Delve into the ancient conflict between Jacob and Esau, two brothers whose rivalry set the stage for enduring tensions in the Middle East. Explore how their familial dispute over birthrights and blessings reflects larger themes of conflict and resolution that continue to echo in modern times. This episode unravels the complexity behind these biblical tales, offering a historical and theological lens through which to view the narratives.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think most people are puzzled by the intractable and irrational nature of the Middle East conflict. They want to know why these struggling nations in the Middle East can’t just get along and you would think after so many generations of conflict, somebody would eventually get tired of it all and say, let’s make peace. The problem is, though, that the conflicts in the Middle East are irrational, and they aren’t going to yield to rational solutions. These conflicts are so old that these people who hate one another have long since forgotten why they hate one another. The troubles in the Middle East, well, they’re as old as the sons and grandsons of a man named Abraham from the book of Genesis in your Bible. Two of his grandsons were fighting in the womb before they were even born. So I don’t suppose we would be too surprised if they and their descendants were still in conflict for generations to come and maybe not even knowing why. It was true of Jacob and Esau, grandsons of Abraham. These two boys were twins. They were a long way from identical twins, though, and they were struggling with each other in the womb of their mother. The Bible tells us this, and it’s odd. You kind of visualize one of them sticking his fist in the other one’s nose or his foot in the other guy’s belly and pushing. But they were having a battle before they were even born. Esau was the older, and he was born minutes before his brother. In fact, as he came out, his brother apparently had his hand on his heel. But on one fateful day, Esau, the firstborn, who had the birthright, sold the birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup. And the Bible tells us, thus Esau despised his birthright. He counted it of no account. So the temporal basis for their conflict now was land. But, frankly, they seemed doomed to conflict anyway. The image, the whole impression they give you from Scripture is that these boys were destined to fight before they were ever born. The birthright? Well, the birthright involved a lot of land and a lot of power. It’s easy to overlook it. You think of Isaac as a desert nomad with a few people and some sheep and cattle around his tents. Isaac was a wealthy man. And not only that, he was an extremely powerful man in that part of the world. He had his own private army, and he dominated the region where he lived. So in his birthright, the right of the firstborn, there was something to fight over. Well, Isaac was old and blind, and one day he called Esau, his older son, in and asked for a favor. He said, Look, boy, I’m old, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be with you, but one more time before I die, I would like to have the taste of that marvelous venison you do on my lips before I go. So I’ll tell you what. You take your bow and go hunting. Fix me some of that savory venison you’re famous for so I can eat it and bless you before I die. Now, as in many family disputes, we’ve got a situation here where parents are playing favorites. Esau is the favorite of Isaac. But Rebekah’s favorite? Ah, he was Jacob. Now, Rebekah overheard this conversation and she wanted that blessing upon Jacob after all Esau had despised it his birthright and had sold it and she thought the blessing should go to her younger son so Rebecca spoke to her son Jacob saying listen I heard your father speak to Esau by your brother and said this, Go get me some venison, make me some savory meat that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before my death. Now, my son, do what I tell you. Run out to the flock, fetch me from there two good kids of the goats, and I’m going to make out of these that savory meat for your father like he really loves. Now, it’s no surprise that Rebekah knew the recipe. And the difference between goat and venison might not have been noticeable once you got enough pepper in it. Anyway, she told him to get it ready. She says, you’ll take it into your father that he can eat and he can bless you before his death. Now, Jacob was no fool, and he knew his dad, and he saw a problem right off the bat with this scheme. And he said to his mother, look, he saw my brother as a hairy man. I’m a smooth man. My father will feel me. I’ll be a deceiver, and I’m going to get a curse, not a blessing out of this. Smart young man. His mother said to him, don’t worry about it. Any curse you get, let it be on me. Just do what I tell you and go get those goats. So he went and fetched him and brought him to his mother, and she made a meal to die for. And while she was at it, she took some of the best clothes of Esau that were in the house and had Jacob put them on. And she did something more. She took the skins of the goats and put them on his hand and upon the smooth of his neck. Now, I want you to think about this for a minute