Isaac has been living and planting crops in Gerar while there's a famine in his hometown. The Philistines of Gerar kept harassing him due to envy over his success, so the king ordered him to move out into the valley and away from the center of Gerar. Now even in the valley Isaac is vexed by herdsmen.
"Isaac's servants dug a well in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. But the herders of Gerar quarreled with those of Isaac and said, 'The water is ours!' So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him." (Genesis 26:19-20) Wells were dug by hand in those days and it was backbreaking work. Imagine doing all this work and finding water and then having someone come along to tell you that you can't use it. Evidently Isaac let the herders have it, for he named the well a name that means "dispute".
"Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah." (Genesis 26:21) The name for this well means "opposition". It appears as if Isaac had to abandon this well also.
Isaac moves even further out into the valley. "He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, 'Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land.'" (Genesis 26:22) The name of this well means "room". But the Lord is leading Isaac further and further away from Gerar and the Philistines for a reason. It could be that He never wanted Isaac to go there in the first place. Or it could be that He doesn't want him associating too closely with the Philistines. The hardships Isaac endured in Gerar slowly led him back to Beersheba.
"From there he went up to Beersheba. That night the Lord appeared to him and said, 'I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham.'" (Genesis 26:23-24) Isaac may be feeling discouraged right now. He needs the Lord to remind him of the promise He made to his father.
There is such a thing as a generational blessing and we see it at work in verses 23 and 24. Isaac is benefiting from his father's faith and from his father's prayers even though Abraham is already dead and buried. You may not live to see all the prayers answered that you've prayed for your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but those prayers will still pay off even after you're gone. My mother and my grandmothers prayed many prayers for me, and they've all been gone from this life and in the presence of the Lord for a long time now, but their prayers are still benefiting me. I still feel covered by them. Their prayers are like a warm, comforting blanket over me.
Because the Lord spoke to him at Beersheba, Isaac commemorates the occasion by placing an altar there. "Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well." (Genesis 26:25) Setting up his tent and digging a well indicates that he intends to dwell here where the Lord spoke to him. Are there places that are special to you because the Lord spoke to you there? You may not have built a literal altar to commemorate the occasion but in your mind that spot is holy ground, isn't it? There's a place on the floor beside my bed that's holy ground because the Lord has met with me there in prayer. I received the Lord Jesus as my Savior while kneeling in the floor in a house in Virginia that no longer exists, but I think if I went to that empty ground I could pretty much point out the spot where the Lord met with me because that spot is holy ground.
"Meanwhile, Abimelek had come to him from Gerar, with Azzuhath his personal adviser and Philcol the commander of his forces. Isaac asked them, 'Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?'" (Genesis 26:26-27) He says, "I thought you wanted me out of your sight. You allowed your citizens to harass me so much that I finally had to move away. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me, so why have you followed me to Beersheba?"
The Philistines have noticed that the Lord is with Isaac wherever he goes. The more they pestered him, the more the Lord blessed him. This has caused a reverent fear to enter their hearts. They don't want to get on the bad side of Isaac's God, so they decide to come and make peace with him in hopes of placating any wrath the Lord may feel toward them for Isaac's sake. "They answered, 'We saw clearly that the Lord was with you, so we said, 'There ought to be a sworn agreement between us'---between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you that you will do us no harm, just as we did not harm you but always treated you well and sent you away peacefully. And now you are blessed by the Lord." (Genesis 26:28-29) Abimelek is trying to rewrite history in his little speech. Although he did not personally bully Isaac, he didn't stop anyone else from doing so. He merely made a decree that no one was to "harm" Isaac and Rebekah, meaning no one was allowed to physically accost them in any way. And his people didn't lay hands on them, but they did make living anywhere in Gerar terribly unpleasant for them. Now Abimelek regrets not doing more to make Isaac feel welcome. He's personally and politically afraid of the God who keeps blessing Isaac. He wants to smooth things over so that no harm comes to him or to his kingdom.
I'm reminded of what King Solomon said in Proverbs 16:7, "When a man's ways please the Lord, even his enemies will be at peace with him." Isaac isn't perfect and he sometimes makes mistakes, but he does believe in and serve the Lord. Because of this, those who have made themselves his enemies come crawling to him, (in a sense), begging him to be their friend. Even unbelievers can recognize blessings. Even unbelievers can tell that God's merciful and protective hand is upon us. They may not decide to serve the Lord themselves, but they may become filled with a reverent fear that tells them not to get on His bad side by persecuting us, and many times in life we find those who don't really like us wanting to be at peace with us. They may never come to actually care for us personally, but they will be courteous to us out of fear of the living God.
Isaac doesn't point out the problems with Abimelek's assertion that he and his people have done Isaac no harm. Instead he decides to let bygones be bygones. Many centuries before the birth of Christ, he "does what Jesus would do" and breaks bread with these men and shows them friendship and forgiveness and mercy. "Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. Early the next morning the men swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they went away peacefully." (Genesis 26:30-31) He feeds them a fine meal, provides lodging for the night, and sees them safely on their way the next morning, likely providing them with food and water for their journey home.
The Lord is pleased with how Isaac handled the matter and He blesses him by providing another well of fresh water. "That day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said, 'We've found water!' He called it Shibah, and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba." (Genesis 26:32-33) This name means "oath". This name marks the occasion when Isaac could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the Philistines won't keep filling up his wells. He can enjoy this water knowing no one is going to take it from him.
The Lord has given us living water that no one can ever take from us. (John 4:10, John 7:38) He refreshes us when we need it. Isaac was in need of refreshment in today's passage and the Lord provided it, both spiritually and physically. When we are feeling down and discouraged, or when we are feeling at odds with the world around us, we just need to go to the Lord for the drink of living water that refreshes our souls.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 108, Isaac In Gerar, Part One
Isaac is living in the land of Gerar while there is famine in his hometown. In yesterday's study he deceived Abimelek the king of Gerar by claiming Rebekah was his sister. Abimelek figured out the truth and confronted Isaac with it, but he didn't make Isaac leave his territory out of fear of Isaac's God.
"Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him." (Genesis 26:12) Isaac messed up pretty badly in the first half of Genesis 26. So why do we find the Lord blessing him so abundantly now? Well, why does the Lord bless any of us so abundantly? We don't deserve it. We mess up someway, somehow, every day of our lives and yet He puts food on our tables and clothes on our backs. God is merciful to us because it's His nature to be merciful. This doesn't mean we can sin freely and expect there to be no consequences, and it doesn't mean we can abuse the grace of God, but does a loving parent withhold food from his child because the child has been kind of bratty that day? No. A parent might take away a privilege or administer some type of consequences for poor behavior, but no normal parent refuses to provide their child's basic needs because the child made a bad choice earlier in the day. Isaac made a bad choice when he told a big lie, but God the Father is still going to feed Isaac and Rebekah and all the servants and animals who depend on them.
"The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy." (Genesis 26:13) Isaac had already inherited the wealth of his father, but then he took that money and invested it back into his agricultural pursuits where it continued to multiply. I believe the Lord rewards honest hard work. I believe He rewards good stewardship. If we are neglectful and wasteful with what we already have, why should He give us more? But if we are thankful for what we already have and if we use it wisely, God can trust us with more.
"He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth." (Genesis 26:14-15) When unbelievers envy the blessings of believers, the best thing they can do is form their own relationship with the God who blesses. And a lot of times that's what happens. Unbelievers see the peace and happiness in the hearts of believers and want those things for themselves, so they turn to the Lord. Other times they just become resentful toward the people of God and want them out of their sight. That's how the Philistines chose to deal with their envy.
Abimelek thinks the best solution is for Isaac to move far enough away from the Philistine herdsmen that he will not be a bother to them. "Then Abimelek said to Isaac, 'Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.' So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar, where he settled." (Genesis 26:17)
The Philistines will continue to cause him trouble but the Lord will continue to be with him in tomorrow's study.
"Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him." (Genesis 26:12) Isaac messed up pretty badly in the first half of Genesis 26. So why do we find the Lord blessing him so abundantly now? Well, why does the Lord bless any of us so abundantly? We don't deserve it. We mess up someway, somehow, every day of our lives and yet He puts food on our tables and clothes on our backs. God is merciful to us because it's His nature to be merciful. This doesn't mean we can sin freely and expect there to be no consequences, and it doesn't mean we can abuse the grace of God, but does a loving parent withhold food from his child because the child has been kind of bratty that day? No. A parent might take away a privilege or administer some type of consequences for poor behavior, but no normal parent refuses to provide their child's basic needs because the child made a bad choice earlier in the day. Isaac made a bad choice when he told a big lie, but God the Father is still going to feed Isaac and Rebekah and all the servants and animals who depend on them.
"The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy." (Genesis 26:13) Isaac had already inherited the wealth of his father, but then he took that money and invested it back into his agricultural pursuits where it continued to multiply. I believe the Lord rewards honest hard work. I believe He rewards good stewardship. If we are neglectful and wasteful with what we already have, why should He give us more? But if we are thankful for what we already have and if we use it wisely, God can trust us with more.
"He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth." (Genesis 26:14-15) When unbelievers envy the blessings of believers, the best thing they can do is form their own relationship with the God who blesses. And a lot of times that's what happens. Unbelievers see the peace and happiness in the hearts of believers and want those things for themselves, so they turn to the Lord. Other times they just become resentful toward the people of God and want them out of their sight. That's how the Philistines chose to deal with their envy.
Abimelek thinks the best solution is for Isaac to move far enough away from the Philistine herdsmen that he will not be a bother to them. "Then Abimelek said to Isaac, 'Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.' So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar, where he settled." (Genesis 26:17)
The Philistines will continue to cause him trouble but the Lord will continue to be with him in tomorrow's study.
Monday, January 13, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 107, Like Father Like Son
In Genesis 26 we find Isaac repeating a mistake his father made.
"Now there was a famine in the land---besides the previous famine in Abraham's time---and Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines in Gerar." (Genesis 26:1) In Genesis 20 we found Abraham lying to Abimelek about the identity of Sarah. Later the two men made a peace treaty with each other, which is likely why Isaac goes to Abimelek in his time of need. However, Isaac will repay the kindness of Abimelek by telling a lie in Gerar about the identity of Rebekah.
"The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed Me and did everything I required of him, keeping My commands, my decrees and My instructions.' So Isaac stayed in Gerar." (Genesis 26:2-6) Abraham went to Egypt during the previous famine, and that is not where the Lord wanted him to be. He got into trouble in Egypt, plus he brought back slaves from Egypt, including Hagar who would end up being used in Sarah's plan to obtain a son by a surrogate mother. We all know how badly that turned out. The Lord instructs Isaac to remain in the promised land. The Lord reminds Isaac of the promise He made to Abraham. If He's going to make the descendants of Isaac so numerous that no man can count them, then obviously He isn't going to allow Isaac's family to perish during the famine.
Abraham didn't perfectly keep all the Lord's commands, decrees, and instructions. But the Lord commends him for his faith anyway. Faith is what credited righteousness to Abraham (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6) and faith is what credits righteousness to any of us, for "without faith it is impossible to please God". (Hebrews 11:6) We aren't going to live perfect lives no matter how hard we try, not while we inhabit these weak mortal bodies, not while we live in a fallen world where we're surrounded by temptations and difficult circumstances. It's our faith that God "exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6) that enables Him to commend us. Faith makes up for what we lack. It bridges the gap between our imperfect selves and a perfect God.
So now Isaac is in Gerar with his beautiful wife Rebekah. He has the faith to obey the Lord by not going down to Egypt but he lacks the faith to believe the Lord will protect him in Gerar. He's afraid the men of Gerar will want her for themselves and will kill him in order to have her. He tells a lie. "When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, 'She is my sister,' because he was afraid to say, 'She is my wife.' He thought, 'The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.'" (Genesis 26:7) Does he know his father told this same lie about Sarah in Egypt and in Gerar? If he does, does he not know that it didn't turn out well either time? I think it's possible he doesn't know about his father's lies because it's human nature for us to want to sweep our mistakes under the rug. Plus it's not every parent who wants to reveal to their children the poor choices they made in their pre-parenting days. In Isaac's case I think it would have been best if Abraham had told him of his own mistakes as a cautionary tale, but then again it can be difficult for us to learn from the mistakes of others. There are some things we only seem to learn the hard way.
Isaac's situation doesn't go as far as Abraham's did. Both times when Abraham lied about Sarah, a king took her into his household with the intention of making her his wife. Isaac and Rebekah live in Gerar quite a while without the king making any advances to her. It may be that Abimelek is quite old by this time and is no longer adding to his harem. He won't appear on the pages of Genesis anymore after we conclude our current chapter. Abimelek may be elderly but he's not blind, so he figures out the true nature of Isaac and Rebekah's relationship. "When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah." (Genesis 26:8) Abimelek recognizes what's going on because the way Isaac touches Rebekah is not the way a brother would touch a sister. He hasn't simply put his arm around her or given her a brotherly hug or patted her on the back. He's caressing her in some sort of romantic fashion. Since they are outdoors, I don't believe he's doing anything that would be inappropriate to do in public, but the way a man looks at and touches a romantic partner is different from the way he looks at and touches anyone else. Even if all Isaac did was caress her long hair or softly touch her cheek, Abimelek would have known what he was seeing. And he does know, so he calls for Isaac immediately.
"So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, 'She is really your wife! Why did you say, 'She is my sister'?" (Genesis 26:9a) Abimelek is understandably hurt and outraged. He's shown Isaac nothing but hospitality. He's shared food and water with him. He's provided housing for him. And Isaac has returned his kindness with a lie.
"Isaac answered him, 'Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.'" (Genesis 26:9b) His reply is as insulting as Abraham's was. He's saying, "I was afraid one of your godless, violent men would kill me and take her by force. I don't trust your people to do what's honorable and decent. I don't believe they have the morals to leave a married woman alone or to respect human life." I think Isaac and Abraham didn't give the people of Gerar the respect they deserved. Abimelek's next words shows us that he and his citizens disapprove of adultery. If they look down upon adultery, then surely they look down upon murdering a man to take his wife.
"Then Abimelek said, 'What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.'" (Genesis 26:10) Abimelek asks, "What if someone had seduced her thinking she was a single woman? Then that man would have been guilty of adultery. That would have brought the disfavor of your God upon us." We don't know about the moral character of the Philistines in general, but it seems as if they are not in the habit of sleeping with married women. Abimelek is telling Isaac that he and Rebekah would have been completely safe if they had revealed their relationship from the start.
Not wanting to incur the wrath of God, Abimelek makes the relationship of Isaac and Rebekah known and he issues a dire warning to anyone who tries to lay a hand on either of them. "So Abimelek gave orders to all the people, 'Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.'" (Genesis 26:11) Abimelek knows the God of Abraham and Isaac is real. He knows this is the God who rained fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. He knows this is the God who came to him in a dream in Genesis 20 and revealed to him that Sarah was married and warned him not to touch her. He doesn't want to get on the bad side of this God, so he makes the penalty so harsh if anyone harms Isaac or Rebekah that he knows no one will dare touch them.
