21:6), was called to establish himself in the land of Canaan after his father Abraham, and to believe in God’s promise regarding his son Jacob. During the course of his life, Isaac’s genealogy testifies of how he overcame obstacles and the enemy that resisted God’s plan for him. Thus, we see Isaac’s destiny was to be faithful and dwell in the land and father two nations. God’s promise to Isaac, that the elder will serve the younger, is fulfilled when Jacob deceives his father and receives the blessings of the first-born. The fact that Isaac died in a ripe old age testifies that he fulfilled his destiny as did Abraham his father. Rom 9:10-13 reflects the theme of Isaac’s genealogy in that it discusses the election of Jacob over Isaac. We read in Heb 11:20 how Isaac expressed his faith in God’s promise of two nations being born through Rebekah because he blessed his sons regarding these future promises.
Gen 12:1, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:”
Gen 21:6, “And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.”
Gen 25:23, “And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.”
Gen 25:19 And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac:
Gen 25:20 Gen 25:20
Gen 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
Gen 25:22 Gen 25:22
Hos 12:3, “He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:”
1. At his natural birth in the womb with his brother:
Gen 25:26, “And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.”
2. At his “spiritual” birth with an angel:
Gen 32:24, “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.”
Gen 25:22 Comments – Any mother who has given birth to children understands the importance of the child’s continual kicks within her womb. Although painful at times, these kicks serve to assure the mother that the baby is alive and healthy. When these kicks cease for a few days a mother naturally becomes worried, but in the case of Rebekah the very opposite was true. There was too much kicking to the point that she besought the Lord in prayer. It was her beseeching God rather than her husband because a pregnant mother is much more focused upon these issues.
Gen 25:22 Comments – Why did Jacob and Esau struggle within their mother’s womb? One pastor suggests that they were struggling for the birthright by becoming the firstborn, which struggle was played out during the course of their lives.
Gen 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
Gen 25:23
In the same sense, the prophecy in Mal 1:2-3 is not so much about the two individual sons of Jacob as it is a prophecy of two nations. In other words, God loved the nation of Israel and hated the nation of Edom.
Mal 1:2-3, “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”
Bruce goes on to explain that the Hebrew thought and speech is making an extreme contrast of love and hate in these passages for the sake of emphasis. He uses Luk 14:26 to illustrate this Hebrew way of saying that someone must love God far more than his earthly family. [227]
[227] F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), 46-47.
Luk 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
This is exactly what the parallel passage in Mat 10:37 says when Jesus tells us that we must love Him more than our parents or children.
Mat 10:37, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Thus, God was saying that He loved Jacob far more than He loved Jacob’s closest blood kin. This statement is meant to place emphasis upon the immeasurable love that God has for His people.
Gen 25:23 Comments The genealogy of Isaac begins with a divine commission promising Isaac that he would father two nations, one mightier than the other, and both playing important roles in redemptive history. Gen 25:23 records this divine commission to Isaac and Rebecca, which is the first recorded event of the Lord speaking to Isaac or his wife.
Gen 25:23 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Note that the phrase “and the elder shall serve the younger” is quoted in the New Testament.
Rom 9:11-13, “(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger . As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
Gen 25:23 Scripture References – Note a reference to Jacob’s favour over Esau in Mal 1:1-3.
Mal 1:1-3, “The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”
Gen 25:24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
Gen 25:25 Gen 25:25
1Sa 16:17, “And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me.”
1Sa 17:42, “And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance.”
Gen 25:25 Word Study on “Esau” Strong says the Hebrew name “Esau” (H6215) means “hairy.”
Gen 25:25 Comments – Esau was a hairy man, while Jacob was not (Gen 27:11).
Gen 27:11, “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man:”
Gen 25:26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.
Gen 25:26
One pastor suggests that Jacob’s name means “hand upon the heel” because this is what his parents saw when he was born. He uses the Hebrew word “yod” ( ) as a symbol of a hand, with the root word ( ) meaning “heel.”
Gen 25:26 Comments – We know that Jacob and Esau struggled together in the womb. Why did Jacob grab his brother’s heel? One pastor suggests that he was trying to stop Esau from crushing his head. He refers to Gen 3:15 as the prophecy to explain this suggestion. The seed of woman was going to crush the head of Satan. We know that according to Jewish tradition Cain, who was of the evil one, struck Abel on the head and killed him. So it appears that Satan was trying to reverse this prophecy by crushing the head of the woman’s seed. Perhaps Esau was trying to crush the head of Jacob while in the womb.
Gen 25:27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.
Gen 25:27
Gen 25:27 Comments – There will eventually arise between Esau and Jacob a similar competition that took place between Cain and Abel. Esau did eventually attempt to kill Jacob, but was protected by divine providence.
Gen 25:28 And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Isaac’s Prayer for Rebekah
v. 19. And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac; v. 20. and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian, of Padanaram, the sister to Laban, the Syrian. v. 21. And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren; and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. v. 22. And the children struggled together within her; and she said, if it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord. v. 23. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. 9. THE GENERATIONS OF ISAAC (Ge 25:19-35:29).
EXPOSITION
Gen 25:19
And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son. The usual formula for the opening of a new section (cf. Gen 2:4). Abraham begat Isaac. A reiteration in perfect harmony not only with the style of the present narrative, but of ancient historiography in general; in this instance specially designed to connect the subsequent streams of Isaac’s posterity with their original fountain-head in Abraham.
Gen 25:20
And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife,the valuable chronological fact here stated for the first time proves that Isaac was married three years after his mother’s death (cf. Gen 23:1)the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-aram, the sister to Laban the Syrian (vide on Gen 22:23; Gen 24:29). Though a descendant of Arphaxad (Gen 10:24), Bethuel is styled a Syrian, or Aramaean, from the country of his adoption. On Padanaram vide Gen 24:10.
Gen 25:21
And Isaac entreatedfrom a root signifying to burn incense, hence to pray, implying, as some think (Wordsworth, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), the use of incense in patriarchal worship; but perhaps only pointing to the fact that the prayers of the godly ascend like incense (Gesenius): cf. Tobit 12:12; Act 10:4. The word is commonly regarded as noting precum multiplicationem, et vehementiam et perseverantiam (Poole): cf. Eze 35:13the LordJehovah; not because verses 21-23 are the composition of the Jehovist (Tuch, Bleek, Davidson, et alii), but because the desired son was to be the heir of promise (Hengstenberg). The less frequent occurrence of the Divine name in the Thol-doth of Isaac than in those of Terah has been explained by the fact that the historical matter of the later portion furnishes less occasion for its introduction than that of the earlier; and the predominance of the name Elohim over that of Jehovah in the second stage of the patriarchal history has been partly ascribed to the employment after Abraham’s time of such like equivalent expressions as “God of Abraham” and “God of my father” (Keil)for his wife,literally, opposite to his wife, i.e. beside his wife, placing himself opposite her, and conjoining his supplications with hers (Ainsworth, Bush); or, better, in behalf of his wife (LXX; Vulgate, Calvin, Keil, Kalisch), i.e. setting her over against him as the sole object to which he had regard in his intercessions (Luther)because she was barren:as Sarah had been before her (vide Gen 11:1-32 :80); the long-continued sterility of both having been designed to show partly that “children are the heritage of the Lord” (Psa 127:3), but chiefly that the children of the promise were to be not simply the fruit of nature, but the gift of grace and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived (cf. Rom 9:10).
Gen 25:22
And the children struggled together within her. The verb is expressive of a violent internal commotion, as if the unborn children had been dashing against one another in her womb. Cf. the story of Acrisius and Praetus, who quarreled before birth about their subsequent dominion (Apollod; II. 2. 1). Vide Rosenmller, Scholia, in loco. And she said, If it be so, why am I thus? Literally, If so, why thus (am) I? Of obscure import, but probably meaning, “If so,” i.e. flit is the case that I have conceived, “for what am I thus?” what is the reason of these unwonted sensations that accompany my pregnancy? Aben Ezra, Calvin, Lange, Murphy); rather than, “If such be the sufferings of pregnancy, why did I seek to conceive?” (Rashi, Rosenmller), or, why have I conceived? (Vulgate, Onkelos, Bush, Ainsworth), or, why do I yet live? (Syriac, Keil, Kalisch, Delitzsch). And she went to inquire of the Lord. Not by Urim (Bohlen), since this method of inquiring at the Deity did not then exist (Num 27:21); but either through a prophet,Shem (Luther), Melchisedeck (Jewish interpreters), Heber (Lyra); more likely Abraham (Grotius, Ainsworth, Wordsworth, Kalisch, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), or Isaac, the prophet nearest her (Lange),or through herself by prayer, as in Psa 34:5 (Calvin, Rosenmller, Lange, Murphy, Inglis). The language seems to imply that by this time there was a regularly-appointed place for the worship of God by prayer and sacrificeTheodoret suggests the family altar; Delitzsch, Hagar’s well.
Gen 25:23
And the Lord said unto her,in a dream (Havernick), a form of revelation peculiar to primitive times (Gen 15:1; Gen 20:6; Gen 28:12; Gen 37:5; 90:5; 91:1; 96:2; cf. Job 4:13; Job 33:15); but whether communicated directly to herself, or spoken through the medium of a prophet, the Divine response to her interrogation assumed an antistrophic and poetical form, in which she was informed that her unborn sons were to be the founders of two mighty nations, who, “unequal in power, should be divided rivalry and antagonism from their youth”Two nations are in thy womb (i.e. the ancestors and founders of two nations, vie; the Israelites and Idumeans), and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels;literally, and two peoples from thy bowels (or womb) are separated, i.e. proceeding from thy womb, they shall be divided from and against each otherand the one people shall be stronger than the other people (literally, and people shall be stronger than people, i.e. the one shall prevail over the other); and the elder shall serve the youngeri.e. the descendants of the elder shall be subject to those of the younger. Vide inspired comments on this oracle in Mal 1:2, Mal 1:3 and Rom 9:12-33.
Gen 25:24
And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled,literally, and were fulfilled her days to bring forth; (LXX.; cf. Luk 1:57; Luk 2:6). Jarchi accounts for the different phrase used of Thamar (Gen 38:27), who also bore twins, by supposing that she had not completed her days, but gave birth to Pharez and Zarah in the seventh month (vide Rosenmller, in loco)behold, there were twins in her womb (cf. Gen 38:27, where the full form of the word for twins is given).
Gen 25:25
And the first came out red,Adhmoni, (LXX.), rufus (Vulgate), red-haired (Gesenius), of a reddish color (Lange), containing an allusion to Adham, the red earthall over like an hairy garment. Literally, all of him as a cloak of hair (not, as the LXX; Vulgate, et alii, all of him hairy, like a cloak); the fur cloak, or hair mantle, forming one notion (Gesenius). The appearance of the child’s body, covered with an unusual quantity of red hair, was “a sign of excessive sensual vigor and wildness” (Keil), “a foreboding of the animal violence of his character” (Kalisch), “the indication of a passionate and precocious nature” (Murphy). And they called his name Esau“the hairy one,” from an unused root signifying to be covered with hair (Gesenius).
Gen 25:26
And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel. The inf. constr, standing for the finite verb. Not simply followed close upon the heels of Esau (Kalisch), but seized Esau’s heel, as if he would trip him up (Keil, Murphy). It has been contended (De Wette, Schumann, Knobel) that such an act was impossible, a work on obstetrics by Busch maintaining that an hour commonly intervenes between the birth of twins; but practitioners of eminence who have been consulted declare the act to be distinctly possible, and indeed it is well known that “a multitude of surprising phenomena are connected with births” (Havernick), some of which are not greatly dissimilar to that which is here recorded. Delitzsch interprets the language as meaning only that the hand of Jacob reached out in the direction of his brother’s heel, as if to grasp it; but Hos 12:3 explicitly asserts that he had his brother’s heel by the hand while yet in his mother’s womb. And his name was calledliterally, and he (i.e. one) called his name; (LXX.); id circo appellavit eum (Vulgate; cf. Gen 16:14; Gen 27:36)Jacob. Not “Successor,” like the Latin secundus, from sequor (Knobel, Kalisch); but “Heel-catcher” (Rosenmller, Gesenius, Keil, Lange, Murphy), hence Supplanter (cf. Gen 37:36). And Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them. Literally, in the bearing of them, the inf. constr, taking the case of its verbwhen she (the mother) bare them; (LXX.); quum nati sunt parvuli (Vulgate); though, as Rebekah’s name does not occur in the immediate context, and is applied to the father (Gen 4:18; Gen 10:8, Gen 10:13) as well as to the mother, the clause may be rendered when he (Isaac) begat them (Kalisch, Afford).