because the purpose behind this was so that when Jacob reached out and touched him, he wouldn’t feel the smooth hand of Jacob. He’d feel that rough, hairy hand of Esau. You have to imagine what kind of a man Esau was when you realize that his skin was more like a goat than it was like that of a man. So she told him, Let’s get it done. Do what you’re told. And she made this little preparation, and she gave the savory meat and the bread she had prepared into the hand of Jacob and says, Take it to him. So he came to his father and says, My father? He said, Here I am. Who are you? Jacob said, I’m Esau, your firstborn. I’ve done what you said. Sit here and eat this venison that your soul may bless you. And Isaac said to his son, You know, How come you found it so quickly, my son? And Jacob answered, well, the Lord your God brought it right in front of me. And Isaac said, come over here close so I can feel you. He was suspicious. He said, I want to know whether you’re my very son Esau or not. Now, you’ve got to think about this. Why is this man suspicious? Well, in the first place, the voice doesn’t sound right. But in the second place, he knows the fight that’s going on between these boys for years. So Jacob went over close, and his father felt him. And he said, the voice is Jacob’s, but the hands, well, the hands are the hands of Esau. And he didn’t see through the scheme because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands. And so he blessed him. But he said, are you really my son Esau? And Jacob said, I am. He says, well, get it over here close to me, and I’ll eat the venison. My soul may bless you. He brought it near him, and he ate, and he brought him wine, and he drank. And he said, come here and kiss me, my son. Because, you know, interesting, Isaac is still bothered. He’s still not quite comfortable about this. And so he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothes, a dead giveaway. And he blessed him and said, See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. It was an outdoorsman’s clothes. Therefore, now comes the blessing that he pronounced upon Jacob. God give you the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth and plenty of corn and wine. Let people serve you. Let nations bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers and let your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone that curses you and blessed be he that blesses you. Wow, that’s a lot. And not only that, it damns Esau to servitude to his brother. Well, as it happened, as soon as he had finished the blessing and Jacob had barely gone out, Esau came in another door from his hunting. He had also already made savory meat and brought it into his father. And he said to his father, let my father arise and eat of his son’s venison that your soul may bless me. And Isaac, his father, said, Who are you? He said, I’m your son. I’m your firstborn. It’s Esau, Dad. And Isaac trembled, and he said, Who? Where is he that has taken venison and brought it to me, and I’ve eaten all of it before you came and have blessed him? Yes, and he shall be blessed. And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great exceeding bitter cry and said, Father, bless me, even me also, my father. Now, it’s interesting as you read through this, you realize that these people all believed that this blessing was binding. It was not only binding in a human sense because it was the way inheritances would go in their time. It was binding before God that the blessings of God that were required for this would come down. And Esau all of a sudden realized that everything, his birthright, his blessing, it was all gone. And he said, Isaac said to him, your brother came to me with subtlety. and he has taken away your blessing. And he said, Well, isn’t he rightly named Jacob, which means supplanter? He has supplanted me these two times and took away my birthright, and now he’s taken away my blessing. Mind you, he didn’t take away his birthright. Esau despised it and sold it. Now, he says, Father, haven’t you reserved any kind of blessing for me? And Isaac answered and said, I’ve made him your Lord. I’ve given him all his brethren for servants. With corn and wine I have sustained him. What do you want me to do for you? And Isaac said to his father, Have you but one blessing, father? Bless me also, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept as well he might. And later on, one of the New Testament writers will tell us that he looked for this blessing and tried to get it back bitterly with tears, and he couldn’t get it because he had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. So Isaac, his father, answered. He said, Look, your dwelling shall be away from the fatness of the earth. and away from the dew of heaven from above. By your sword you shall live. You shall serve your brother. It shall come to pass when you have the dominion, you shall break his yoke from off your neck. You know, this is a prophecy running way down through time. Open up your atlas and take a look at the Middle East and ask yourself, who in the world is Esau? Well, Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are coming. And when that’s over, I’m going to kill my brother Jacob. The story will continue right after this break.