Isaac falters in his faith due to fear. We all falter from time to time due to fear. In fact, fear may be what causes us to mess up more often than anything else. We might go through the day saying no to temptations left and right, but when anxiety hits we may suddenly find ourselves filled with doubts. It's interesting because the pagan king Abimelek displays more faith in God in our passage today than Isaac does. Due to his fear of the Philistines, Isaac harbors doubts in his mind about God protecting him from them. Abimelek, on the other hand, fears God and has no doubts that God will protect Isaac. The reason Abimelek displays more faith than Isaac is because Isaac's fear is focused on man but Abimelek's fear is focused on God. David, who had to deal with mortal enemies at several points during his life, often had to remind himself that if he feared God he wouldn't have to fear anyone else, saying, "The Lord is my light and my salvation---whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life---of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1)
Sometimes those who don't serve our God can make us feel ashamed of ourselves, and that's always a very humbling and uncomfortable and unpleasant thing. I've had unbelievers point out my faults to me. I've had people show me I'm being hypocritical about a certain thing or that I'm simply not reacting to something in the way Jesus would. It hurts when that happens. Our first instinct might be to become angry, but that's the wrong way to react. When someone who doesn't really know the Lord tells us we aren't behaving like the Lord, we need to take their words to heart. We need to apologize to them and to the Lord. I don't know if that's what Isaac did, but I think perhaps he did since Abimelek allows him to remain in the land and plant crops there, as we will see as we move on through the chapter.
"Now there was a famine in the land---besides the previous famine in Abraham's time---and Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines in Gerar." (Genesis 26:1) In Genesis 20 we found Abraham lying to Abimelek about the identity of Sarah. Later the two men made a peace treaty with each other, which is likely why Isaac goes to Abimelek in his time of need. However, Isaac will repay the kindness of Abimelek by telling a lie in Gerar about the identity of Rebekah.
"The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed Me and did everything I required of him, keeping My commands, my decrees and My instructions.' So Isaac stayed in Gerar." (Genesis 26:2-6) Abraham went to Egypt during the previous famine, and that is not where the Lord wanted him to be. He got into trouble in Egypt, plus he brought back slaves from Egypt, including Hagar who would end up being used in Sarah's plan to obtain a son by a surrogate mother. We all know how badly that turned out. The Lord instructs Isaac to remain in the promised land. The Lord reminds Isaac of the promise He made to Abraham. If He's going to make the descendants of Isaac so numerous that no man can count them, then obviously He isn't going to allow Isaac's family to perish during the famine.
Abraham didn't perfectly keep all the Lord's commands, decrees, and instructions. But the Lord commends him for his faith anyway. Faith is what credited righteousness to Abraham (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6) and faith is what credits righteousness to any of us, for "without faith it is impossible to please God". (Hebrews 11:6) We aren't going to live perfect lives no matter how hard we try, not while we inhabit these weak mortal bodies, not while we live in a fallen world where we're surrounded by temptations and difficult circumstances. It's our faith that God "exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6) that enables Him to commend us. Faith makes up for what we lack. It bridges the gap between our imperfect selves and a perfect God.
So now Isaac is in Gerar with his beautiful wife Rebekah. He has the faith to obey the Lord by not going down to Egypt but he lacks the faith to believe the Lord will protect him in Gerar. He's afraid the men of Gerar will want her for themselves and will kill him in order to have her. He tells a lie. "When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, 'She is my sister,' because he was afraid to say, 'She is my wife.' He thought, 'The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.'" (Genesis 26:7) Does he know his father told this same lie about Sarah in Egypt and in Gerar? If he does, does he not know that it didn't turn out well either time? I think it's possible he doesn't know about his father's lies because it's human nature for us to want to sweep our mistakes under the rug. Plus it's not every parent who wants to reveal to their children the poor choices they made in their pre-parenting days. In Isaac's case I think it would have been best if Abraham had told him of his own mistakes as a cautionary tale, but then again it can be difficult for us to learn from the mistakes of others. There are some things we only seem to learn the hard way.
Isaac's situation doesn't go as far as Abraham's did. Both times when Abraham lied about Sarah, a king took her into his household with the intention of making her his wife. Isaac and Rebekah live in Gerar quite a while without the king making any advances to her. It may be that Abimelek is quite old by this time and is no longer adding to his harem. He won't appear on the pages of Genesis anymore after we conclude our current chapter. Abimelek may be elderly but he's not blind, so he figures out the true nature of Isaac and Rebekah's relationship. "When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah." (Genesis 26:8) Abimelek recognizes what's going on because the way Isaac touches Rebekah is not the way a brother would touch a sister. He hasn't simply put his arm around her or given her a brotherly hug or patted her on the back. He's caressing her in some sort of romantic fashion. Since they are outdoors, I don't believe he's doing anything that would be inappropriate to do in public, but the way a man looks at and touches a romantic partner is different from the way he looks at and touches anyone else. Even if all Isaac did was caress her long hair or softly touch her cheek, Abimelek would have known what he was seeing. And he does know, so he calls for Isaac immediately.
"So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, 'She is really your wife! Why did you say, 'She is my sister'?" (Genesis 26:9a) Abimelek is understandably hurt and outraged. He's shown Isaac nothing but hospitality. He's shared food and water with him. He's provided housing for him. And Isaac has returned his kindness with a lie.
"Isaac answered him, 'Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.'" (Genesis 26:9b) His reply is as insulting as Abraham's was. He's saying, "I was afraid one of your godless, violent men would kill me and take her by force. I don't trust your people to do what's honorable and decent. I don't believe they have the morals to leave a married woman alone or to respect human life." I think Isaac and Abraham didn't give the people of Gerar the respect they deserved. Abimelek's next words shows us that he and his citizens disapprove of adultery. If they look down upon adultery, then surely they look down upon murdering a man to take his wife.
"Then Abimelek said, 'What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.'" (Genesis 26:10) Abimelek asks, "What if someone had seduced her thinking she was a single woman? Then that man would have been guilty of adultery. That would have brought the disfavor of your God upon us." We don't know about the moral character of the Philistines in general, but it seems as if they are not in the habit of sleeping with married women. Abimelek is telling Isaac that he and Rebekah would have been completely safe if they had revealed their relationship from the start.
Not wanting to incur the wrath of God, Abimelek makes the relationship of Isaac and Rebekah known and he issues a dire warning to anyone who tries to lay a hand on either of them. "So Abimelek gave orders to all the people, 'Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.'" (Genesis 26:11) Abimelek knows the God of Abraham and Isaac is real. He knows this is the God who rained fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. He knows this is the God who came to him in a dream in Genesis 20 and revealed to him that Sarah was married and warned him not to touch her. He doesn't want to get on the bad side of this God, so he makes the penalty so harsh if anyone harms Isaac or Rebekah that he knows no one will dare touch them.
Isaac falters in his faith due to fear. We all falter from time to time due to fear. In fact, fear may be what causes us to mess up more often than anything else. We might go through the day saying no to temptations left and right, but when anxiety hits we may suddenly find ourselves filled with doubts. It's interesting because the pagan king Abimelek displays more faith in God in our passage today than Isaac does. Due to his fear of the Philistines, Isaac harbors doubts in his mind about God protecting him from them. Abimelek, on the other hand, fears God and has no doubts that God will protect Isaac. The reason Abimelek displays more faith than Isaac is because Isaac's fear is focused on man but Abimelek's fear is focused on God. David, who had to deal with mortal enemies at several points during his life, often had to remind himself that if he feared God he wouldn't have to fear anyone else, saying, "The Lord is my light and my salvation---whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life---of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1)
Sometimes those who don't serve our God can make us feel ashamed of ourselves, and that's always a very humbling and uncomfortable and unpleasant thing. I've had unbelievers point out my faults to me. I've had people show me I'm being hypocritical about a certain thing or that I'm simply not reacting to something in the way Jesus would. It hurts when that happens. Our first instinct might be to become angry, but that's the wrong way to react. When someone who doesn't really know the Lord tells us we aren't behaving like the Lord, we need to take their words to heart. We need to apologize to them and to the Lord. I don't know if that's what Isaac did, but I think perhaps he did since Abimelek allows him to remain in the land and plant crops there, as we will see as we move on through the chapter.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 106, Jacob Takes Esau's Birthright
If you joined us yesterday you'll know what was included in the birthright which normally went to the firstborn son. (It was not irrevocable, as the father could disinherit his eldest son from the birthright if the eldest son's conduct disqualified him from inheriting it.) In Esau's case, in today's passage he disqualifies himself because, as we studied yesterday, he lacks the qualities necessary to fulfill the responsibilities that come along with the birthright.