HOMILETICS
Gen 25:19-26
The childless pair.
I. THE DISAPPOINTED HUSBAND.
1. The grievous affliction. Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, was barren. Though neither uncommon nor unjust, this was to Isaac
(1) a specially severe affliction, from its long continuance, from his love for Rebekah, from his own natural desire of offspring, but chiefly from his faith in the promise;
(2) a highly beneficial affliction, serving to instruct and discipline his faith as to the true character of the children of the promise, to refine and intensify his affection for Rebekah, to purify and elevate his own spiritual life, and to enable him to realize his complete dependence on the grace of God.
2. The earnest intercession. “Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife.” Isaac’s supplication was
(1) directed to the right quarter, since “children are the heritage of the Lord;”
(2) conceived in the right spirit, the word “entreated” implying earnest and repeated application to the heavenly throne;
(3) stated in the right way, with plainness and simplicity of speech; and
(4) seconded by the right helper, Rebekah, according to one reading of the text, joining her entreaties with her husband’s. Husbands and wives should be helpers, not hinderers, of each other’s prayers.
3. The gracious response. “The Lord was entreated of Isaac, and Rebekah conceived. Note the character of God as the Hearer of prayer, the habitual practice of God, which is to listen to his people’s supplications, the power which belongs to prayer of being able to prevail with God, and the special virtue which resides in united prayer (Mat 18:19).
II. THE ANXIOUS WIFE.
1. The unwonted experience. In two respects the pregnancy of Rebekah was unusual. First, she had never conceived before; and secondly, the attendant sensations were uncommon. Great mercies are often accompanied by great discomforts to prevent gracious souls from resting in the gifts and neglecting the Giver.
2. The remarkable interrogation. “Rebekah went to inquire of the Lord.” Her conduct was remarkable for the impatience it displayed, the piety it evinced, the faith it implied. If in her querulous exclamation there was sin, m her seeking to God with her anxiety there were grace and faith.
3. The mysterious oracle. This contained three distinct announcements: the first hopeful, that Rebekah should be the mother of twins; the second painful, that, besides being mutually antagonistic from their birth, her two sons should develop into hostile nations; the third unusual, that the elder should serve the younger.
III. THE HAPPY MOTHER.
1. Her days were fulfilled. A special mercy which pregnant mothers can appreciate.
2. Her sons were born. Another cause of rejoicing to a mother (Joh 16:21).
(1) Their names. “Esau and Jacob.” Names of men are sometimes prophetic of both character and condition.
(2) Their birth: remarkable for the singular phenomenon by which it was accompanied. Jacob’s holding of Esau’s heel was intended to foreshadow the early character of Jacob, his future over-reaching of Esau, and his ultimate precedence in grace. N.B The first in nature is often last in grace. Between nature and grace there is perpetual antagonism. The great achievements of gracious souls have sometimes fore-shadowings in nature.
(3) Their appearance. Esau red like a hairy cloak; Jacob catching Esau’s heel. The boy is oft the father of the man.
3. Her husband was spared. “Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.” A third mercy not always granted to mothers, to retain their husbands to participate in their maternal joys (1Sa 4:19).
Learn
1. That children in a home are a special mark of Divine favor.
2. That anxious wives and mothers should carry their troubles to God’s throne.
3. That the future histories and destinies of children are known to God, if not to their parents.
4. That mothers of families have peculiar joys as well as special sorrows.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Gen 25:19-34
Divine purposes unfolded.
We are now entering a new stage of the sacred history, where we are looking less upon the development of one man’s character than upon the unfolding purposes of Jehovah in the family with which he has made his covenant. Again we are in the region of
1. Gracious interposition.
2. Supernatural assistance of human infirmity.
3. Prophetic announcements.
The atmosphere is that of the covenant. The children in the womb are two nations. The history of great peoples is anticipated.R.
Gen 25:19. These are the generations i.e.. This is the account of Isaac and his family.
SECOND SECTION
Jacob and Esau
Gen 25:19-34
19And these are the generations7 [genealogies] of Isaac, Abrahams son: Abraham begat Isaac: 20And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-Aram [from Mesopotamia], the sister to Laban 21the Syrian. And Isaac entreated the Lord [Jehovah] for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22And the children struggled together [thrust, jostled each other] within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus?8 And she went to inquire of the Lord. 23And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people9 shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger [the greater shall serve the less].
24And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment;10 and they called his name Esau [covered with hair]. 26And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esaus heel; and his name was called Jacob [heel-catcher]; and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them. 27And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter [a man knowing the hunt], a man of the field [a wild rover, not an husbandman]; and Jacob was a plain11 [discreet, sedate] man, dwelling in tents. 28And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison [game was in his mouth his favorite food]: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29And Jacob [once] sod pottage; and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. 30And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee [let me devour greedily], with that same red pottage [from the redthis red, here]; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom 31[Red]. And Jacob said, Sell me this day [first] thy birthright. 32And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die [going to die]: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? 33And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. 34Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS
1. According to Knobel we have, in the present narration, as in Genesis 26, a mixture of different records upon an Elohistic basis by means of the Jehovistic supplement. It is enough to say, that in our section the theocratic element is predominant. [Keil remarks that if the name of God occurs less frequently here, it is due partly to the historic material, which gives less occasion to use this name, since Jehovah appeared more frequently to Abraham than to Isaac and Jacob; and partly to the fact that the previous revelations of God formed titles or designations for the God of the Covenant, as God of Abraham, God of my father, which are equivalent in significance with Jehovah.A. G.] It introduces the election of Jacob in opposition to Esau. The order of the Toledoth Knobel explains thus: The author usually arranges them, in the first place, according to the individual patriarchs, after he has recorded the death of the father. Next begins the proper history of the patriarchs, e.g., Gen 10:1; Gen 11:27; Gen 25:13; Gen 36:1; Gen 37:2. We have already made the remark that the Toledoth frequently dispose of a more general sequence of history, in order to pass over to a more special one. Delitzsch finds three transitions in the history of Jacob. The first reaching to the departure of Jacob, Gen 25:19 to Gen 28:9; the second to Jacobs departure from Laban, Gen 32:1 (a section, however, in which nothing in regard to Isaac occurs); the third, from Jacobs return to the death of Isaac, Gen 35:29. But this section, too, is merely a history of Jacob, except the three verses in Gen 35:27-29. On the other hand it is preeminently the history of Joseph and of the rest of the sons of Jacob, which begins at Gen 37:2, where, according to Knobel, the history of Jacob should first begin. In the separate biographies we are to distinguish the theocratic stages of the life of the patriarchs, from the periods of their human decrepitude and decease, in which the new theocratic generation already becomes prominent. This history has four sections: Rebekahs barrenness and Isaacs intercession; Rebekahs pregnancy and the divine disclosure of her condition; the antithesis in the nature of the sons reflecting itself in the divided love of the parents; and Esaus prodigality of his birthright, parting with it for a mess of pottage. In the second section we have the prophetic preface, in the third and fourth the typical prelude to the entire future history of the antithesis between Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom.
2. The points of light in the life of Isaac lie in part back of this narrative. These are his child-like inquiries and his patient silence upon Moriah (Genesis 22); his love to Rebekah (Genesis 24); his brotherly communion with Ishmael at the burial of Abraham, and his residing at the well Lahai-Roi (Genesis 25). Here we now read first of his earnest intercession on account of the barrenness of Rebekah; then, moreover, of his preference of Esau because he was fond of game. Somewhat later Jehovah appeared unto him at Gerar, preventing him from imitating his father Abraham in going to Egypt during the famine, although he imitates him in passing off Rebekah for his sister. In this, too, he differs from Abraham, that he began to devote himself to agriculture (Gen 26:12). He suffers himself, however, to be supplanted by the Philistines, and one well after another is taken away from him, until he at last retains only one, and finds rest at Beer-sheba. In the second appearance too (Gen 26:24), his deep humility is reflected in this, that he preserves the promise of the blessing, receiving it as he does for the sake of his father Abraham. He now takes courage, and, as Abraham did, proclaims the name of the Lord, and ventures to reprove the conduct of Abimelech. His digging of wells, as well as his tilling the soil, seems to indicate a progress beyond Abraham. Then, too, he is willing to transmit to Esau the theocratic blessing of the birthright, though Esau had shortly before sorely grieved him by the marriage of two of the daughters of the Hittites. The marked antithesis between Isaacs vision power, his contemplative prominence, and his short-sightedness in respect to the present life, as well as the weakness of his senses, appears most strikingly in Genesis 27. Rebekah proceeds now with more energy, and Isaac dismisses Jacob with his blessing, who returns after many years to bury his father. When Isaac blessed his sons his eyes had already become dim, yet many years passed before he died (from his one hundred and thirtieth to his one hundred and eightieth year). Delitzsch exaggerates Isaacs weakness as making him in everything a mere copy of Abraham. Even the wells he digs are those of Abraham, destroyed by the Philistines, and the names he gives to them are merely the old ones renewed. He is the most passive of the three patriarchs. His life flows away in a passive quietness, and almost the entire second half in senile torpidity (!). So passive, so secondary, or, so to speak, so sunken or retired is the middle period in the patriarchal history. We have referred to the points in which he does not imitate Abraham, but is himself. He does not go to Egypt during the famine, as Abraham did; he begins the transition from a nomadic to and agricultural life, he digs new wells in addition to the old ones, he lives in exclusive monogamous wedlock, and even in his preference of Esau, the game, surely, is not the only motive. If the external right of the firstborn impressed so deeply his passive character (especially in connection with the robust, striking appearance of Esau, seeming to fit him particularly to be heir of Canaan); there can be no doubt, also, that he was repelled by traits in the early life of Jacob. But most especially does he appear to have had a feeling for those sufferings of the firstborn Ishmael, which he endured on his account. And hence he appeared willing to make amends to Esau, his own firstborn, a fact to which, at least, his dwelling at Hagars well, and his brotherly union with Ishmael, may point. It is evident that the ardent Rebekah, by her animated, energetic declarations (Gen 24:18-19; Gen 24:25; Gen 24:28; Gen 24:58; Gen 24:64-65; Gen 25:22), formed a very significant complement to Isaac, confiding more in the divine declarations as to her boys than Isaac did, and therefore better able to appreciate the deeper nature of Jacob. But when Isaac, through his passiveness, fails in the performance of his duty, the courageous woman forgets her vocation, and with artifice counsels Jacob to steal the blessing from Isaaca transgression for which she had to atone in not seeing again her favorite son after his migration. And even if Isaac was shortsighted respecting his personal relations in this world, yet the words of the blessing attest that his spiritual sight of the divine promises had not diminished with his blinded eyes. It had its ground, moreover, in the very laws of the psychical antithesis that Isaac, so feeble in will and character, was attracted by the wild and powerful Esau; while the brave, energetic Rebekah found greater satisfaction in union with the gentle Jacob. In the assumed zeal of her faith for the preservation of a pure theocracy among the patriarchs, she too excels Isaac. We should bear in mind that they were Jews who relate so impartially the Nahoritic Rebekahs superiority over the Abrahamic Isaac. [Consenting to be laid on the altar as a sacrifice to God, Isaac had the stamp of submission early and deeply impressed on his soul. Hence, in the spiritual aspect of his character, he was the man of patience, of acquiescence, of susceptibility, of obedience. His qualities were those of the son, as Abrahams were those of the father. He carried out, but did not initiate; he followed, but did not lead; he continued, but he did not commence. Accordingly the docile and patient side of the saintly character is now to be presented to our view. Murphy, p. 367.A. G.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Gen 25:19-21. Rebekahs barrenness, and Isaacs intercession.Padan-Aram.Level, plain of Aram: Hos 12:12, it reads, field of Aram. Gen 48:7. Padan, Mesopotamia. Keil limits the name to the large plain of the city of Haran, surrounded by mountains, following the conjectures of Knobel, who, however, regards Padan-Aram as a specific Elohistic expression. According to others, Mesopotamia is divided into two parts, and here the level country is distinguished from the mountainous region. But this does not apply to Haran. To one travelling from Palestine to Mesopotamia across the mountains, Mesopotamia is an extensive plain. According to Gen 25:26, Isaac waited twenty years for offspring. This was a new trial to him, though not to Abraham, who still lived. Since the line of the blessing was to pass through Isaac, his intercession was based upon a divine foundation in Jehovahs promise. [For his wife, with reference to, literally before; which Luther says is to be explained spiritually, indicating the intensity of his prayer, the single object before his mind.Entreated the Lord. The seed of promise must be sought from Jehovah, so that it should be regarded, not as the fruit of nature, but as the gift of divine grace. Keil, p. 191.A. G.]