SPEAKER 02 :
You already know that biblical prophecy can be hard to understand. What you may not know is that without a grasp of history, it is next to impossible. Write for a free introductory program in our series on history and prophecy. It will open up a whole new world of Bible study. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now you have to understand in a household like this, one person’s business is everybody’s business. And somebody who heard Esau make his threat that he was going to kill Jacob heard it. And they told Rebekah. So she called Jacob in and said, look, your brother Esau is concerning you. He’s going to kill you. So therefore, my son, listen to what I’m telling you. Leave here. Go to Laban, my brother-in-law, to Haran. You stay there a few days until your brother’s fury turn away, until your brother’s anger has turned away from you, and he forget that which you have done to him. Fat chance. As it will turn out, Jacob will be gone 14 years, and his brother’s anger will not have cooled much at all. Anyway, she says, when it’s happened, I’ll send for you and bring you back. Why should I be deprived of both of you in one day? Well, Rebekah then went to Isaac, and she said, I am weary to death because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob goes out and takes a wife of the daughters of Heth like those Esau has gotten, their daughters of the land, my life isn’t going to be any good to me at all. Rebekah, the mother-in-law, just couldn’t stand these Hittite daughters-in-law. We don’t know why. It could have been culture. It could have been religion. It could have been both. So Isaac listened to her, and he called Jacob, and he probably had a pretty good idea of what was going on as well, and figured, well, I better get this boy out of here. He blessed him, charged him, and said, You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go where I got your mother for a wife, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father. Take a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. God Almighty bless you, make you fruitful, multiply you, that you may be a multitude of people, and give you the blessing of Abraham to your seed with you, that you may inherit the land wherein you are a stranger which God gave to Abraham. Now look, on this occasion, Isaac consciously gave the blessing to Jacob, fully knowing what he had done. because he knew that when he gave that blessing in the presence of God, it was done. Now, you would think, I would certainly think, that it was done fraudulently, and it could be set aside. But, you know, the Bible indicates that it was God’s intent that Jacob be the one who had the birthright from the very beginning, from before these children were born. Now, there are a lot of things in this world, and in the Bible in particular, that are inexplicable. And the unexplainable nature of this one from the womb is that somehow or other this conflict had its origins even before either boy had had a chance to do good or to do evil. Paul sees it as an example of the selection of God without any considerations of merit on the basis of grace alone. Well, Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Haran, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah. Actually, he was going to be looking for wives among his cousins. Well, Esau, when he saw what happened… when he saw that Isaac had consciously blessed Jacob and sent him away to take a wife from another country. And he realized as he gave him that charge, don’t take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, he really realized that he had messed up. He thought, well, I’ll do something different. Since the daughters of Canaan don’t please my father, I’ll go take a wife from the daughters of Ishmael. So he took wives, which he had, and the wives he already had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife. Now, I really doubt this helped very much, because there was an ancient rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac that went back all the way to the blessing of Isaac and the sending away of Ishmael in Abraham’s day. So this land feud has now established itself between the people who lived in Palestine, the people who lived in Arabia. Now it’s going to be another one between Jacob and Esau, and it just goes on and on and on. Meanwhile, Jacob went out from Bathsheba and headed off toward Haran, and he lighted upon a certain place. He camped there all night because the sun was going down, and he took of the stones that place and set them up for a bed or pillows and lay down in that place to sleep. And in his sleep, he dreamed. And he saw a ladder set up in the earth. The top of it reached way up into heaven. And as he watched, the angels of God began ascending and descending. They were going up and down this ladder. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, the God of Isaac, the land whereon you lie. To you I will give it and to your seed. And your seed will be like the dust of the earth in number. You’ll be spread abroad to the west and to the east and the north and the south. And in you and all your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” He meant that the descendants of this one man would actually be a blessing to the world in which they lived. And behold, I am with you. I will keep you in all places where you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you of. Wow, what a set of promises coming rolling down a ladder out of heaven from God himself. And Jacob, waking out of his sleep, and he said, surely the Lord is in this place. And I didn’t know it. And he was afraid. And he said, how dreadful is this place. This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. Jacob was probably a little overwrought by this experience because the reason this happened here in this place. is because Jacob was here. It’s where he was when God decided to give him the message. It wasn’t that he had accidentally stumbled onto the gate of heaven. So don’t go down to the Middle East and don’t go to Bethel and don’t wander around in there seeing if you can find where heaven’s gate is. That’s not the point. Jacob rose up early in the morning and he took the stone he had slept on. He set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it and he called the name of that place Bethel. It’s a name that echoes down through biblical history. Jacob, on this occasion, vowed a vow. And I want to talk to you about the implications of that vow when I come back after this important message.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