Before Esau and his brother Jacob were born, the Lord told their mother Rebekah that the elder son would serve the younger son. She would have known by this that Jacob would end up being the head of the family, not Esau. We don't know whether she ever told Jacob what the Lord said to her, but I suspect she did, for in our passage today we will learn that Jacob was her favorite child. I think knowing about what the Lord said may be how Jacob justifies tricking his brother into relinquishing his rights as the eldest son. Instead of waiting for the Lord to promote him at the right time, Jacob takes matters into his own hands.
"The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents." (Genesis 25:27) To put it into modern terms, Esau was the brawn of the family and Jacob was the brains of the family. Esau was a "man's man", athletic and strong and focused on his chosen sport of hunting. He didn't want to be tied down to his father's estate. Bookkeeping didn't excite him. He wasn't a people person, preferring to be alone while striding through the open country Managing the workers didn't appeal to him.
Just because the Bible tells us Jacob preferred being at home doesn't mean he was lazy or physically weak. It means he was well-suited for handling the estate. He wanted to be managing the finances and the people and overseeing the agricultural work and the animal husbandry. Jacob may have been his mother's favorite, but he was by no means a spoiled mama's boy who lay about the house being waited on hand and foot. This man will wrestle with an angel (whom many scholars believe is "the angel of the Lord"---the pre-incarnate Christ) all night long in Genesis 32, refusing to let go of Him unless He blesses him. A mortal man who can tangle with an angel for that long is no weakling. I think Jacob stayed busy while he was "among the tents". I think he got up every morning and went about the business of helping to keep things running, and that means he would have been on his feet a lot. It means he would have had to sometimes be firm with insubordinate workers. It means he probably had to herd livestock and catch animals that got loose and help deliver calves that were turned the wrong way. Anyone who has ever worked on a farm knows it's very hard work from sunup to sundown.
Next we see that there's some favoritism in the family. Favoritism is unhealthy. When a parent or a grandparent obviously favors one child over another, there's going to be disharmony and resentment. "Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob." (Genesis 25:28) I don't think the Bible means that Isaac loved Esau but disliked Jacob or that Rebekah loved Jacob and disliked Esau. It's just that each of them obviously favored one son over the other. A thing like that will put a husband and wife at odds with each other. A thing like that will cause envy and resentment between the two brothers. Isaac is proud of his tough son Esau, who is a man's man, who is a mighty hunter. I bet he bragged about him to all his friends. But Rebekah is closer to Jacob, maybe because she sees him more often. Instead of being gone for days at a time on hunts, Jacob is home. And although he's no doubt quite busy all day, at least he's at the breakfast table and at the supper table. He's more available than Esau for conversation and companionship.
It appears that Jacob is a "jack of many trades", as the saying goes, because in addition to all his other duties he enjoys being the chef sometimes instead of depending on his mother or the female servants to do all the cooking. "Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, 'Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!' (That is why he was also called Edom.)" (Genesis 25:29-30) Edom will be the name of the tribe and the region of Esau's descendants. The word "Edom" means "red".
This particular hunt must have been unsuccessful if Esau has had to travel home on an empty stomach. He must have gone without food for several days. He's feeling faint. He's so famished he could just about eat shoe leather. When he comes through the door and smells the stew cooking he is overwhelmed by physical hunger to the point of feeling like he'll die if he doesn't get some of it. I doubt he's literally about to die, but I'm sure his blood sugar is quite low and he may be dehydrated and low in electrolytes. But when he stumbles into the house sniffing the stew and declaring he's at death's door, Jacob sees an opportunity to get what he wants. He knows Esau is a man whose mind is on the things of this world and not on spiritual things. He knows Esau is a man who lives only in the here and now. It seems like the perfect time to try to get what he already knows the Lord has promised him. "Jacob replied, 'First sell me your birthright.'" (Genesis 25:31) I can't help picturing Jacob standing by the cooking pot as it hangs over the fire, stirring the stew so that its aroma fills the air even more than it already is. He may even have scooped some up into the ladle so Esau could see it. He might have tasted it in front of Esau. I don't know why I see him doing this in my mind's eye, but Jacob knows what he's doing and I can't help thinking he made the stew as tempting as possible.
"'Look, I am about to die,' Esau said. 'What good is the birthright to me?'" (Genesis 25:32a) I feel like he's being a bit of a drama queen here. His father is very wealthy. There's bound to be plenty of food in the pantry. He doesn't have to have this particular meal to fill his tummy. It's not like this one pot of stew is the only food in the house. But because he's a carnally minded man who is ruled by the desires of his physical body, he wants this particular thing and he wants it right now no matter what it costs him. So he dramatically says something like, "If I'm dead I can't inherit anything! Why are you talking to me about something that won't even happen until our father dies someday? I'm hungry now. I'm about to pass out now. I feel like I can't take another step until I eat something and you want to talk to me about family leadership? Give me that stew before I knock your block off!"
I hope I'm not wronging Jacob by again picturing him making the stew irresistible. In my mind I see him ladling it up into a bowl and acting like he's about to hand the bowl to Esau, but he holds the bowl just slightly out of Esau's reach. I see Esau practically salivating now as he sits at the table with his eyes fixed on the bowl. "But Jacob said, 'Swear to me first.' So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob." (Genesis 25:33) I think Esau hardly takes Jacob's words in. The inheritance seems too far in the future to worry about. He's not interested in it anyway, not if it means becoming the leader of the family with all the spiritual and judicial and managerial duties that this entails. So he says, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I swear. I swear on the name of God that you can have my birthright. Now hand that stew over."
"Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left." (Genesis 25:34) I see him gulping down the bread and slurping up the stew while Jacob sits across from him with a pleased smile on his face. At this point in time, it's hard to find anything admirable in either of these two men. We can admire ambition but not when it involves deceit. We can admire a person's willingness to give up something that belongs to them but not if their willingness comes from a disregard for their blessings.
Both these men are being very shortsighted in thinking they have each gotten what they want. There are going to be times when they will regret their actions on this day. Although Jacob wants the birthright and everything that comes with it, fulfilling all the responsibilities is going to be a lot more difficult than he expects. He's going to have to go to the school of hard knocks before he becomes the man God wants him to be. The Lord will allow him to be tricked in much the same manner as he tricked his brother, and then he will know what it feels like and it's a lesson he won't forget. He will work hard for a long time for everything he gets. He will wrestle literally and figuratively with the Lord while he works out what faith means to him and while he becomes the man for whom a great nation will be named. As for Esau, he eats and gets up and goes on his way, thinking nothing about what he's just done. When he has time to reflect upon it, he will deeply regret his oath and will want to take it back, but he can't. He will understand the enormity of what he forfeited and will sorrowfully repent, but what's done is done. The Lord will be merciful to him and help him to make a good life for himself, and his descendants will be a mighty people, but what's gone is gone. The word the Lord spoke to Rebekah will come true just as He said, for He always knew what kind of men Esau and Jacob would be, and He always knew exactly what each of them would do. He didn't force either of them to make their mistakes; He simply knew about them ahead of time and chose accordingly. Jacob will be the leader of the family, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the ancestor of the Messiah.
Before Esau and his brother Jacob were born, the Lord told their mother Rebekah that the elder son would serve the younger son. She would have known by this that Jacob would end up being the head of the family, not Esau. We don't know whether she ever told Jacob what the Lord said to her, but I suspect she did, for in our passage today we will learn that Jacob was her favorite child. I think knowing about what the Lord said may be how Jacob justifies tricking his brother into relinquishing his rights as the eldest son. Instead of waiting for the Lord to promote him at the right time, Jacob takes matters into his own hands.
