Jacob and Esau

Genesis 25:19 begins a new part of the story: “This is the genealogy of Isaac.” Abraham has died, and God's promise has passed to his son. The same problem again. Sarah could not have children, and now Rebekah cannot either (25:21). God's promise of a great family depends, once again, on a baby that has not come. God was teaching each generation the same lesson: the promise is His to keep, not theirs to make happen. Isaac prayed. “Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his plea” (25:21). Isaac does not try a plan of his own, the way his parents did with Hagar. He goes straight to God. And he waited. Verse 20 says Isaac married at forty, and verse 26 says the twins were born when he was sixty. Isaac prayed for twenty years before the answer came. Prayer is not a vending machine. God always hears, and He answers in His own time. So keep praying, even when the answer is slow.

25:19 opens with toledot (say: toh-leh-DOTE), “generations” or “family history.” This word marks the main sections of Genesis. The family history of Isaac is mostly about his sons, because God's promise was moving on to the next generation. Barrenness again. Sarah (11:30), Rebekah (25:21) and later Rachel (29:31) are each unable to conceive at first. God let each generation of the promise begin with something impossible for people, so that the child would clearly be His gift. Prayer rather than strategy. “Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife” (25:21). The Hebrew verb atar (say: ah-TAHR) means to pray earnestly for someone, and the same verb is used for God's answer: the Lord “granted his plea.” In chapter 16, Abram and Sarai tried to solve the same problem through Hagar. Isaac took the problem to God instead. The time involved. Isaac married at forty (25:20) and became a father at sixty (25:26), so he prayed for twenty years. Those were long years, but God had not forgotten him. The Lord heard Isaac's prayer and answered at the right time. Jesus taught His disciples the same thing: we should keep praying and not lose heart (Luke 18:1).

Isaac's family had a big problem. God had promised Abraham a huge family. That promise now passed to Isaac. But Isaac's wife Rebekah could not have a baby. So what did Isaac do? He prayed to the Lord for her. Isaac married Rebekah when he was forty. The twins came when he was sixty. That is twenty years of waiting! God was not late. Isaac learned to trust God and keep praying. Abraham had waited a long time for Isaac too. God keeps His promises, even when it takes a long time.

Isaac and Rebekah had no baby. Isaac prayed for a long time. God heard him. God gave them a baby!

Rebekah's pregnancy is not easy. “The children struggled together within her” (25:22), and she cries, “If all is well, why am I like this?” She asked God. “So she went to inquire of the Lord.” Rebekah takes her worry straight to God, and God answers her directly. She does not keep it to herself, and she does not guess. She asks. Two nations. “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body” (25:23). The twins will become Israel (from Jacob) and Edom (from Esau). Their struggle before birth is a picture of a struggle between their families that will last a long time. The surprise. “The older shall serve the younger.” In that world the oldest son normally led the family and received the biggest share. God turns that around before either boy has done anything at all. Paul points to this in Romans 9:11-12: the children were “not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil,” so that God's choice would be “not of works but of Him who calls.” God's choosing is grace from the start.

25:22 tells us the twins struggled inside Rebekah. The Hebrew, vayitrotsatsu habanim (say: vah-yit-roh-TSAH-tsoo hah-bah-NEEM), means “the children crushed one another.” Rebekah asked, “If all is well, why am I like this?” Then she did the right thing. She went to “inquire of the Lord,” bringing her question straight to God. God's answer (25:23). God answered with a short poem in four lines: two nations, two peoples; one stronger than the other, and the older serving the younger. It is about nations as well as two boys. Edom and Israel will be neighbors and often rivals (Numbers 20:14-21; 2 Samuel 8:14). The younger before the older. In the Old Testament the firstborn son normally led the family, and Deuteronomy 21:17 gives him “a double portion.” But again and again in Genesis, God works through the younger: Abel over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph over his brothers, Ephraim over Manasseh. God does not choose by human rank. Romans 9:10-13. Paul points to the timing. Before the twins were born, “nor having done any good or evil,” God announced His choice, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.” Jacob was not chosen because he was better. God's choosing is grace from the very beginning, and that is how He saves us too.

Rebekah felt the babies struggling inside her. It worried her. So she did a wise thing. She went to ask the Lord about it. God gave her a surprising answer. Two whole nations would come from her sons. And the older would serve the younger. Usually the oldest son was the leader. But God said this time it would be different. The boys had not done anything good or bad yet. So nobody could say Jacob earned it. God chooses in His own kind way. He does not need us to be first or biggest.

The babies pushed inside Rebekah. God told her, “There are two.” God said the older one would serve the younger one.