2. Gen 25:22-23. Rebekahs pregnancy, and the divine explanation of her condition.The Hebrew expression denotes a severe struggling with each other. Knobel will have it that this feature was derived from the later enmities between the Israelites and Edomites, and quotes Gen 4:14; Gen 16:12; Gen 19:30. In like manner, according to Apollod., 2, 2, 1, Acrisius and Proetus, two brothers, had already quarrelled with each other in the womb of their mother about the dominion. That such intimations and omens can have no real existence is regarded as a settled matter in the prejudices of this kind of criticism.Why am I thus?We see again the character of Rebekah in this very expression. According to Delitzsch, she was of a sanguine temperament: rash in her actions, and as easily discouraged. We would rather regard her words as an ill-humored expression of a sanguine-choleric temperament. It does not mean: why am I yet living? (Delitzsch, referring to Gen 27:46, Knobel, Keil), but why am I so? i.e., in this condition. [Why this sore and strange struggle within me?A. G.]To inquire of the Lord.According to a certain Jewish Midrash, she went to Salem (so Knobel). According to Delitzsch, she went rather to Hagars well; at all events, to a place sacred on account of revelations and the worship of Jehovah. Luther thinks she went to Shem, others to Abraham or Melchizedek, just as men inquired of the prophets in the time of Samuel (1Sa 9:9). The prophet nearest to her, if she had wanted one, would have been Isaac. The phrase she went no doubt means she retired to some quiet place, and there received for herself the divine revelation. For in the patriarchal history sacred visions determined as yet sacred places, nor is it different at present. [Still the phrase seems to imply that there was some place and mode of inquiring of the Lord. Perhaps, as Theodoret suggests, at the family altar.A.G.] According to Knobel, she received the experience indicated as, in general, a sign of ill omen. Delitzsch thinks she saw in it the anger of Jehovah. However, we must not too sharply interpret her ill humor, on account of the mysterious, painful, and uneasy condition, and the alarming presentiment she may have had of the contentions of her posterity. That she was to be a mother of twins she did not know at this time.Two nations.The divine answer is a rhythmical oracle. (See Delitzsch.)
[Two nations are in thy womb; Wordsworth.A. G.]
With the prophetic elevation the poetic form appears also. It appears very distinctly from this oracle, that they would differ from the very womb of the mother. Since Esaus liberation is not predicted here, Knobel regards this as a sign that the author lived at a time before Edom threw off the yoke of Judah. We know, however, how the theocratic prophecies gradually enlarge. The meaning of this obscure revelation, clothed as it was in the genuine form of prophecy, and which so greatly calmed her, she saw in a certain measure explained in the relations that had existed between Isaac and Ishmael.
3. Gen 25:24-28. The birth of the twins. The antithesis of their nature, and the divided partiality of the parents towards their children.Behold, there were twins.The fulfilment of the oracle in its personal, fundamental form.And the first came out red.Of a reddish flesh color. His body, like a garment of skins, covered with hair. (Luxuriance of the growth of the hair.) In the word there is an allusion to , in the word there is an allusion to . Arab authors derive also the red-haired occidentals from Esau. Knobel. Both marks characterize his sensual, hard nature. And his hand took hold on Esaus heel.Delitzsch: It is not said that he held it already in the womb of his mother (a position of twins not considered possible by those who practise obstetrics), but that he followed his brother with such a movement of his hand. Knobel contends against the probability of this statement, since, according to a work on obstetrics by Busch, the birth of the second child generally occurs an hour after that of the first one, frequently later. The very least that the expression can convey is, that Jacob followed Esau sooner than is generally the case; upon his heels, and, as it were, to take hold of his heel. Since the fact, considered symbolically, does not speak in his favor; since it points out the crafty combatant who seizes his opponent unawares by the heel, and thus causes him to fall, there is the less ground for imagining any forgery here. The signification of the name Jacob is essentially the same with successor, as Knobel conjectures. Jacobs cunning seems to have been stripped from him in his lifes career, deceived as he had been by Laban, and even by his own sons, whilst there remains his holy prudence, his deeper knowledge, and his incessant looking to the divine promise.A cunning hunter.Esau developed himself according to the omen.Because he did eat of his venison.Literally, was in his mouth.And Jacob was a plain man. . Luther: a pious man. Knobel: a blameless man, i.e., as a shepherd. Hunting, pursued, not for the sake of self-defence or of necessity, but for mere pleasure, as with Esau, the author regards as something harsh and cruel, especially when compared with the shepherd-life so highly esteemed by the Hebrews. Isaacs fondness for venison, however, cannot be fully explained by this. Gesenius emphasizes the antithesis of gentle and wild. Delitzsch explains , with his whole heart devoted to God and the good, etc. Keil, more happily, as a disposition inclined to a domestic, quiet life. The most obvious explanation of the word in this place points out a man, modest, correct, and sedate, in contrast with the wild, unsteady, roving, and proud manner of Esaus life. Jacob was modest, because he adhered to the costume of his father, and stayed near the tents.Because he did eat of his venison, lit., was in his mouth. This weakness of the patriarch was not his only motive in his preference of Esau, but it is particularly mentioned here on account of the following narrative. In like manner, Haman was a melancholy, indolent man, fond of good living.
4. Gen 25:29-34.The typical prelude of the historical antithesis between Jacob and Esau.Jacob sod pottage.A dish of lentiles, see Gen 25:34.Feed me.Lit.,let me swallow, an expression for eating greedily, . According to Knobel, Esau, by reason of his greediness, was not able to think of the name, lentiles, but points them out by the words, that Red! At the most, that Red might express his strong appetite, excited by the inviting color. The addition is generally interpreted: from that same Red. The repetition in the original shows that his appetite was greatly excited: Let me swallow, I pray thee, some of that Red, that Red there! We question, however, whether he did not say rather: Feed with that Red, me the Red one. Thus by a rude, witty play upon words, he would have introduced the fact of his afterward having been called the red one. At all events his name is not to be deduced from the red pottage. In the words and above there is indicated a different relation of the names (red-brown) and (hairy), but the one referring to , that red, i.e., brown-yellow pottage of lentiles, , is there predominant. Moreover, thousands of names, e.g., among the Arabs (comp. AbulfedasHist. Anteisl.), have a like fortuitous origin. But if any one should regard it as accidental that the history of nations for several thousand years should have been connected with a pottage of lentiles, he will not look in vain for similar occurrences in perusing the pages of Oriental history. [Therefore was his name called Edom. There is no discrepancy in ascribing the name both to his complexion and the color of the lentile broth. The propriety of a name may surely be marked by different circumstances. Nor is it unnatural to suppose that such occasions should occur in the course of life. Jacob, too, has the name given to him from the circumstances of his birth, here confirmed.A. G.] It is scarcely necessary to say here, that lentiles (adas) are still a favorite dish in Egypt and Syria. Delitzsch.Sell me this day.Knobel, as his manner is, regards this fact as improbable. He thinks the object of the narrative is to answer the question, how the birthright descended from Esau to Jacob, and thus erroneously supposes that, according to the Jewish view, the people of God, from Adam down to Isaac, had always descended from the line of the first-born. The text, however, presents to our view the contrast between Esaus carnal thinking and Jacobs believing sensibility, in the measure of fanatical exaggeration, and according to its conflict so decisive and typical for all time. The right of the first-born has its external and internal aspects. The external preference consisted in the headship over the brothers or the tribe (Gen 27:29), and later also in a double portion of the inheritance of the father. The internal preference was the right of priesthood, and in the house of Abraham, according to the supposition thus far assumed, a share in the blessing of the promise (Gen 27:4; Gen 27:27-29). [Which included the possession of Canaan and the covenant fellowship with Jehovah, and still more, the progenitorship of him in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed.A. G.] To acquire a rightful claim to this, was undoubtedly the principal aim in the bargain, as is seen immediately from the answer of Esau: I am at the point to die; and also from the fact that Esau appears not to have been limited in his external inheritance. It is to the praise of Jacob that he appreciated so highly a promise extending into the far future and referring to the invisible; the realization of which, moreover, though he was unconscious of it, was already prepared in his very being (either in his natural disposition or in his election). The acuteness, too, with which he discerned Esaus gross bondage to appetite, deserves no censure. The selfishness of his nature by which he so soon estimates his profits and takes advantage of his brother,this impure motive, as well as a fanatical self-will arising from his excitement in respect to the birthright, through which he anticipates Gods providence, is all the more obvious in his cunningly availing himself of the present opportunity. [Yet it must be borne in mind that he laid no necessity upon Esau. He leaves him to accept or reject the proposal. And Esau knew well, though he did not value it, what the birthright included. His own words, what profit shall it do to me, seeing I am about to die? show clearly that he knew that it included invisible and future things, as well as the visible and present. It was because he thus consciously sold his birthright, and for such a consideration, that the Apostle, Heb 12:16, calls him a profane person.A. G.] In Esau of course he was not mistaken.Behold I am at the point to die.Esau, in his carnal disposition, seems to regard only the present and the things of this life, and of the things of this life, the visible and the sensual only. He yields the entire higher import of the birthright, the specific blessing of Abraham, the inheritance of his posterity, the right and land of the covenant, for the satisfaction of a momentand that, too, near his paternal hearth, where he would soon have obtained a meal. He is therefore designated (Heb 12:16) as , or profane.Swear to me this day.Jacobs demand of an oath in this transaction evinces a very ungenerous suspicion, just as the taking of the oath on the part of Esau shows a low sense of honor.And rose up and went his way.As if nothing happened. Repentance followed later.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Rebekahs barrenness during twenty years. The sons of Isaac, too, were to be asked for; they were to be children of faith, especially Jacob. Sarahs example appears to occur again. Similar examples: Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth. Even when not viewed in the light of the Abrahamic promise of the blessing, barrenness was regarded in the ancient Orient as a trial of special severity; how much more so in this case. Starke: Barrenness among the patriarchs (Hebrews) was a painful occurrence. It was sometimes the fruitful source of strife (Gen 30:2); tears were shed (1Sa 1:7); it was considered a reproach (Luk 1:25); it was even held for a curse. Here, however, Abraham could from his own experience comfort them; he lived fifteen years after the birth of the children.