"The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents." (Genesis 25:27) To put it into modern terms, Esau was the brawn of the family and Jacob was the brains of the family. Esau was a "man's man", athletic and strong and focused on his chosen sport of hunting. He didn't want to be tied down to his father's estate. Bookkeeping didn't excite him. He wasn't a people person, preferring to be alone while striding through the open country Managing the workers didn't appeal to him.
Just because the Bible tells us Jacob preferred being at home doesn't mean he was lazy or physically weak. It means he was well-suited for handling the estate. He wanted to be managing the finances and the people and overseeing the agricultural work and the animal husbandry. Jacob may have been his mother's favorite, but he was by no means a spoiled mama's boy who lay about the house being waited on hand and foot. This man will wrestle with an angel (whom many scholars believe is "the angel of the Lord"---the pre-incarnate Christ) all night long in Genesis 32, refusing to let go of Him unless He blesses him. A mortal man who can tangle with an angel for that long is no weakling. I think Jacob stayed busy while he was "among the tents". I think he got up every morning and went about the business of helping to keep things running, and that means he would have been on his feet a lot. It means he would have had to sometimes be firm with insubordinate workers. It means he probably had to herd livestock and catch animals that got loose and help deliver calves that were turned the wrong way. Anyone who has ever worked on a farm knows it's very hard work from sunup to sundown.
Next we see that there's some favoritism in the family. Favoritism is unhealthy. When a parent or a grandparent obviously favors one child over another, there's going to be disharmony and resentment. "Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob." (Genesis 25:28) I don't think the Bible means that Isaac loved Esau but disliked Jacob or that Rebekah loved Jacob and disliked Esau. It's just that each of them obviously favored one son over the other. A thing like that will put a husband and wife at odds with each other. A thing like that will cause envy and resentment between the two brothers. Isaac is proud of his tough son Esau, who is a man's man, who is a mighty hunter. I bet he bragged about him to all his friends. But Rebekah is closer to Jacob, maybe because she sees him more often. Instead of being gone for days at a time on hunts, Jacob is home. And although he's no doubt quite busy all day, at least he's at the breakfast table and at the supper table. He's more available than Esau for conversation and companionship.
It appears that Jacob is a "jack of many trades", as the saying goes, because in addition to all his other duties he enjoys being the chef sometimes instead of depending on his mother or the female servants to do all the cooking. "Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, 'Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!' (That is why he was also called Edom.)" (Genesis 25:29-30) Edom will be the name of the tribe and the region of Esau's descendants. The word "Edom" means "red".
This particular hunt must have been unsuccessful if Esau has had to travel home on an empty stomach. He must have gone without food for several days. He's feeling faint. He's so famished he could just about eat shoe leather. When he comes through the door and smells the stew cooking he is overwhelmed by physical hunger to the point of feeling like he'll die if he doesn't get some of it. I doubt he's literally about to die, but I'm sure his blood sugar is quite low and he may be dehydrated and low in electrolytes. But when he stumbles into the house sniffing the stew and declaring he's at death's door, Jacob sees an opportunity to get what he wants. He knows Esau is a man whose mind is on the things of this world and not on spiritual things. He knows Esau is a man who lives only in the here and now. It seems like the perfect time to try to get what he already knows the Lord has promised him. "Jacob replied, 'First sell me your birthright.'" (Genesis 25:31) I can't help picturing Jacob standing by the cooking pot as it hangs over the fire, stirring the stew so that its aroma fills the air even more than it already is. He may even have scooped some up into the ladle so Esau could see it. He might have tasted it in front of Esau. I don't know why I see him doing this in my mind's eye, but Jacob knows what he's doing and I can't help thinking he made the stew as tempting as possible.
"'Look, I am about to die,' Esau said. 'What good is the birthright to me?'" (Genesis 25:32a) I feel like he's being a bit of a drama queen here. His father is very wealthy. There's bound to be plenty of food in the pantry. He doesn't have to have this particular meal to fill his tummy. It's not like this one pot of stew is the only food in the house. But because he's a carnally minded man who is ruled by the desires of his physical body, he wants this particular thing and he wants it right now no matter what it costs him. So he dramatically says something like, "If I'm dead I can't inherit anything! Why are you talking to me about something that won't even happen until our father dies someday? I'm hungry now. I'm about to pass out now. I feel like I can't take another step until I eat something and you want to talk to me about family leadership? Give me that stew before I knock your block off!"
I hope I'm not wronging Jacob by again picturing him making the stew irresistible. In my mind I see him ladling it up into a bowl and acting like he's about to hand the bowl to Esau, but he holds the bowl just slightly out of Esau's reach. I see Esau practically salivating now as he sits at the table with his eyes fixed on the bowl. "But Jacob said, 'Swear to me first.' So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob." (Genesis 25:33) I think Esau hardly takes Jacob's words in. The inheritance seems too far in the future to worry about. He's not interested in it anyway, not if it means becoming the leader of the family with all the spiritual and judicial and managerial duties that this entails. So he says, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I swear. I swear on the name of God that you can have my birthright. Now hand that stew over."
"Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left." (Genesis 25:34) I see him gulping down the bread and slurping up the stew while Jacob sits across from him with a pleased smile on his face. At this point in time, it's hard to find anything admirable in either of these two men. We can admire ambition but not when it involves deceit. We can admire a person's willingness to give up something that belongs to them but not if their willingness comes from a disregard for their blessings.
Both these men are being very shortsighted in thinking they have each gotten what they want. There are going to be times when they will regret their actions on this day. Although Jacob wants the birthright and everything that comes with it, fulfilling all the responsibilities is going to be a lot more difficult than he expects. He's going to have to go to the school of hard knocks before he becomes the man God wants him to be. The Lord will allow him to be tricked in much the same manner as he tricked his brother, and then he will know what it feels like and it's a lesson he won't forget. He will work hard for a long time for everything he gets. He will wrestle literally and figuratively with the Lord while he works out what faith means to him and while he becomes the man for whom a great nation will be named. As for Esau, he eats and gets up and goes on his way, thinking nothing about what he's just done. When he has time to reflect upon it, he will deeply regret his oath and will want to take it back, but he can't. He will understand the enormity of what he forfeited and will sorrowfully repent, but what's done is done. The Lord will be merciful to him and help him to make a good life for himself, and his descendants will be a mighty people, but what's gone is gone. The word the Lord spoke to Rebekah will come true just as He said, for He always knew what kind of men Esau and Jacob would be, and He always knew exactly what each of them would do. He didn't force either of them to make their mistakes; He simply knew about them ahead of time and chose accordingly. Jacob will be the leader of the family, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the ancestor of the Messiah.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 105, Why Did Esau Despise His Birthright?
Jacob is going to trick Esau out of his birthright in Genesis. But he would not have been able to do so if Esau valued his birthright. Before we begin our look at the remainder of Chapter 25 tomorrow, today we need to discuss what was included in the birthright and why Esau despised it.
It's far more than a material inheritance. The eldest son normally inherited double the amount that was left to a man's other sons, but if the birthright merely entailed a greater inheritance then I don't think the author of Genesis would have had to say that "Esau despised his birthright". (Genesis 25:34b) Most people do not despise a material inheritance, not even if they are already quite wealthy on their own. It's pretty rare to hear of a person refusing to accept money left to them in someone's will. Esau has never thought a lot about money and so far hasn't had much need for it. The Bible will tell us he's a "man of the open country". He's self-sufficient and knows how to live off the land. Which is fine for him, but his rejection of his material inheritance shows little regard for the future of his family. A man should be concerned about what will happen to his family when he's gone and he should take steps to provide for them, but instead Esau thinks only about today and about what he needs right now. This suggests he should not be managing his father's estate and that he will not set a good example for his clan when it comes to planning for the future. It may be that Esau cares little for money, but even if he does care about it, I think he would have given it up due to the other responsibilities that come along with being the owner of the birthright.