“So the boys grew” (25:27), and they turned out to be very different. Names that fit. The firstborn “came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau” (25:25). The second came out with “his hand took hold of Esau's heel; so his name was called Jacob” (25:26). The name Jacob sounds like the Hebrew word for heel. Later it will come to mean someone who grabs from behind, and Esau will say it himself (27:36). Different, not better. Esau was “a skillful hunter, a man of the field,” while Jacob was “a mild man, dwelling in tents” (25:27). Neither way of living was wrong. God made them both, and He loved them both. The real problem was at home. “Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob” (25:28). Each parent had a favorite. Isaac's reason was even about his own appetite. That favoritism will tear the family apart in Genesis 27. Picking favorites always hurts a family, but God never does that. He loves each of His children completely.

25:24-26 is full of Hebrew word-plays that explain the boys' names. The names. Esau is admoni (say: ad-moh-NEE), “red,” which points ahead to Edom; and “like a hairy garment” (se'ar, hair) points ahead to Seir, the hill country where Edom will live (36:8). Jacob, Ya'aqov, is linked with aqev, “heel.” Hosea 12:3 remembers it: “He took his brother by the heel in the womb.” By 27:36 Esau turns the name into a complaint: “he has supplanted me these two times.” Two different men (25:27). Esau is ish yodea tsayid, “a man knowing hunting,” a man of the open field. Jacob is ish tam, translated “mild” or “quiet”; the same adjective describes Job as “blameless” (Job 1:1), so it is not an insult. Jacob “dwelt in tents,” the life of a herdsman like his father. Divided love. 25:28 says Isaac “loved” Esau for a reason (“because he ate of his game”), while Rebekah “loves” Jacob, a Hebrew form that describes ongoing love. A home split by favorites leads straight to the deception of chapter 27. God's love is not like that. Acts 10:34 says God shows no partiality, and He loves each of His children fully.

The twins were born, and they were very different. Esau came out first, red and hairy. Jacob came out holding his brother's heel. As they grew, Esau loved hunting in the fields. Jacob was quiet and stayed near the tents. Being different is not wrong. God made each of them. But their parents did something that was wrong. Isaac loved Esau best. Rebekah loved Jacob best. Picking favorites hurts a family. It makes some children feel left out. Their favorites would cause big trouble later. God never picks favorites like that. He loves each of us completely.

Esau liked to hunt. Jacob liked to stay home. Mom and Dad each had a favorite. That was hard on the family.

One ordinary day, over one pot of stew, Esau made a choice he could never undo. What a birthright was. The firstborn son received a double share of what his father owned (Deuteronomy 21:17) and became head of the family. In Abraham's family it meant even more, because God's promises were passing down from father to son. Jacob's offer. “Sell me your birthright as of this day” (25:31). Jacob is not kind here. His brother is exhausted and hungry, and he names a price. He even makes Esau swear (25:33). Esau's choice. “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?” (25:32). He was hungry, but he was not dying. He simply wanted the stew more than the promise. He did not stop to think: “he ate and drank, arose, and went his way” (25:34). Then the Bible says plainly, “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” Despised means he treated it as worth nothing. What the New Testament says. Hebrews 12:16 warns against being like Esau, “who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.” Esau traded something that would last for something that would be gone in an hour. That is a trade every one of us is tempted to make.

25:29-34 moves fast, with short speeches and quick actions. In just a few minutes Esau gave away something precious. The setting. Jacob “cooked a stew” (vayazed nazid, a word-play: he seethed a seething). Esau comes in ayef, “weary,” and asks to gulp “that same red, red stuff” (literally ha'adom ha'adom hazeh). That is why he was also called Edom, which means red (25:30). The bekorah. The birthright (bekorah, say: beh-koh-RAH, the firstborn's right) carried the double portion and the headship of the household. In Abraham's family it was bound up with God's covenant promise, which is why Hebrews calls Esau bebelos, “profane” (12:16): he treated something holy as common. Both brothers did wrong. Jacob demands an oath (25:33) and takes advantage of his brother's weakness, and God's Word does not excuse him. Esau exaggerates (“I am about to die”) and makes a permanent trade for something he wanted right then. He did not think twice: “he ate and drank, arose, and went his way.” The verdict. Then the Bible gives God's judgment: “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” The Hebrew verb is vayivez (say: vah-yee-VEHZ), he treated it with contempt. Yet God was not finished with Esau. In 33:4 he runs to embrace Jacob, and Deuteronomy 23:7 commands, “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.”

Esau came home from the fields starving. Jacob had a pot of red stew. And Jacob saw his chance. “Sell me your rights as firstborn,” he said. The firstborn got a double share of everything. He would lead the family one day. Esau said, “I am about to die! What good are those rights to me?” And he traded them for one meal. Jacob was wrong to take advantage of his hungry brother. But Esau was wrong too. He did not value what God had given him. The Bible says he despised his birthright. That means he treated it like it was worth nothing.

Esau was very hungry. He traded his special rights for one bowl of stew. Then he walked away. He did not care what he lost.

🎉 All Matched!