2. Isaacs intercession. It could be based upon Gods promise and Abrahams experience. Jehovah heard him. He granted more than asked. Instead of one child he received two. Undoubtedly Rebekah sustained his intercession by her prayers. 4. Brothers unlike, hostile; twins even at enmity, whose physiological unconscious antipathy shows itself already in the womb of the motherdark forebodings of life not yet existing, bearing witness, however, that the life of man already, in its coming into being, is a germinating seed of a future individuality. This cannot be meant to express a mutual hatred of the embryos. Antipathies, however, as well as sympathies, may be manifested in the germinating life of man as in the animal and vegetable kingdom. 7. Isaacs taste and Esaus greedinessthe two prime features of a likerish deportment. The weakness of the father soon increases to the greediness of the son. Isaacs contemplation and weakness as to his senses reminds us of similar contrasts. 9. To sell ones birthright for a pottage of lentiles: this expression has become the established expression for every exchange of eternal treasures, honors, and hopes, for earthly, visible, and momentary pleasures. No doubt the motto: Let us eat and drink, etc., is an echo of Esaus expression. Yet we are not at liberty to regard this moment of abandonment to appetite as an instance of a frame of mind continual, fixed; nor can we refer the divine reprobation, beginning with this moment, to his future happiness. He was rejected relatively to the prerogatives of the Abrahamic birthright. Notwithstanding his manliness and placability, he was not a man who had longings for the future, and therefore could not be a patriarch among the people of the future (Mal 1:3; Heb 12:17). Jacob, however, was different; he knew how to prize the promises, in spite of those faults of weakness and craft, from which Gods training purified him.
10. Thus it stood with both children even before their birth. The antithesis of their lives was grounded in the depths of their individuality, that is, in the religious inclination of the one, and the spiritual superficiality of the other. But their very foundations had their ground in the divine election (Rom 9:11). The fundamental relations become apparent, with respect to both, in a sinful manner. They become apparent through the sins of both, but they would have appeared, too, without their sinful actions, by Gods providence. The question is about a destination, who was to be the proper bearer of the covenant, not about happiness and perdition.
11. In their next conflict Jacobs ungenerous negotiation increases to fraud. Thence his subsequent great sufferings and atonement. By the deception of Laban, too, as well as by that of his sons, must expiation be made. The bloody coat of many colors, sent to him by his sons, reminded him of Esaus coat, in which he approached his father. For Jacobs opinion concerning the sufferings of his life, see Gen 47:9. Starke: Paul, in quoting these words, Rom 9:12, does not speak of an absolute decree to eternal life or eternal damnation. Because God was to establish his church among the posterity of Jacob, and the Messiah was to come through them, Esaus posterity, if desirous of salvation, must turn to the worship of Jacob (Joh 4:22). Upon the idea of election, see Langes Positive Dogmatic, article Ordo Salutis. [Also Tholuck, Meyer, Hodge on the passage Rom 9:11. It seems well-nigh impossible to escape the conviction that the Apostle here teaches the sovereign choice of persons, not merely to the external blessings, but the internal and spiritual blessings of his kingdom, i.e., to salvation.A. G.]
12. The present prophecy respecting Jacob and Esau is farther developed in the blessings of Isaac (Genesis 27). Thus everything was historically fulfilled. For Edom and Iduma, see the Bible Dictionaries; also respecting the prophetic declarations concerning Edom. The prophet Obadiah represents Edom as a type of the anti-theocratic (anti-Christian) conduct of false and envious brothers. This typical interpretation no more excludes the preaching of the Gospel in Iduma than similar and more definite representations of Babel exclude the preaching of Peter at Babylon.
13. The Hebraic, i.e., the profoundest conception of history, here comes into view again. All history develops itself from personal beginnings. The personal is predominant in history. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See the Doctrinal and Ethical. The house of a patriarch in its light and dark aspects: a. The divine blessing and human piety; b. human weakness and sin.Different directions of the parents. Contrasts of the children.The trials in the life of Isaac.Children a blessing, an heritage of the Lord.The intercession and its answer.Isaacs prayers, Rebekahs inquiries.Hoping mothers are to inquire of the Lord.Twin brothers not always twin spirits.Jacob and Esau.The sale of the birthright for a pottage of lentiles.Edoms character in respect to good and evil. (Saying of Lessing: Nothing in a man is condemned as execrable if he only has the reputation of honor and integrity.)Jacobs sin, to human eyes, indissolubly connected with his higher strivings.It is reserved to the chemistry of God to separate the dross of sin from the pure metal of a pious striving (Mal 3:3).The experience of the pious, a succession of divine purifications.Hereditary faults.Jacobs haste and eager grasping, the sign Of the severe expiatory penitential sorrows of his life.He wished to acquire externally, what Gods grace had put into his heart.The first fault of Jacob a harbinger of the second.Hereditary virtues and hereditary vices.Divine election: 1. A predestination of Jacobs and Esaus theocratic position; 2. no decree as to their deportment.Esau and Jacob; or a frank, noble disposition without subjectiveness, without a desire, and even without a true sense of divine things; opposed to an enthusiastic feeling for the eternal, yet tainted with self-deceit and dishonesty.Jacob, a man of the higher longing and hope. Esau, a man of sensual pleasure, regardless of the future.
Starke, Cramer: The true church is never respected by the world as much as the great mass of the children of the flesh; we must not, therefore, place the bushel by the largest heap.Bibl. Tub.: Children are an heritage of the Lord (Psa 127:3).Hall: Isaac asks for one son and he receives two.Lange: Married people are under obligations to unite in prayer, especially on important occasions.Notwithstanding natural causes, God, as creator, reserves to himself the closing and opening of the womb of mothers. This shows his sovereignty over the human race (Jer 31:20).Rebekah, in her impatience, may be a type of those who, having been aroused by God, so that a struggle, necessarily painful, takes place between spirit and flesh, soon become impatient.In an unfruitful conjugal life we are to take comfort in this: 1. That God visited with barrenness holy people in former timesSarah, Rachel, Hannah, Elisabeth; 2. God best knows our wants; 3. we are not to render an account for children, etc.; 4. to die without children takes away, in a certain degree, the bitterness of death; 5. the times are calamitous (Mat 24:19). In times of need we are not to consult soothsayers, but God and his word.(The struggle of the flesh with the spirit in the new life of the new-born; Rom 7:22-23).
Gen 25:26. Gen 3:16.Cramer: Within the pale of the Christian Church we have different classes of people: Jews and heathen (Joh 10:16), true believers and hypocrites, good and evil (Mat 13:47). God does not judge after the advantages of the flesh, of age, of size and other things which concern the appearance.Bibl. Wirt.: Two churches are prefigured here: one believing the promises of Christ; the other depending on a carnal advantage of antiquity and extent. These two bodies will never come to an agreement, until finally the true church, as the smaller, will overcome the false by the victory of her faith, and triumph over her in eternal blessedness (1Jn 5:4).O, children, remember what anxiety you have cost your mothers.
Gen 25:28. Lange: The preference of parents for one or another of their children may have its natural cause, and be sanctified, but seldom does it keep within proper limits. Probably Esau was more attached to his father, and Jacob to his mother. (Isaac, probably, prefers venison, not as a delicacy, but to make better and economical use of his cattle; and because wild animals are of no use to the husbandman, but only cause destruction to him.)
Gen 25:29. The simplicity of early time. Jacob sitting by the hearth and cooking, which is usually the duty of the females.
Gen 25:31. The apology for Jacob (Luther and Calvin, indeed, approve of his transaction on the ground of his right to the privilege of the first-born by the divine promise). Though the first-born was highly esteemed among the patriarchs, Christ would not descend from one of the first-born (indicating that he was the true first-born, who was to procure for us the right of the first-born from God). [See, also, Rom 8:29; Col 1:18; Rev 20:5; Heb 12:23.A. G.] He claims to descend, not from Cain, but from Shem; not from Nahor, or Haran, but from Abraham; not from Ishmael, but from Isaac; not from Esau, but from Jacob; not from the seven elder sons of Jesse, but from David, and from Solomon, who was one of Davids younger sons.(Gen 25:27. The permission of hunting on certain conditions: First, that the regular vocation be not neglected; second, that our neighbor be not injured.)Cramer: In educating children we are to pay particular attention to their dispositions, observing in what direction each one inclines, for not every one is qualified for all things (Pro 20:11; Pro 22:6).Godless men, who, for the sake of temporary things, despise and hazard the eternal (Php 3:19).
Gerlach: The birth of many celebrated men of God, preceded by a long season of barrenness.Thereby the new-born babe is to become not only more endeared to the parents, who turn their whole attention to it, but is especially to be regarded by them as a supernatural gift of God, and thus become a type of the Saviours birth from a virgin.The divine prophecy: The patriarchs come into view only (?) in reference to their descendants, with whom they are considered as constituting a unity. For prophecy has not been fulfilled in respect to the brothers as individuals.Lisco: A frivolous contempt of an advantage bestowed on him by God.So, also, an inconsiderate oath (Heb 12:16).An immoderate longing after enjoyment sacrifices the greatest for the least, the eternal for the temporal.Calwer Handbuch: Abraham too rejoiced in the birth of these boys; he lived yet 15 years after their birth, and the narrative of his death and burial has been, for historical purposes, considered first. When the inherited blessing of the promise is the subject treated of, the mere course of nature cannot decide the issues, in order that all praise may be to God, and not to men.Schrder: (The Rabbins explain Isaacs faithfulness to Rebekah from the fact of his having been offered in sacrifice to God (1Ti 3:2). Isaac, to whom the very promise was given, is placed after Ishmael, and Ishmael, possessing a temporal promise only, is put far before him. He is lord over other lords, counts 12 princes in his line, while Isaac lived alone and without any children, like a lifeless clod (Luther).All the works of God begin painfully, but they issue excellently and gloriously. Earthly undertakings progress rapidly, and blaze up like a fire made of paper, but sudden leaps seldom prosper (Val. Herb.).Every mother conceals a future; every maternal heart is full of presagings. Her bodily pains, she interprets as spiritual throes that await her.The case of Rebekah presents consolation to a woman with child (Val. Herb.).Calvin: Rebekah probably inquired of God in prayer.Her example should teach us not to give way too much to sadness in distress. We are to restrain, and struggle with, ourselves.Prophecy (even the heathen oracles) always assumes a solemn and metrical style, etc. The prophet is a poet, as frequently the poet is a prophet.Her alarming presentiment did not deceive Rebekah. The struggle within her indicated the external and internal conflicts not only of her children, but even of the nations which were to descend from them.This Gen 25:23 embraces all times; it is the history of the world, of the church, and of individual hearts, enigmatically expressed. (Coats made of red camels hair were worn by poor people, also by prophets (Zec 13:4; 2Ki 1:8).)The Hebrew Admoni is also connected with Adam; Esau is a son of Adam, predominantly inclined to the earth and earthly things.(Isaacs bodily nature appears feeble everywhere; Gen 27:1; Gen 27:19). Such persons are fond of choice and finer viands. Wherever Abraham has calves flesh, butter and milk, on special festive occasions, Isaac delights in venison and wine (Gen 27:3-4; Gen 27:25).In the Logos, as the first-born of all creatures, the signification of the first-born, both animal and human, has its true, its ultimate, and divine foundation (Ziegler). The father is pleased, that Esau, like Ishmael, Gen 21:20, is a good hunter, and he regards it as an ornament to the first-born, who is to have the government (Luther). Esau becomes Edom, and therefore, still the more remains Esau merely; Jacob, on the other hand, becomes Israel (Gen 32:28).Jacob is the man of hope. The possession that he greatly desires is of a higher order: hopes depending on the birthright. He never strives after the lower birthright privileges. (It is doubtful, also, whether these were as fully developed at the time of Abraham as at the time of Moses).I am at the point to die. Sooner or later I will have to succumb to the perils to which my vocation exposes me. A thought expressed more than once by Arabic heroes (Tuch).Esaus insight into the future extended to his death only.Jacobs request that Esau should swear. He is as eager for the future as Esau is for the present.(Lentiles, to this day, are a very favorite dish among the Arabs, being mostly eaten in Palestine as a pottage. Robinson found them very savory, etc.).Want of faithful confidence in him who had given him such a promise, it was this that made Jacob wish to assist God with carnal subtilty, as Abraham once with carnal wisdom.Thou shalt not take advantage of thy brother. For the present, no doubt, Jacob obscured the confidence of his hopes, just as Abraham, by anticipation, obscured his prospects.As Ishmael had no claim for the blessings of the birthright, because begotten , so Esau forfeits the blessings of his birthright, not because begotten , but because inclined (Delitzsch).