The owner of the birthright becomes the head of his family upon his father's death. This makes him chieftain over his clan and responsible for wisely leading not only his own personal descendants but the descendants of all his siblings as well. In a day when humans still lived well over a hundred years and when they were fertile for a longer time period than modern humans, a man's clan could be quite sizable. Esau would have needed good leadership skills and the wisdom to advise his clan as they formed a society. A man like Esau, who fails to make good decisions for his own future and personal security, is not well-suited to making good decisions for his clan. I think he knows he's not cut out for it. I have a feeling that he probably had to push this subject out of his mind every time he thought of it. If his father tried to train and instruct him in these matters, I wonder if he didn't find excuses for not making the time to listen.
As the owner of the birthright, upon his father's death he would have inherited judicial authority, which means he would have had to listen to and judge disputes that came up between family members. But Esau is a free spirit. He doesn't want to be tied down to a desk job. He doesn't want people depending on him or coming to him for advice or asking him to settle disagreements. He seems to be a loner and not really a people person. I get the feeling that if tasked with holding meetings and listening to legal cases, he would have grabbed his bow and fled for the hills to hunt in peace, for in Chapter 25 we will be told he's a "skillful hunter". Hunting is his favorite activity. He loves trudging through the open fields and hiking up the mountains all by himself. He is probably depressed by the idea of becoming the head of the clan and the manager of his father's estate. It's an onerous duty that he would rather avoid if at all possible, and his brother Jacob is going to make certain that he does avoid it.
Lastly, and most importantly, the owner of the birthright became the priest of the family. During the times of the patriarchs, before the priesthood was established, the leader of each family went before the Lord on behalf of his people. In those days the Lord spoke personally to the leader of the family. This means that the one who owns the birthright should be a person with a heart for God. He is going to have to bring the needs of his people to the Lord and he is going to have to pray to the Lord for help in leading his family and making decisions that are best for them. Esau has no affinity for this. While he was busy being "a man of the open country" he was not communing with the Lord and composing psalms to Him as David will later do while he watches his sheep in the open country. I think Esau's thoughts were focused only on what he was doing at that moment. He was thinking about himself or about the hunt. The author of Hebrews says that Esau was so "ungodly" that he sold his birthright for a morsel of bread. (Hebrews 12:16) In the original KJV this word is translated as "profane", and that word means much more than how we think of it today. While it may be that Esau was a man who used bad language and who may have even taken the name of the Lord in vain, in the original language this word meant a person who is spiritually destitute and carnally minded. Esau literally valued a meal more than he valued forming a relationship with the Lord. His mind was focused on the temporary and not on the eternal. He cared more about the flesh than about the spirit.
This doesn't mean Esau was a bad, unlikable person. Many people who are not spiritually-minded are what we would call "good" people. They care about others and can be good friends and neighbors. We are going to feel sorry for Esau later. He's going to feel sorry for himself. He's going to have regrets. But we can see why the Lord said, before Esau and Jacob were born, that the elder would serve the younger. He already knew what kind of men these two were going to be. He knew Jacob would be suited to lead the family. He knew Jacob would long to know Him and have a relationship with Him. Right now neither of these young men is a great example to us. Esau is godless and Jacob is deceitful. Neither of them seems especially likable. In fact, Jacob may be less likable as we look at the remainder of Chapter 25. But God sees into their hearts and He knows Jacob has a heart He can work with.
It's far more than a material inheritance. The eldest son normally inherited double the amount that was left to a man's other sons, but if the birthright merely entailed a greater inheritance then I don't think the author of Genesis would have had to say that "Esau despised his birthright". (Genesis 25:34b) Most people do not despise a material inheritance, not even if they are already quite wealthy on their own. It's pretty rare to hear of a person refusing to accept money left to them in someone's will. Esau has never thought a lot about money and so far hasn't had much need for it. The Bible will tell us he's a "man of the open country". He's self-sufficient and knows how to live off the land. Which is fine for him, but his rejection of his material inheritance shows little regard for the future of his family. A man should be concerned about what will happen to his family when he's gone and he should take steps to provide for them, but instead Esau thinks only about today and about what he needs right now. This suggests he should not be managing his father's estate and that he will not set a good example for his clan when it comes to planning for the future. It may be that Esau cares little for money, but even if he does care about it, I think he would have given it up due to the other responsibilities that come along with being the owner of the birthright.
The owner of the birthright becomes the head of his family upon his father's death. This makes him chieftain over his clan and responsible for wisely leading not only his own personal descendants but the descendants of all his siblings as well. In a day when humans still lived well over a hundred years and when they were fertile for a longer time period than modern humans, a man's clan could be quite sizable. Esau would have needed good leadership skills and the wisdom to advise his clan as they formed a society. A man like Esau, who fails to make good decisions for his own future and personal security, is not well-suited to making good decisions for his clan. I think he knows he's not cut out for it. I have a feeling that he probably had to push this subject out of his mind every time he thought of it. If his father tried to train and instruct him in these matters, I wonder if he didn't find excuses for not making the time to listen.
As the owner of the birthright, upon his father's death he would have inherited judicial authority, which means he would have had to listen to and judge disputes that came up between family members. But Esau is a free spirit. He doesn't want to be tied down to a desk job. He doesn't want people depending on him or coming to him for advice or asking him to settle disagreements. He seems to be a loner and not really a people person. I get the feeling that if tasked with holding meetings and listening to legal cases, he would have grabbed his bow and fled for the hills to hunt in peace, for in Chapter 25 we will be told he's a "skillful hunter". Hunting is his favorite activity. He loves trudging through the open fields and hiking up the mountains all by himself. He is probably depressed by the idea of becoming the head of the clan and the manager of his father's estate. It's an onerous duty that he would rather avoid if at all possible, and his brother Jacob is going to make certain that he does avoid it.
Lastly, and most importantly, the owner of the birthright became the priest of the family. During the times of the patriarchs, before the priesthood was established, the leader of each family went before the Lord on behalf of his people. In those days the Lord spoke personally to the leader of the family. This means that the one who owns the birthright should be a person with a heart for God. He is going to have to bring the needs of his people to the Lord and he is going to have to pray to the Lord for help in leading his family and making decisions that are best for them. Esau has no affinity for this. While he was busy being "a man of the open country" he was not communing with the Lord and composing psalms to Him as David will later do while he watches his sheep in the open country. I think Esau's thoughts were focused only on what he was doing at that moment. He was thinking about himself or about the hunt. The author of Hebrews says that Esau was so "ungodly" that he sold his birthright for a morsel of bread. (Hebrews 12:16) In the original KJV this word is translated as "profane", and that word means much more than how we think of it today. While it may be that Esau was a man who used bad language and who may have even taken the name of the Lord in vain, in the original language this word meant a person who is spiritually destitute and carnally minded. Esau literally valued a meal more than he valued forming a relationship with the Lord. His mind was focused on the temporary and not on the eternal. He cared more about the flesh than about the spirit.
This doesn't mean Esau was a bad, unlikable person. Many people who are not spiritually-minded are what we would call "good" people. They care about others and can be good friends and neighbors. We are going to feel sorry for Esau later. He's going to feel sorry for himself. He's going to have regrets. But we can see why the Lord said, before Esau and Jacob were born, that the elder would serve the younger. He already knew what kind of men these two were going to be. He knew Jacob would be suited to lead the family. He knew Jacob would long to know Him and have a relationship with Him. Right now neither of these young men is a great example to us. Esau is godless and Jacob is deceitful. Neither of them seems especially likable. In fact, Jacob may be less likable as we look at the remainder of Chapter 25. But God sees into their hearts and He knows Jacob has a heart He can work with.