Now, I’ve already pointed out that Jacob was no fool. He listened to that blessing come rolling down from the top of the ladder, and he knew better than to think that all he had to do was say, thank you, Lord, wander off and live the rest of his life as he pleased. He realized that those promises implied certain obligations. In other words, they implied a covenant. So Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God. If you look at this in your Bible, you’ll notice the word LORD is in small caps, which means it is the name Yahweh or Yehovah that is in this place. Then Yahweh or Yehovah will be my God, and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that you give me, I will surely give the tenth to you. Now this is more than a vow. This is a covenant. God made the covenant promise to Jacob, and he made a covenant response. The tithe, spoken of frequently in the Bible, is simple. It’s a tenth. And Jacob, you know, I’ve heard a lot of arguments in my lifetime about a tenth of what? A tenth of agricultural produce, a tenth of this, a tenth of that. Jacob cut through all that stuff. And he said, of all that you give me, I will surely give the tenth to you. That was a simple proposition to Jacob. If God didn’t give him anything, he didn’t owe God anything. that the tenth was given back to God as an acknowledgement that God had given this to him. So here you have a question. Do I have to tithe? Well, not if God hasn’t given you anything. You don’t. Or only if you’re in covenant with God do you have to do it. Otherwise, perhaps you could forget it. But here’s the burning question. Why would you want to exclude your finances from your covenant with God? I mean, why would you go into a covenant with God to be Lord of your life, to have your life be tied up with His, to walk in His ways, to have God blessing you in your life? Why would you want part of your life in covenant with God, but you don’t want God to be involved in any way in your financial affairs? Does that make any sense to you? Wouldn’t it be better to have God as a partner in your business, in your investments, in your affairs? But of course… If you don’t think God has given you anything, then surely you don’t owe him anything. Later on, God would say to Israel, Even from the days of your fathers, you’ve gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the Lord of hosts. But you said, Well, wherein shall we return? And this is in Malachi chapter 3, verse 7. What do we need to come back or return for, they ask. And God replies, will a man rob God? Well, how could you do that? I mean, going up to heaven and steal something from God? Will a man rob God, they wonder? And he says, yet you have robbed me. But you say, well, wherein have we robbed you? God’s answer, in tithes and offerings. You’re cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me. This whole nation has robbed me. Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith. Test me on this, says God, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. I’ll rebuke the devourer for your sakes. He’ll not destroy the fruit of your ground. Your vine will not cast her fruit before it’s time in the field. And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, this is an appeal made to a whole people, a whole nation of people, who had basically turned their back on God and forgotten that he was the God of the land, that he was the one that gave them the land in the first place. All they were in a way was sharecroppers. They had forgotten that he gave them the rain. They forgot he gave them the seed. They forgot he gave them the increase. And unlike Jacob, they weren’t giving him a tenth of all that he gave to them. And God’s response was, you’ve robbed me. You have taken away something that belongs to me. Now, I know somebody’s going to say, well, true, but that was under the old covenant. We don’t need to tithe. They might say, if we’re under the new covenant, I don’t know. You have to ask this question. You’re under the new covenant. Do you want God as a partner in your financial affairs or not? Can you exclude some part of your life from your covenant with God? You can say, well, God’s the Lord of my home, and he’s the Lord of my family, but he’s not the Lord of my business. Is that the way it works? I don’t think so. Is there no need at all for you to acknowledge God as the one who has given you all that you have? But don’t ask me. Take it up with God. Well, Jacob continued on his journey, and he came to the land of the people of the east, and he looked, and he saw a well on a field, and there were some flocks of sheep lying by it, and they came out there to water their flocks, and there was a great stone upon the well’s mouth. And all the flocks had gathered around, and they rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the sheep. This was the custom, and then they’d put the stone back on the well’s mouth in its place to keep stuff from falling down in it. And Jacob said, Hey, my brethren, where have you come from? And they said, Well, we’re from Haran. And Jacob said, Oh, do you know the Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. He said to him, Is he well? He said, Oh, yes, he’s well. And look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep. Here’s another one of those situations where God puts the people together that he wants together. And he said, look, it’s yet high day. Neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together to water the sheep. You go and feed them. They said, well, we can’t until all the flocks are gathered together and until they roll the stone from the whale’s mouth. Then we water the sheep. And while he was talking with them about all this, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she kept them. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother… and the sheep of Laban with her. And he went near, and he rolled the stone from the whale’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his uncle. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. He was so overwhelmed at the way in which God had brought him right to the family of these people, and he had met one of the women who was in the category of a woman who might be his wife, And I gather she was a beautiful woman. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her cousin, that he was Rebecca’s son. And she ran and told her father. Some of the greatest love stories that have ever been written are in the Bible. If you’re like me, you just wish there was more detail. Until next time, I’m Ronald Dart, and you were born to win.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44. and visit us online at born2win.net.