Footnotes:
[7][Gen 25:19.The is more than genealogies. See note on Gen 25:4, Genesis 2.A. G.]
[8][Gen 25:22.Lit., If so, for what this am I.A. G.]
[9][Gen 25:23. and are here used as synonymous, although there is ground for the distinction which refers the former to the nations generally, and the latter to the peculiar people of God.A. G.]
[10][Gen 25:25.All over like a hairy garment; literally, the whole of him as a mantle of hair.A. G.]
[11]Gen 25:27., perfect, peaceful, in his disposition, as compared with the rude, roving Esau.A. G.
And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac: And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian. And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
Twenty years Rebekah continued barren, for Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, and 60 years old when Esau and Jacob were born. See Gen 25:26 .
XXVI
ISAAC AND JACOB
Gen 25:19-28:9
We take up the story of Isaac and Jacob. The closing paragraphs of Isaac’s history are recorded in Gen 35:28-29 , his death and burial. There is an old saying, “Blessed is the nation which has no history.” History is devoted to extraordinary events. A thousand years of quiet and peace find no description in the pages of history. A few years of wars, pestilences, and earthquakes receive much attention. Isaac may be called the patriarch without a history.
I wish to refer first to his mother. An examination question will be: What New Testament passages refer favorably to Sarah? The answer in Heb 11 says that she is a woman of faith. By faith she was enabled to bear seed. 2Pe 3:6 , places her above the woman of Peter’s time as a model in subjection and obedience to her husband and the laws of maternal relation. The apostle Paul in Gal 4 makes Sarah the type of the Jerusalem which is above the mother of us all.
We have considered in previous lectures the things which went before Isaac’s birth. As early as Gen 12:3 , God had promised that in Abraham’s seed all the families of men should be blessed, but Abraham thought that could apply to an adopted child as well as a real child. When the promise is spoken a second time, it is expressly stated that it should be his own child. Then Abraham did not know who the mother would be. But the third statement was that it was not only to be his own child, but by his wife, Sarah. So according to Paul, Isaac comes into the world the child of promise, and by a miraculous birth. In this respect he is the type of all Christians who are regenerated, born of supernatural power.
In contrasting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we find Isaac unlike his father and son in the following particulars: He was unlike them in age. He lived to be 180 years old; neither of them lived that long. In the matter of travel: Isaac never got out of the sight of the smoke that went up from the tent where he was born. With a compass you might draw a circle with a radius of 100 miles around his birthplace as a center, and he was never beyond that circle. He was never north of the city of Jerusalem; east of the river Jordan; south of the South country where Beersheba was; never west of the Mediterranean Sea. No man of his age and with his wealth traveled so little. Again, he was unlike both father and son in his marriage relations. He had but one wife, and she bore him only two children, both at one birth. He was as pure a man in the marriage relation as ever lived in the world. He was unlike both father and son in his passiveness, i.e., he had no spirit of aggression or self-assertion. He was never in a battle. There were very few stirring events in his history. But when you read the lives of Abraham and Jacob many mighty and thrilling events come up. Unlike father and son, he became blind in his old age and nearly helpless. You might say that Jacob’s life commenced with a struggle, and was under the clouds the early years, but about the middle of his life the sun shines out, and the sunset is unclouded. Isaac commenced life with laughter and ended with sorrow. The record tells of his building only one altar, though he may have built others. He offered only one prayer, the prayer for his wife. God appeared to him only twice, but to Jacob and Abraham many times. He was like Abraham in one fault, duplicity concerning his wife to the king of the Philistines. He was like both father and son in being a prophet of God.
The record passes over the happy years of his life, most of the 120 years. If you have read Thomson’s Land and the Book, or any modern book about the South country, you have a vivid description of the kind of land where he lived. No perennial streams, scarcely any trees, bleak mountains and plains, in the spring a beautiful country of flowers, but they last only a short time. I have seen at least forty varieties of them gathered from the fields where Isaac lived. The water question was a great question in his life, as of all the patriarchs, there being little rain and the streams entirely dry the greater part of the year. So they had to dig for water. And one may imagine the growing up of this boy under favorable and happy circumstances, loved by his father and mother, scarcely any troubles, quietly Jiving his life in a tent, amid flowers and flocks and herds.
The record does tell about his trials. I give you a list. They commenced when he was weaned, at three years old. At that time he wag very much persecuted by his big brother, Ishmael, who was fourteen years older. That strong wild boy, superseded by the coming of Isaac, persecuted the little fellow, and if I had to say under what sense of wrong my soul was most indignant in my youth, it would be in observing rude, big boys, being cruel to timid little fellows at school. Nobody can tell through what horrors a timid soul passes in going out in public life and coming in contact with rougher beings. Especially is this true in schools, and where hazing is permitted, it is perfectly awful. The next sorrow was when he was offered up. He was then about twenty and had lived in perfect peace about seventeen years. Next when his mother died. He could not be consoled for several years, because she was everything to him. He was the child of his mother. There is a legend I do not call it history that when Abraham took Isaac to offer him up he told Sarah and broke her heart and caused her death. You don’t get that out of the Bible, however. The next trial is one that a good many children come in touch with, the introducing of a stepmother into the family, but the record does not indicate that there was any trouble between Isaac and his wife and Keturah, the second wife of Abraham. The next, a very great sorrow, was that his wife bore no children. He had been married twenty years, and it troubled him much, knowing the promise of God. But instead of seeking to fulfill the prophecy as Abraham and Sarah had done, he carried the case to God in prayer. The Lord heard him and promised that children should be born to him. The next trial was the death of his father. His twin boys, Jacob and Esau, were about fifteen years old. So the grandfather lived long enough to know the boys thoroughly. The next trouble was when the famine came, and he had to go into the land of the Philistines, and he was afraid that Abimelech or some other ungodly man would kill him in order to get his wife. It does not always follow, however, that other people are as anxious to capture our wives as we think they are. But it nearly happened in this case.
We now come to the culminating period of Isaac’s life, Gen 26:12-28 . He is now in the country of Abimelech: “And Isaac sowed in that land . . . and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.” There Abimelech and Phicol made a covenant with him and from now on his sorrows multiply. The next sorrow arises from a little transaction concerning a mess of pottage. You remember the prophecy that the older child of Isaac should serve the younger. The mother was partial to Jacob. Esau, a man of the plains, and a great hunter, was loved by his father. The mother instructed her son to help out God’s prophecy. She watched her chance. The chance came when Esau returned from hunting, tired and hungry, and Jacob had Just made a pot of red pottage. Esau’s own name meant red-headed, and people don’t have red heads for nothing. Esau said to Jacob, “Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint.” And Jacob said, “I will give it to you if you will acknowledge that the birthright belongs to me.” That was driving a hard bargain, but Esau was so hungry that he sold the birthright. Isaac did not say a word, but in his own mind he determined to bestow the blessing on Esau, because he loved him most. The next trouble comes in Esau’s marriage. Esau married two idolatrous women, and the record states that it was a great grief to Rebekah and Isaac. The next calamity is that Isaac begins to go blind. Next the great deception was practiced on him by his wife and Jacob. Feeling that he might soon pass away he determined as a prophet to bestow the blessing on the firstborn, on Esau. So he told Esau to go out and kill venison and fix him a savory dish. Isaac liked Esau’s venison, somewhat of a sensual man. I am told that it is a characteristic of some preachers these days to like savory dishes, and woe to the preacher who has to preach at night after eating a big dinner of mince pie at twelve o’clock! Rebekah seemed to have a listening ear and heard Isaac talking to Esau. Now she is going to help God out. Isaac willed that Esau should have the birthright. Esau ran to kill the venison. Jacob and Rebekah plotted to defeat him. So she put Esau’s clothing on Jacob, as Esau was a hairy man. Rebekah told him to kill and dress a kid and tell the old man it was venison, and that he was Esau. It was a very villainous transaction. Jacob brought the kid and the father said, “Is this my son Esau?” and Jacob said, “Yes, father.” Isaac said, “Come here, let me feel.” He felt of the garment and said, “The touch is like Esau, but the voice is like Jacob.” Anyhow he ate the dish of kid and pronounced the blessing on Jacob. Here is that blessing in poetic form:
See, the smell of my son
Is as the smell of a field which
Jehovah hath blessed;
And God give thee of the dew of heaven,
And of the fatness of the earth,
And plenty of grain and wine:
Let peoples serve thee,
And nations bow down to thee:
Be lord over thy brethren,
And let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee:
Cursed be every one that curseth thee,
And blessed be every one that blesseth thee.
There Isaac gives Jacob power over his brother, thinking he was giving it to Esau. Now the question arises and Paul argues it in Rom 9 , how could God approve such fraud as that? Well, God did not approve it. Paul says, “It is not of him that willeth.” Isaac willed to give it to Esau. “It is not of him that runneth.” Esau ran to get the venison. It was not of Jacob and his mother, but of the election, God having decreed before the children were born, before either one had done good or evil, that the younger should be the one through whom the Messiah should come.
The most touching thing was when Esau came back: “And it came to pass as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out of the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. And he also made savoury food, and brought it unto his father; and he said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac, his father, said, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled exceedingly, and said, Who then is he that hath taken venison and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou earnest, and have blessed him? Yea, and he shall be blessed. When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried, Bless me, even me, O my father. Jacob hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and behold he hath taken my blessing.” And Isaac answered:
Behold, of the fatness of the earth shall be thy dwelling,
And of the dew of heaven from above;
And by thy sword shalt thou live, and thou shalt
serve thy brother;
And it shall be as thou rovest at will, thou wilt
shake off thine enemy.
In one of the old prophets it is said, “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.” That refers not to the persons of Jacob and Esau, but to the nationalities. Esau was heathen, and Jacob was Israel. None of this work of election in any particular had anything to do with the character of either. None of it with the wishes of the father and mother. It was God’s sovereign disposition of the case and touched the descendants rather than the two persons. Heb 12:16 brings out the character of Esau a little more plainly: “Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his birthright. For ye know that when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” That used to trouble me. It looked like Esau wanted to repent of his sin and God would not forgive him. I will read it to you according to the true rendering: “For he found no place for a change of mind in the father.” It was not Esau’s repentance, but Isaac’s repentance. Don’t ever misapply that scripture. That was a great trouble to Isaac. And as for the rascality of Jacob and Rebekah, they had to bear a heavy burden. Esau determined to kill Jacob and his mother seat him away and never saw him again.
The next thing was the death of his brother Ishmael; then the death of his wife; and afterward the departure of Esau. There he was alone, father, wife, brother dead, one son banished and another gone away. Then Jacob came and comforted him in his last illness. I have given you an outline of the sorrows of Isaac, but there are really two that I have not mentioned, viz.: Jacob had gotten to the Holy Land on his return, but had not reached his father’s house when Rachel died. Isaac was living, but he never got to see Rachel. Joseph was sold into slavery and Isaac never saw him, then comes the death of Isaac.