Friday, January 10, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 104, The Birth Of Jacob And Esau
In yesterday's study we looked at the descendants of Abraham's son Ishmael. Today we move on to his son Isaac's children.
"This is the account of the family line of Abraham's son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless." (Genesis 25:19-21a) Isaac and Rebekah have been married for twenty years, as we will learn later in our passage today, and have conceived no children. Something is obviously wrong, so Isaac takes the problem to the best source of help: the Lord.
The Lord answers. "The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, 'Why is this happening to me?' So she went to inquire of the Lord." (Genesis 25:21b-22) She's experiencing something other than the normal moving about of babies in the womb. The Bible says these twins "jostled each other" and the definition of "jostle" is "to push, elbow, or bump against someone roughly". In modern times twins will occasionally be hugging each other in the womb in ultrasound images, but these two babies are not hugging each other. They're struggling against each other. Rebekah knows this is not normal and she asks the Lord why it's happening.
"The Lord said to her, 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger.'" (Genesis 25:23) The Lord knows what kind of men each of these babies will grow up to be. He knows which one He has chosen to be the ancestor of the coming Messiah. God, because He knows everything anyone will ever do, is able to make a choice like this before these babies are even born.
"When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau." (Genesis 25:24-25) His name means "hairy or rough" and it derives from the Hebrew word "seir". Some babies, especially if they are born premature, will have a covering of fine hair on their bodies. Twins are usually born earlier than single babies, and if Esau were the smaller of the two, this might explain why he has a covering of hair when he's born. However, we will learn later in Genesis 25 that he remained quite hairy all of his life.
The twins Rebekah bears are likely fraternal twins and not identical twins. If Esau and his brother looked alike, I don't think mention would have been made of Esau's redness and hairiness. I think they looked different from each other. "After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to him." (Genesis 25:26) Jacob's name means something like "to assail, circumvent, or supplant". A secondary definition is "to overreach, to be deceitful". When Jacob came out of the womb holding onto his brother's heel, this was taken as a sign that he wants to be the firstborn. It was a sign that he literally wants to take the place of his brother. We know already that it's the Lord's will for him to take the preeminence over his brother, but Jacob will not go about it in the right way. Instead of allowing God to work the details out, he will take matters into his own hands and obtain the rights of the firstborn by deceitful means.
Right now Jacob sounds like a naughty person and Esau appears to be an innocent party, but as we move through Chapter 25 and Chapter 26 we will learn that Jacob has a heart for the Lord and Esau does not. Jacob is not always going to be an admirable character, but the same could be said of each of us, couldn't it? No matter how much we love the Lord, we mess up sometimes. We go about things the wrong way. We get ahead of the Lord and instead of waiting Him to work things out we take charge and get what we want in ways that don't honor Him. We become impatient and we take hold of things at the wrong time. This is what's going to happen to Jacob. The one who took hold of his brother's heel will take hold of his brother's rights as firstborn and snatch them away from him. The Lord intends to give Jacob the rights of the firstborn, but Jacob won't wait for Him to work it out in the right time and in the right way. The fallout from the method Jacob uses won't be pleasant for anyone in the family, and it will take many years for the Lord to shape him into the man he needs to be, but when that happens he will no longer be called Jacob (the supplanter, the deceitful one). The Lord will rename him "Israel".
"This is the account of the family line of Abraham's son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless." (Genesis 25:19-21a) Isaac and Rebekah have been married for twenty years, as we will learn later in our passage today, and have conceived no children. Something is obviously wrong, so Isaac takes the problem to the best source of help: the Lord.
The Lord answers. "The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, 'Why is this happening to me?' So she went to inquire of the Lord." (Genesis 25:21b-22) She's experiencing something other than the normal moving about of babies in the womb. The Bible says these twins "jostled each other" and the definition of "jostle" is "to push, elbow, or bump against someone roughly". In modern times twins will occasionally be hugging each other in the womb in ultrasound images, but these two babies are not hugging each other. They're struggling against each other. Rebekah knows this is not normal and she asks the Lord why it's happening.
"The Lord said to her, 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger.'" (Genesis 25:23) The Lord knows what kind of men each of these babies will grow up to be. He knows which one He has chosen to be the ancestor of the coming Messiah. God, because He knows everything anyone will ever do, is able to make a choice like this before these babies are even born.
"When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau." (Genesis 25:24-25) His name means "hairy or rough" and it derives from the Hebrew word "seir". Some babies, especially if they are born premature, will have a covering of fine hair on their bodies. Twins are usually born earlier than single babies, and if Esau were the smaller of the two, this might explain why he has a covering of hair when he's born. However, we will learn later in Genesis 25 that he remained quite hairy all of his life.
The twins Rebekah bears are likely fraternal twins and not identical twins. If Esau and his brother looked alike, I don't think mention would have been made of Esau's redness and hairiness. I think they looked different from each other. "After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to him." (Genesis 25:26) Jacob's name means something like "to assail, circumvent, or supplant". A secondary definition is "to overreach, to be deceitful". When Jacob came out of the womb holding onto his brother's heel, this was taken as a sign that he wants to be the firstborn. It was a sign that he literally wants to take the place of his brother. We know already that it's the Lord's will for him to take the preeminence over his brother, but Jacob will not go about it in the right way. Instead of allowing God to work the details out, he will take matters into his own hands and obtain the rights of the firstborn by deceitful means.
Right now Jacob sounds like a naughty person and Esau appears to be an innocent party, but as we move through Chapter 25 and Chapter 26 we will learn that Jacob has a heart for the Lord and Esau does not. Jacob is not always going to be an admirable character, but the same could be said of each of us, couldn't it? No matter how much we love the Lord, we mess up sometimes. We go about things the wrong way. We get ahead of the Lord and instead of waiting Him to work things out we take charge and get what we want in ways that don't honor Him. We become impatient and we take hold of things at the wrong time. This is what's going to happen to Jacob. The one who took hold of his brother's heel will take hold of his brother's rights as firstborn and snatch them away from him. The Lord intends to give Jacob the rights of the firstborn, but Jacob won't wait for Him to work it out in the right time and in the right way. The fallout from the method Jacob uses won't be pleasant for anyone in the family, and it will take many years for the Lord to shape him into the man he needs to be, but when that happens he will no longer be called Jacob (the supplanter, the deceitful one). The Lord will rename him "Israel".
Thursday, January 9, 2020
In The Beginning. Day 103. The Family Of Ishmael
Abraham is now buried in the cave of Machpelah beside his wife Sarah. The Bible moves on next to tell us about his sons Ishmael and Isaac and their family lines. Today we will study the family line of Ishmael.
"This is the account of the family line of Abraham's son Ishmael, whom Sarah's slave, Hagar the Egyptian, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah." (Genesis 25:12-14)
It is believed that Nebaioth was the forefather of the Nabateans, due to the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. This tribe was also mentioned several times by ancient Greek historians and they were eventually conquered by Tiberius Caesar.
The tribe of Kedar is referenced in the book of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. It is also referenced in Assyrian historical documents because the Kedarites kept stirring up conflict with Assyria. In my research I found mention that Mohammad claimed he was descended from Ishmael through his son Kedar.
The Akkadians wrote of Adbeel's tribe which dwelt in northern Arabia and who at one time were employed as border guards by the Egyptian Empire.
Mibsam was known as a chieftain (or king) but very little is known about his tribe or the tribe of his brother Mishma because they intermarried with the Simeonites and there are no genealogical records of them after that.
The tribe of Dumah became the people known as the Idumaeans of whom the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Greeks spoke. There was also a city called Dumah in Canaan which may have been founded by Ishmael's son.