Let us look at the character of this man. He was intensely religious, domestic and peaceful; passive in his resistance to evil and in one event of his life a type of Christ; when he got to the mountain he carried the wood upon which he was to be offered as Christ bore his own cross until he fainted. A type of the Christian is his miraculous birth. When we come to consider Jacob and Esau further attention will be given to these details. In the grave of Machpelah, by the side of his father Abraham, and mother Sarah, Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried. And to this day the Arabs point to the casket which contains the remains. This is the culminating period of the prosperity in the life of Isaac. So we now pass to the
HISTORY OF JACOB In the first of the chapter on Isaac we have necessarily considered somewhat the incidents of Jacob’s life up to the time that he left his father’s home. It was then said that those incidents would be examined more particularly when we studied Jacob’s own life. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in reply to the question, How early should the education of a child begin? replied, “Commence with his grandmother.” To a great extent certainly most lives are the mixed results of preceding forces. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, are all in some degree reproduced in Jacob. Oliver Wendell Holmes also says, “A man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors ride.” Don’t forget these two quotations. This thought he embodies and illustrates in his book Elsie Venner. The object of that book was to show how conflicting ancestral traits struggled for supremacy in this girl. We might add that every life is a result of many forces, including the following: (1) God; (2) the devil; (3) heredity; (4) individuality; (5) environment; (6) opportunity; (7) education; (8) habits. We will be little prepared to analyze or comprehend Jacob’s life, if we lose sight of any one of these forces. So far in Jacob’s life individuality has bad but limited place, since he has been under the dominion, or domination, of his mother. Individuality comes most into play when we are thrown upon our own resources, and are responsible for our own decisions and have to make our own way. We will find in this history that Jacob appears to much greater advantage when his own individuality comes into play than when he was under the influence of another. We will find the value of his past habits in his taking care of himself and making a support, and that, too, under very adverse conditions, more adverse than that of any of you boys, hard as you think your lot is. We are going to like Jacob a great deal better as we get on in his history than we do at the start. It has been well said that no hunter is a good businessman. This holds good from Esau to Rip Van Winkle. The domestic habits of Jacob, and his training in caring for flocks and herds, serve him well in after life. From his mother and her family comes his shrewd business sense. Woe to the man who expects to get rich trading with Jacob. He is a prototype of all Yankees and modern Jews in driving close bargains. Hunter Esau was the first victim to “cut his eye-teeth” on that fact.
But before we study the individuality as manifested when thrown upon his own resources, we must refresh our minds with a backward glance at his history as given in previous chapters. His parentage, Isaac, son of Abraham, and Rebekah, granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. But a mightier factor than parental influence or heredity touches him. Prophecies and mighty doctrines were on their way toward him before be began to be. God comes before parents. The divine purpose and the divine election touching his life will look far beyond the personal Jacob, and be far above and paramount over affection, will, weakness, or duplicity of parent or child, long after the earthly actors are dead. Yea, into thousands of years of the future the foreknowledge, predestination and election of God will project themselves until the whole human race becomes involved in Jacob, and until eternity and everlasting destiny comes. Deep and wide as may be this shoreless ocean of the divine purpose, we are permitted to look at it, so far as revealed, though it be unnavigable by the human reason. Prophecies: The first prophecy directly affecting. Jacob is God’s answer to the mother’s inquiry concerning the infants in her womb. “Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated therefrom, and one shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger.” This prophecy evidently refers not so much to the boys themselves as to their descendants. Indeed in its wider significance it concerns all nations more than the two nations. So referring, it considers neither parental bias, nor character of either child. It is not a divine decree fixing the eternal destiny of either child. For reasons sufficient to himself, God of his own will selects one of these nations to become his people and through whom he will savingly reach all other peoples. The second relevant prophecy appears in Isaac’s blessing on Jacob: “And God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and new wine.” That is temporal. “Let peoples serve thee and nations bow down to thee.” That is national. That refers to the primogeniture. “Cursed be every one that curseth thee and blessed be every one that blesseth thee.” That is the prophecy of the twenty-seventh chapter. This prophecy is restated and enlarged in the blessing on Esau, as follows: “And thou shalt serve thy brother, but it shall come to pass, when thou shalt break loose, thou shalt shake his yoke off thy neck” (Gen 24:40 ). These two prophecies, like the first, find their real meaning in the descendant nations, rather than in Jacob and Esau personally. Esau himself never served Jacob himself. Their application to the nations rather than to the brothers themselves appears in the last Old Testament book, Mal 1:2-5 : “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith Jehovah, yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation.” It is evident that Malachi in his day, thousands of years after Jacob and Esau, is not discussing the two men personally, but Jacob the people, and Edom, Esau’s people. This national application is also evident from Paul’s use of the Genesis and Malachi quotations in Rom 9:10-13 . He is there discussing God’s election of Israel to be his people, and how that nation, on account of infidelity, was cast off and the Gentiles took their places. He is proving that doctrine from this quotation from Malachi. All this prophecy, Paul says, illustrates God’s sovereign election. But so far it is the election of a nation. Personal election of an individual Christian is not so far discussed. The personal privilege conferred in this is the primogeniture conferred on Jacob. In what did this right consist? I am sure to ask that question on examination. The answer is: (1) Rule in family and tribe; (2) A double portion of the inheritance (Deu 2:17 ); (3) The priesthood of the family and the high priesthood of the tribe. In England the right of primogeniture still prevails to a large extent. The eldest son inherits the father’s estate, and in order to support that property they have the “Law of Entail,” that the property cannot be alienated, but must pass down to each first son. The income may be used in providing a portion for the other children, but the principal must remain intact. That is one of the special privileges our forefathers objected to. Jefferson and his colaborers determined to abolish both of these laws as far as they applied to America. The history of Virginia shows various steps of legislation undertaken by Jefferson, and aided particularly by the Baptists, in destroying these laws. A man may bequeath his property by will, but that will is subject to legal investigations. It can be broken if he unjustly deprive any child of a fair share of the inheritance. The original prophecy that the elder should serve the younger was never forgotten by the mother, and through her it was made known to her favorite son, Jacob. In both of them arose a desire to hasten the fulfillment of that prophecy. Like Sarah, their impatience could not wait for God himself to fulfill his word. Now comes another examination question, What was the first step taken to hasten its fulfillment? That mess of pottage business. I will not recite the history, but I will ask you on examination to analyze Jacob’s sin in that transaction, and Esau’s sin. The analysis of Jacob’s sin is: (1) Presumption toward God by human instrumentality to hurry up God’s purpose. (2) Unfilial toward Isaac. (3) Unfraternal and inhuman toward Esau to take advantage of his extremity by a sharp bargain. (4) It was snatching at a promise before it was ripe. The doctrine involved is: You may do evil to bring about a good thing. That is the doctrine of the Jesuits, abhorrent to God’s Word. This evil rather delayed matters. It brought on Jacob the intense hatred of Esau. The analysis of Esau’s sin is: (1) He was sensual; the satisfaction of present desire seemed greater than future blessing. (2) There was profanity in his sin; he despised the sacred primogeniture. How does the Old Testament characterize Esau’s sin? “He despised the birthright.” How does the New Testament? “He was guilty of profanity.” Any act of irreverence is profanity. There has come a proverb from that transaction: “Don’t sell your birthright.” Who has written a book entitled The Mess of Pottage You will find it in the book stores, but I do not recommend it to you. Ben Franklin has a similar proverb. When he was small, a man had a whistle which he made very attractive. Ben Franklin, so intense in his desire to get that whistle, gave the man everything he had. But when he walked off he felt very much dissatisfied; it did not whistle as well as he thought it would. It taught him this: Never pay too much for a whistle. John Bunyan, in Pilgrim’s Progress, has a picture hanging in the interpreter’s house: Two boys, Patience and Passion. Passion rushes up and says, “Father, give me all my goods right now.” The father gives him the goods and he soon spends all. But Patience waits for the right time. Many people are so governed by appetite that though they may know that the commission of an offense will wreck their future career, they forget the future in their lust.
What was the second step to hasten the fulfillment of the promise? It consists in the concerted action between Rebekah and Jacob to deceive blind old Isaac and have him bless Jacob, confirming the right of primogeniture. I shall now proceed to analyze the sin of Rebekah in this transaction. Rebekah’s sin consisted in presumption toward God in doing an evil thing and in the overweening power over Jacob’s character, who did.. not want to do it. “Honoring the mother,” was carried beyond the legitimate limit. Children ought not to obey their parents in committing a crime. Jacob’s sin consisted in making his mother’s desire greater than the promptings of conscience and regard for God’s will. This did not help the purpose a particle. How does the New Testament show that it did not help the purpose? “It is not to him that willeth, like Isaac, nor to him that runneth, like Esau, but it was of God.” It intensified Esau’s hatred against his brother: “He cheated me out of my birthright by trade, and now out of my father’s blessing. I will kill him.” Esau was the fellow to do it. He would boil over, and in anger would kill anybody. So to save the favorite child the mother sent him away and never saw him again. She did not make anything, “but it is true that both of these evil steps were overruled by the providence of God for good.
QUESTIONS 1. Why may Isaac be called a “patriarch without a history”?
2. What New Testament passages refer favorably to Sarah?
3. What three revelations to Abraham concerning the “child of promise” and of what is this child in his birth a type?
4. In what respects of life and character did Isaac differ from his father, Abraham, and his son, Jacob?
5. For what does the New Testament commend him? (Heb 11:20 .)
6. Describe the land where he lived. What was the great problem of his life?
7. Though the most of Isaac’s life was joyful and peaceful, he had some trials and sorrows. Tell them.
8. Cite scripture showing culmination of Isaac’s prosperity.
9. In which one of the trials was he a type of our Lord?
10. What prophecy was Jacob trying to have fulfilled in the “mess of pottage” translation? Was it right to seek its fulfillment in this way?
11. How did Isaac undertake to nullify the trade between Jacob and Esau and how was his plan defeated?
12. Did God approve such transaction and what Paul’s explanation of it?
13. What pathetic incident followed and what was the blessing upon Esau?
14. What is the meaning of the name “Jacob” and from what incident originated?
15. What is the meaning of “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated”?
16. Give the character of Esau as interpreted in the New Testament and what other name had Esau?
17. In Heb 12:17 , was the blessing that Esau vainly sought salvation? Explain, then, the passage: “He found no place for repentance, though he sought carefully with tears.”
18. What two sad events after Jacob’s return to the Holy Land before he reached his father’s house?
19. Describe the character of Isaac and in what was he a type of Christ?
20. With whom, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, must a child’s education begin?
21. What other saying of his bears on heredity?
22. What book did he write on ancestral traits?
23. What forces are factors in every human life?
24. When does individuality come most into play and the application to Jacob?
25. What was the mightiest force that touched Jacob, what was the prophecies concerning him and what is the application of these prophecies?
26. What was Paul’s use of the first of these prophecies together with Mal 1:2-5 ?
27. What was the personal privilege conferred on Jacob in these prophecies and blessings?
28. In what did the right of primogeniture consist and what traces of this in history?
29. Analyze Jacob’s and Esau’s sin in the “mess of pottage” transaction and what was the doctrine involved?
30. How does the Old Testament characterize Esau’s sin? The New Testament?
31. What is profanity and what proverb from the transaction? Illustrate.
32. What were the sins of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob, respectively, in the transaction about the blessing?
Gen 25:19 And these [are] the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac:
Ver. 19. And these are the generations. ] That is, the affairs and occurrences.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 25:19-26
19Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham became the father of Isaac; 20and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. 21Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23The LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”
24When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. 26Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.
Gen 25:19 “now these are the records of the generations of Isaac” This is the same characteristic phrase discussed in Gen 25:12, but here it relates to the covenanter and is therefore, highly expanded.
“Abraham’s son: Abraham became the father of Isaac” This is an unusual repetitive statement. Rashi says the doublet was used to dispel the rumor that Isaac was the child of Abimelech (by Sarah). The rabbis also state that Isaac looked just like Abraham in the face in order to dispel this rumor which was started by the event in Gen 20:1-18.
Gen 25:20 “Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah” When one compares Gen 25:20 with Gen 25:26 it is obvious that Isaac was sixty years old at the birth of Jacob.
“Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan-aram” The word “Syrian” is often translated “Armenian” (BDB 74). It seems to be the district surrounding the town of Haran. Paddan-aram (BDB 804 and BDB 74) means “the plains of Aram,” which denotes the same area as “Aram-naharaim” of Gen 24:10.
Gen 25:21 “and Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren” There were two major theological purposes for the Patriarchs having barren (BDB 785) wives: (1) to show God’s provision and (2) to show that this was not of human effort, but by grace and not merit. The rabbis use this text to emphasize the power of intercessory prayer.
Gen 25:22 “but the children struggled together within her” This is a violent VERB (BDB 954, KB 1285, Hithpolel IMPERFECT). It is translated (NIDOTTE, vol. 3, 1191)
1. in Qal stem as crush, smash, abuse
2. in Niphal stem as crack, break
3. in Hiphil and Piel stems as crush in pieces
4. in Polel as oppress
5. in Hithpolel as crush each other
This was a prophetic foreshadowing relating to Gen 25:23.
“and she said, ‘if it is so, why then am I this way'” There has been much discussion over this idiomatic, ambiguous phrase (lit. “why this, I?”). The current theories are:
1. She was asking why she was made pregnant by God and then was having such complications; at this point she did not know that she was carrying twins.
2. Her pregnancy was causing her great pain and she wondered why she had ever asked for this.
3. She was literally worried for her life amidst this problem pregnancy.
4. She feared that this turmoil would continue after she gave birth. The troubled pregnancy was a sign of trouble to come (a foreshadowing).
“so she went to inquire of the LORD” This has also caused much discussion among the commentators. They ask where she went and who she asked! It is obvious that the text does not record this. Some assert that there was a set place for patriarchal worship. There has been much speculation about who she consulted.
1. Luther says she talked to Shem
2. the rabbis say she talked to Melchizedek
3. others assert that she spoke to Abraham
4. still others believe it was Isaac
5. possibly, it was simply personal prayer at a family altar (possibly even a sacrifice)
It is possible that this text and Gen 28:22 imply holy attendants at sacred places (i.e., priests, Roland deVaux, Ancient Israel, vol. 2, p. 345).
Gen 25:23 “And the LORD said to her” This is an extremely significant poetic word from the Lord to Rebekah. God had already promised children to Isaac (cf. Gen 17:19; Gen 21:12). This prophecy specifically delineates which one of the children would carry the family line. This is quoted in Rom 9:10-12. One wonders why Isaac did not seem to follow this word from the Lord, for obviously Rebekah shared it with him when he tried to make Esau the inheritor in chapters 26 and 27.
“and the older shall serve the younger” Like the barren wives of the Patriarchs this phrase shows that the promised seed will not be done in the normal way that the Semites performed inheritance rights (cf. Rom 9:10-12).
Gen 25:25 “the first came forth red” This term (admoni, BDB 10, “red”) is related to the term in Genesis which speaks of the “dust” (BDB 9) out of which God created man (cf. Gen 2:7), the “Adamah,” which apparently also has the root idea of “red” (BDB 10). The wordplay continues in Gen 25:30, where the red porridge (BDB 10) is linked to the name “Edom” (BDB 10), from which we get the nation which would come from Esau.
“like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau” The term “hairy” (BDB 972) sounds very much like the term “Seir” (BDB 973), which is the earlier name for Edom. There is a double play on the words “red” and “hairy” and “Esau” and “Edom.”
This Hebrew description of a baby as red and hairy may not convey the right connotation to modern readers. This was not meant in any way to be negative. The term “hairy” (BDB 12) implied a beautiful, impressive garment (e.g., Jos 7:21; Jos 7:24 or a prophet’s mantle (cf. 1Ki 19:13; 1Ki 19:19; 2Ki 2:8; 2Ki 2:13-14).
Gen 25:26 “And afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob” The name Jacob (BDB 784) is related to “heel” (BDB 784). From Hos 12:3 and from Esau’s comment in Gen 27:36 we recognize that the name Jacob evolved into “supplanter” or “usurper” (from a similar VERB and ADJECTIVE, BDB 784). It is not until his confrontation with God at the brook Jabbok years later that his name will be changed to “Israel” (cf. Gen 32:28) and by implication his character.
“and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them” It is to be noted that he had waited twenty years, in faith, for this promised child. God was testing Isaac in the same way He had tested Abraham.
begat. The same form of the verb as in Genesis 5, used of the godly seed.
Jacob and Esau, Twin Brothers
Gen 25:19-34
In the thought of that age, the birthright carried with it the spiritual leadership of the tribe. To be the priest of the family, to stand between the Most High and the rest of the household, to receive divine communications and execute the divine will, and to be in the direct line of the Messiah-such were some of the privileges that gathered around this position. They were nought in Esaus estimation, and he was quite content to part with all they implied, if only he might have the immediate gratification of appetite. The steaming fragrance of the lentil pottage was sweet in the nostrils of the hungry hunter. We have all passed through such an experience. On the one hand, our self-respect, our true advantage, our God; on the other, passionate desire crying, Give, give. In days and hours like that, beware: for you may say a word or do an act that shall determine your future, and, like Esau, you will find no loophole for altering the cast of the die. See Heb 12:16.
IX. THE GENERATIONS OF ISAAC
CHAPTER 25:19-34 Esau and Jacob
1. Rebekah barren and the answered prayer (Gen 25:19-22)
2. The birth of Esau and Jacob (Gen 25:23-26)
3. The growth of the boys (Gen 25:27-28)
4. Esau sells his birthright (Gen 25:29-34)
It was 25 years after Abraham entered Canaan before Isaac was born. It was 20 years after Isaacs marriage before the birth of Esau and Jacob. The barren condition of Rebekah led Isaac to exercise faith and to cast himself upon the Lord for help. And He answered him. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and manifest His power in answer to prayer. Before the children were born the Lord had declared, the elder shall serve the younger. The struggle in Rebekahs womb reminds us of the struggle between the two seeds (Ishmael and Isaac) in Abrahams household. Gods sovereignty is here solemnly made known. He knew them before they were born and He made His choice according to His own sovereign will and purpose. And not only this; but when Rebekah also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac (for the children being not yet born, neither having done good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him that calleth), it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated (Rom 9:11-13). That this does not refer to any unconditional and eternal condemnation is clear. It must be noticed that the statement Esau have I hated does not appear in Genesis, but in the last book of the Old Testament. Then the character and defiance of Edom had become fully established. In Genesis the Lord speaks only of having chosen Jacob and what creature of the dust can challenge His right to do so.
Then Esau sold his birthright. It fully brought out the defiance of his wicked heart (Heb 12:16-17). The blessings of the birthright he sold consisted in three things: 1. The fathers blessing and the place of head of the family; 2. The honor of being in the direct line of the promised One–Shem-Abraham-Isaac; 3. The exercise of the domestic priesthood. All this Esau despised for a carnal gratification. How numerous are his followers in our days who might have greater blessings, but they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
am 2108, bc 1896
Abraham: 1Ch 1:32, Mat 1:2, Luk 3:34, Act 7:8
Reciprocal: Gen 2:4 – the generations Gen 21:10 – Cast out
JACOB AND ESAU
THE DEFRAUDED BIRTHRIGHT (Gen 25:19-34)
As we read the introductory part of this chapter, we are impressed that many of the mothers of the notable men of the Bible were for a long while childless: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and the mothers of Samson, Samuel and John the Baptist. Was this that their faith might be proved? We wonder, too, what is meant by the statement that Rebekah went to inquire of Jehovah. There seems to have been some way, even in that early time, where individuals could communicate with God. As Abraham was a prophet, and living not far from her, it has been suggested that she may have gone to inquire of the Lord through him.
In considering Gen 25:23, be careful not to charge God with partiality in the choice of Jacob, and it will save us from so doing if we remember that (1) on the natural plane of things, if there be two nations one is likely to be stronger than the other; (2) God not only foresees this but has the right to pre-determine it, especially when the blessing of all the nations is involved therein; and (3) this determination in the present case brought no hardship upon the weaker nation as such, nor did it prevent any of its individuals for receiving all the blessings of the life to come.
And yet this by no means justifies the meanness of Jacob, any more than the recklessness of Esau. Neither brother distinguishes himself in the transaction, while Jacobs conduct is only another illustration of an attempt to assist God in the fulfillment of His promises. Patience would have gotten him the birthright with honor to himself as well as glory to God.
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF (Gen 26:1-33)
How much of this chapter reminds us of the previous one in the life of Abraham! There is little to be explained, but the facts should be noted.
The well called Rehoboth still remains strengthened with masonry of immense proportions and great antiquity. It is believed that it is the well which Isaac dug, although the country is now a desert in contrast to its fruitfulness in his time. We may add that at present there are two old wells in Beersheba, three hundred yards apart, and Dr. Edward Robinson gives his opinion that the larger may be the famous well of Abraham, while possibly the second may be that which Isaac dug when the former was stopped up by the Philistines. The locality still bears the same name, only in Arabic form.
THE DEFRAUDED BLESSING (Gen 27:1-40)
The closing verse of chapter 26 gave us a further insight into Esaus character, qualifying our sympathy for him. His purpose in marrying the daughters of the Canaanite princes was doubtless to increase his worldly importance, a circumstance opposed to the divine purpose in the separation of Abraham and his seed from the other nations. If the descendants of Abraham were the daughters of the heathen Canaanites, they would soon lose the traditions of their family and every trace of their heavenly calling. As a matter of fact, this became true in the case of the descendants of Esau, who were always the enemies of Israel and figure in the prophets as the type of the enemies of God.
We can hardly believe, however, that Isaac was entirely without blame in this case. But who can justify Rebekah, to say nothing of Jacob? Surely the goodness of God is of grace, and these things show that He has a plan to carry out in which He is simply using men as He finds them, and subsequently conforming them to Himself as His sovereign will may determine.
Notice that the blessings of Isaac on Jacob were a formal transmission of the original promise of God to Abraham (Gen 27:28-29), which when once transmitted could not be recalled (Gen 27:34-38). Esau is blessed, but it is not the blessing which he receives. Notice the differences between his blessing and that of Jacob. There is an intimation that Esau that is, the nation that should spring from him would at some time break from his brothers yoke, but later prophecies show that this freedom would be only for a season. In connection with Esaus conduct compare Heb 12:15-17.
Note in passing that Herod the Great, the last king of Judah, was a descendant of Esau, an Idumean on the side of both father and mother, a circumstance, which was the foundation for that irreconcilable hatred with which the Jews regarded him during his long reign.
JACOBS FLIGHT (Gen 27:41-46; Gen 28:1-22)
What was the cause of Jacobs flight (Gen 27:41-45)? The excuse for it (Gen 27:46; Gen 28:1-5)? At what place is he next found (Gen 28:10)? What did he see in his dream? Whom did he see, and why? How did the speaker introduce Himself? Do you recognize the promise given him? What particular addendum of a personal character is attached (Gen 28:15)? What effect had this on Jacob? How did he express his feelings? What did he name the place? (Bethel means The House of God.) Compare Joh 1:51, Heb 1:14, and Luk 15:10, and recall that the beautiful hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee is based upon this impressive incident in Jacobs life. For the pious servants of God this dream threw a flood of light upon the certainty of heaven, of which they had known little or nothing until that time, as well as the facile communication there might be between heaven and earth, and the profound interest which God and the holy angles felt in the affairs of men. What vow did Jacob offer? In the consideration of this vow, which was entirely voluntary on his part, observe that if does not necessarily express a doubt in his mind, since it might be translated since, or so then. It may be viewed as his acceptance of the divine promise, so that from that moment Jehovah did in some sense become his God, as well as He had been the God of Abraham and Isaac.
We are accustomed to speak of the selfish proposition of Jacob in Gen 28:22, last clause. But before casting the mote out of his eye, should we not cast the beam out of our own? With all the knowledge of God we possess does our character shine brighter? Do we not still use the if in the face of the promises? And do we give even as much as a tenth of our possessions to Him, notwithstanding the richer blessings we enjoy? Is it not still true that He is dealing with us on the principle of grace, and not merit? God sometimes consents to call Himself by the name the God of Jacob. What unutterable comfort it should bring to us!
QUESTIONS
1.on what grounds is God released from the charge of partiality in the choice of Jacob?
2.In what ways does Isaacs life and character differ from Abrahams?
3.What name is sometimes given to Esaus descendants?
4.What is the meaning of Bethel?
5.How would you explain Gods patience with Jacob?