The tribe of Massa is mentioned in the annals of Assyrian and Greek history as well as in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. Josephus referred to them as the Masanaeans.
Little is known about Ishmael's son Hadad, but there were two tribes known as Hadad during Biblical times. It's not clear which of them was descended from Ishmael. During those days there was an Akkadian pagan idol known as Hadad, but whether there is any connection between this idol and Ishmael's son we do not know.
Job spoke of the tribe of Tema being one who plundered the goods of others. A city existed at that time by the same name and it lay near Dedan. It was sometimes used as a city of exile for political prisoners and enemies of the state, for an ancient Babylonian king was once deposed and exiled to prison and hard labor at Tema.
Jetur's tribe was written about by the Greeks and the Romans, with the Romans referring to them as "a band of robbers".
Naphish's tribe is not mentioned anywhere outside of the Bible, at least not in any writings that have yet been found. In 1 Chronicles 5:19 we find some of the tribes of Israel waging war against the tribe of Naphish and its allies. The Bible states that the Lord helped the tribes of Israel win this battle against their enemies in the land of Canaan.
Little is known about the tribe of Kedemah and it is only mentioned in the accounts of Ishmael's family line here in Genesis 25 and later in 1 Chronicles 1.
"These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers according to their settlements and camps. Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people." (Genesis 25:16-17) It is not believed that Ishmael is buried in the cave at Machpelah with Abraham, so this is not what the Bible means when it says "he was gathered to his people". This is the same thing the Bible said about Abraham at his death. This is an expression the Bible sometimes uses when speaking of the death of a believer. We don't know much about how Ishmael lived his life, but verse 17 seems to indicate that he remained faithful to the one true God and that upon his death his soul joined the body of believers in heaven. He would have been reunited with Abraham and Sarah. He would have been reunited with his mother Hagar, who likely predeceased him. Hagar appears to have converted from the gods of Egypt to the God of Abraham, for she has the honorable distinction of being the only woman in the Scriptures to give a new name to God, calling Him "The God Who Sees Me". I think that when Hagar died, she saw the God who saw her, and so did her son Ishmael when he died.
"His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt, as you go toward Ashur. And they lived in hostility toward all the tribes related to them." (Genesis 25:18) This is not what we want said about our descendants, is it? But the Lord predicted that this was how Ishmael's descendants, calling the entire nation "Ishmael" and saying of it "he will live in hostility toward all his brothers". (Genesis 16:12) The "he" in Genesis 16:12 is not so much Ishmael himself, for he seems to have kept in contact with his brother Isaac and he worked with Isaac to help inter their father Abraham in his burial plot. But in this verse it seems as if the Lord is calling all the descendants of Ishmael by his name. He does the same thing with the twelve tribes descended from Jacob, calling them as a whole either "Israel" or "Jacob".
The twelve tribes of Ishmael were warlike, stirring up conflicts and plundering the goods of those who lived around them. The mentions of the twelve tribes of Ishmael in historical documents tend to be neutral (just a simple mention of what territory they occupied) or negative (calling them troublemakers and robbers). Tomorrow we will move on to the family line of Isaac, which is the line from which the Messiah will come, and we must keep in mind that not all of his descendants were model citizens either. As we move through the Bible, we'll find people of his family line exhibiting all the faults and failures of human nature. But this ought to encourage us in our own struggles against the faults and failures of human nature. If the Redeemer was willing to be born into a family line that includes scoundrels and harlots and idolaters, He can make somebody out of anybody.
"This is the account of the family line of Abraham's son Ishmael, whom Sarah's slave, Hagar the Egyptian, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah." (Genesis 25:12-14)
It is believed that Nebaioth was the forefather of the Nabateans, due to the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. This tribe was also mentioned several times by ancient Greek historians and they were eventually conquered by Tiberius Caesar.
The tribe of Kedar is referenced in the book of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. It is also referenced in Assyrian historical documents because the Kedarites kept stirring up conflict with Assyria. In my research I found mention that Mohammad claimed he was descended from Ishmael through his son Kedar.
The Akkadians wrote of Adbeel's tribe which dwelt in northern Arabia and who at one time were employed as border guards by the Egyptian Empire.
Mibsam was known as a chieftain (or king) but very little is known about his tribe or the tribe of his brother Mishma because they intermarried with the Simeonites and there are no genealogical records of them after that.
The tribe of Dumah became the people known as the Idumaeans of whom the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Greeks spoke. There was also a city called Dumah in Canaan which may have been founded by Ishmael's son.
The tribe of Massa is mentioned in the annals of Assyrian and Greek history as well as in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. Josephus referred to them as the Masanaeans.
Little is known about Ishmael's son Hadad, but there were two tribes known as Hadad during Biblical times. It's not clear which of them was descended from Ishmael. During those days there was an Akkadian pagan idol known as Hadad, but whether there is any connection between this idol and Ishmael's son we do not know.
Job spoke of the tribe of Tema being one who plundered the goods of others. A city existed at that time by the same name and it lay near Dedan. It was sometimes used as a city of exile for political prisoners and enemies of the state, for an ancient Babylonian king was once deposed and exiled to prison and hard labor at Tema.
Jetur's tribe was written about by the Greeks and the Romans, with the Romans referring to them as "a band of robbers".
Naphish's tribe is not mentioned anywhere outside of the Bible, at least not in any writings that have yet been found. In 1 Chronicles 5:19 we find some of the tribes of Israel waging war against the tribe of Naphish and its allies. The Bible states that the Lord helped the tribes of Israel win this battle against their enemies in the land of Canaan.
Little is known about the tribe of Kedemah and it is only mentioned in the accounts of Ishmael's family line here in Genesis 25 and later in 1 Chronicles 1.
"These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers according to their settlements and camps. Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people." (Genesis 25:16-17) It is not believed that Ishmael is buried in the cave at Machpelah with Abraham, so this is not what the Bible means when it says "he was gathered to his people". This is the same thing the Bible said about Abraham at his death. This is an expression the Bible sometimes uses when speaking of the death of a believer. We don't know much about how Ishmael lived his life, but verse 17 seems to indicate that he remained faithful to the one true God and that upon his death his soul joined the body of believers in heaven. He would have been reunited with Abraham and Sarah. He would have been reunited with his mother Hagar, who likely predeceased him. Hagar appears to have converted from the gods of Egypt to the God of Abraham, for she has the honorable distinction of being the only woman in the Scriptures to give a new name to God, calling Him "The God Who Sees Me". I think that when Hagar died, she saw the God who saw her, and so did her son Ishmael when he died.
"His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt, as you go toward Ashur. And they lived in hostility toward all the tribes related to them." (Genesis 25:18) This is not what we want said about our descendants, is it? But the Lord predicted that this was how Ishmael's descendants, calling the entire nation "Ishmael" and saying of it "he will live in hostility toward all his brothers". (Genesis 16:12) The "he" in Genesis 16:12 is not so much Ishmael himself, for he seems to have kept in contact with his brother Isaac and he worked with Isaac to help inter their father Abraham in his burial plot. But in this verse it seems as if the Lord is calling all the descendants of Ishmael by his name. He does the same thing with the twelve tribes descended from Jacob, calling them as a whole either "Israel" or "Jacob".
The twelve tribes of Ishmael were warlike, stirring up conflicts and plundering the goods of those who lived around them. The mentions of the twelve tribes of Ishmael in historical documents tend to be neutral (just a simple mention of what territory they occupied) or negative (calling them troublemakers and robbers). Tomorrow we will move on to the family line of Isaac, which is the line from which the Messiah will come, and we must keep in mind that not all of his descendants were model citizens either. As we move through the Bible, we'll find people of his family line exhibiting all the faults and failures of human nature. But this ought to encourage us in our own struggles against the faults and failures of human nature. If the Redeemer was willing to be born into a family line that includes scoundrels and harlots and idolaters, He can make somebody out of anybody.
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