Gen 25:19-34. The Birth of Jacob and Esau. Jacob Takes Advantage of Esau to Secure his Birthright.At this point we pass to the story of Jacob. In the present section Gen 25:19 f., Gen 25:26 b belong to P, the rest to Jeremiah Gen 25:21-28 is from J, and so in the judgment of most critics Gen 25:29-34, though some assign it to E.
Like Sarah and Rachel, Rebekah is for long without a child. P fixes the interval from marriage to motherhood as thirty years, but in view of the untrustworthiness of his chronological statements elsewhere no dependence can be placed on them here. Before their birth the mothers life is made intolerable by their struggles (cf. Gen 27:46 for a similar outburst of petulance), and on inquiry at the oracle Yahweh tells her that two nations have already begun a struggle which will issue in the subjection of the elder. When the twins were born the first was a redskin (admoni, hence Edom, though another reason is given for the name in Gen 25:30) and hairy (sear, hence Seir), and his name was called Esau, for which no etymology is suggested; perhaps it means shaggy. His brother follows hard at his heels, indeed with his hand on Esaus heel, vainly attempting to hold him back. Him they call Jacob, connecting it with the Heb. word for heel (cf. mg.). Jacob is perhaps a contraction of Jacob-el (pp. 248f.), which is both a personal and place name, of disputed meaning. The story continues as it began. The dissimilarity in appearance is matched by difference in disposition and occupation. Esau loved the hunters adventurous life, and grew skilful (EV cunning) in it, Jacob was a quiet (mg.) stay-at-home lad and followed the occupation of a shepherd. The difference was accentuated, and tragedy invited, by the favouritism of the parentsof Isaac for Esau, whose venison he relished, of Rebekah for Jacob, whose feminine traits perhaps made him more congenial to his mother. Jacob grows up with the galling sense that he is the younger, and that his brother possesses the birthright and does not even value it as he should. The birthright conferred leadership in the family and a double share of the inheritance, and political and material superiority when transferred to the nation from the individual. Jacob had probably laid schemes to secure it. His chance comes when, making lentil stew, he is asked by the famished Esau for some of that red stuff: he is too ravenous to give it its proper name, and in his impatience repeats the word (mg.). Jacob drives his brother mercilessly; first of all (mg.) he must sell him his birthright. Esau does not stop to think so much for so little, or to soften his cold brother. He fancies himself dying! anything for a good meal! But Jacob is too astute to take his brothers bare word, he was himself an unscrupulous liar. He insists on the guarantee of an oath, which is given without hesitation. Then, having satisfied his hunger, Esau went away without regret, and at least justified Jacob so far, that the birthright had passed to one who knew how to value it. The narrator betrays no repugnance for the meanness of his ancestor. Esau was a man with no depth of nature and no outlook into the eternal. He was not a man of faith who postpones present gratification for future good, but one who lived like an animal tame in earths paddock as her prize, with no spiritual horizon. He was thus, engaging though he might be, a character of less promise than his selfish, calculating, cold-blooded brother, who had spiritual vision and numbered Bethel and Peniel among his experiences. The contrast comes out in Esaus selling his birthright, and all its spiritual privileges, in a fit of impatient hunger, and Jacobs grim tenacity in holding on to the angel with dislocated thigh, till he blessed him (Hebrews, Cent.B, p. 230).
C. What became of Isaac 25:19-35:29
A new toledot begins with Gen 25:19. Its theme is "the acquisition of the blessing and its development and protection by the Lord." [Note: Ross, Creation and . . ., p. 433.]
Moses set up the whole Jacob narrative in a chiastic structure that emphasizes the fulfillment of the promise of the seed and the seed’s prosperity.
"A Oracle sought; Rebekah struggles in childbirth; bekorah birthright; birth; themes of strife, deception, fertility (Gen 25:19-34).
B Interlude: strife; deception; berakah blessing; covenant with foreigner (26).
C Deception; berakah stolen; fear of Esau; flight from land (Gen 27:1 to Gen 28:9).
D Encounter (<paga’) with the divine at sacred site near border; berakah (Gen 28:10-22).
E Internal cycle opens: arrival; Laban at border; deception; wages; Rachel barren; Leah fertile (Gen 29:1 to Gen 30:21).
F Rachel fertile; Jacob increases the herds (Gen 30:22-43).
E’ Internal cycle closes: departure; Laban at border; deception; wages (31).
D’ Encounters (<paga’) with divine beings at sacred sites near border; berakah (32).
C’ Deception planned; fear of Esau; berakah gift returned; return to land (33).
B’ Interlude: strife; deception; covenant with foreigner (34).
A’ Oracle fulfilled; Rachel struggles in childbirth; berakah; death resolutions (Gen 35:1-22)." [Note: Ibid., p. 85. Cf. Fishbane, p. 42; Wenham, Genesis 16-50, p. 169; Waltke, Genesis, p. 352.]
The Flood story also has a palistrophic structure, and both stories have a similar statement at the middle (turning point): God remembered Noah (Gen 8:1) and God remembered Rachel (Gen 30:22). This emphasizes that God controls events and saves His people.
". . . the author of Genesis has deliberately split the Jacob-Joseph story into two parts by putting the family history of Esau Gen 36:1 to Gen 37:1 in the middle. This allows him to alternate the genealogies of the non-elect lines of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and Esau (Gen 36:1 to Gen 37:1) with the fuller family histories of the chosen lines of Terah (Abraham) (Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11), Isaac (Jacob) (Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29), and Jacob (Joseph) (Gen 37:2 to Gen 50:26) to produce a total of five patriarchal family histories. This matches the five family histories of pre-patriarchal times . . ." [Note: Wenham, Genesis 16-50, p. 168.]
1. Isaac’s twin sons 25:19-26
Gen 25:19-34 introduce the whole Jacob and Esau saga.
In the first pericope (Gen 25:19-26) we have the record of God answering Isaac’s prayers by making Rebekah fertile (blessing). He gave her two sons, Esau and Jacob, and foretold that from them two nations would come with the elder serving the younger.
The emphasis of this section is on the divine oracle (Gen 25:23) as is clear from the chiastic structure of the narrative.
"A Isaac was forty years old when he took to wife Rebekah (Gen 25:20).
B Rebekah was barren; prayer for children was answered (Gen 25:21 a).
C His wife Rebekah conceived (Gen 25:21 b). The children struggled together within her (Gen 25:22 a).
D Rebekah asks for an oracle (Gen 25:22 b)
D’ Yahweh grants her an oracle (Gen 25:23)
C’ Her days to be delivered were fulfilled (Gen 25:24 a). And behold, there were twins in her womb (Gen 25:24 b).
B’ Jacob and Esau are contrasted in birth and appearance (Gen 25:25-26 a).
A’ Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah bore the twins (Gen 25:26 b)." [Note: Ross, Creation and . . ., p. 436. Cf. Michael Fishbane, "Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle (Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:22)," Journal of Jewish Studies 26:1-2 (Spring-Autumn 1975):15-38.]
The question of an heir continues primary in this section. Who will be Isaac’s heir through whom God will fulfill His promises? Rebekah, like Sarah, was barren (Gen 25:21). After 20 years of waiting and praying (Gen 25:21-22) God gave her children. Which of these two sons would be the blessed heir? God intervened to announce His foreordained choice (Gen 25:23). Jacob’s reactions to his election over Esau were quite different from Isaac’s reactions to God’s choice of him as Abraham’s heir, as this section begins to illustrate.
Scripture does not give the reason God chose Jacob over Esau. What we do know is that His choice did not rest on the superior merit of Jacob but on the sovereign prerogative of Yahweh (Rom 9:10-13). In ancient Near Eastern culture the first-born normally became his father’s heir. So in designating Jacob as Isaac’s heir God sovereignly overruled natural custom by supernatural revelation. The response of the members of Isaac’s family to this revelation demonstrates their faith, or lack of it. However the main point of the narrative is to trace God’s faithfulness and power in bringing to pass what He had promised.
"The revelation of the Divine will concerning the two brothers (Gen 25:23) was evidently no secret. It is clear that both Esau and Jacob knew of it. This fact is in some respects the key to the true interpretation of this incident [i.e., Gen 25:29-34]." [Note: Thomas, p. 230.]
Paddan-aram means "the flat (land) of Aram." Aram was the area near Haran. People from this region became known as Arameans, and later the Greeks called them Syrians. Bethuel was a semi-nomadic herdsman, and he probably lived in the open fields at least part of the year.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
And two people from thy bowels shall be separated;
And people shall be stronger than people;
And the elder shall serve the younger.
3. Rebekahs pregnancy, her painful sensation, her ill-humor and alarming presentiments. The gentle story of the hopeful maternal temperament is often of the greatest significance in history. Isaac, in accordance with his disposition, prays to Jehovah; Rebekah, after her manner of feeling, goes and asks Jehovah. Undoubtedly she herself is the prophetess to whom God reveals the manner and future of her delivery. Jehovah speaks to her. The word of revelation, though dark, infuses into her an earnest yet hopeful feeling of joy, instead of maternal sadness and despondency. Two brothers, as two nationstwo nations, to contend and fight with each other from the very womb of the mother. The larger, or elder, and externally more powerful, governed by the smaller, the younger, and apparently the more feeble. In these three points the antithesis between Ishmael and Isaac is reflected again. [The Apostle, Rom 9:12, dwells upon this passage as affording a striking illustration and proof of the doctrine he was then teaching. Isaac was chosen over Ishmael, but further still, Jacob was chosen over Esau, though they were of the same covenant mother, and prior to their birth. The choice, election, was of grace.A. G.]
5. The relation of prophecy and poetry appears in the rhythmical form of the divine declaration as it is laid before us. Common to both is the elevated lyrical temperament manifesting itself in articulate rhythm.
6. The individuality of the twins is manifested immediately by corresponding signs. Esau comes into this world with a kind of hunters dress covering his rough-red skin; he is, and remains, Esau or Edom. Jacob seems to be a combatant immediately; an artful champion, who unawares seizes his opponent by the heel, causing him to fall. But under Jehovahs direction and training. Jacob, the heelholding struggler, becomes Israel, the wrestler with God. In the name Jacob there is then intimated, not only his inherited imperfection, but at the same time his continual struggle, i.e., there exists a germ of Israel in Jacob. Esau, in his wild rambles, becomes an after-play of Nimrod. Jacob is so domestic and economical that he cooks the lentile broth himself. Esau appears to have inherited from Rebekah the rash, sanguine temperament, but without her nobility of soul; from Isaac he derives a certain fondness of good livingat least of game. Jacob inherited from Isaac the quiet, contemplative manner, from Rebekah, however, a disposition for rapid, prudent, cunning invention. Outwardly regarded, Jacob on the whole resembled more the father,Esau the mother. This, however, seems to be the very reason why Isaac preferred Esau, and Rebekah Jacob. The gentle Isaac, who was to transmit to one of his children the great promise of the future, even the hope of Canaan, might have considered Esau, not only in his character of first-born, but also in that of a courageous and strong hunter, more suitable to hold and defend Abrahams prospects among the heathen, than Jacob, who was so similar to himself in respect to domestic life. He might, therefore, understand the oracle given to Rebekah in a sense different from that received by her; or he might doubt, perhaps, its objective validity, opposed as it was to the customary right of succession. That Esaus venison exercised an influence as to his position towards Esau, is proved from the text. It might be to him a delusive foretaste of the future conquests of Canaan. Esaus frank nobility of soul is seen also in his promptly and zealously complying with the request. Rebekah confided in her oracle and understood her Jacob better. But even here there coperated that mutual power of attraction which lay in the two antithetical temperaments. Without doubt, Esau, the stately hunter, moved about in his paternal home as a youthful lord; in which fact Isaac thought that he saw a sign of future power.
8. And Jacob sod pottage. Every human weakness has its hour of temptation, and if we do not watch and pray, it will come upon us like a thief.
14. The mystery of births; of the like relation between male and female being; of the unlike but natural relations between the more and less gifted, between noble and common; and of the different degrees of natural dispositionsa reservation of God, in his decrees of providence.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)