Continuing our walk through Genesis, we see that Abraham’s son Isaac grows up and marries a woman named Rebekah, and Isaac and Rebekah have twin sons, Jacob and Esau.
When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. (Genesis 25:24-26)
These two boys are complete opposites. Esau’s the outdoorsman, a manly man, like the man on the Brawny paper towels package. Jacob likes to stay inside and help his mom in the kitchen. Esau likes to hunt for food. Jacob likes preparing it. They should get along perfectly because they complement each other. But the parents are the problem. Esau is Isaac’s favorite, and Jacob is Rebekah’s favorite. We’re about to learn how wrong it is for any parent to have a favorite.
Esau, as the firstborn, has the right to the family blessing. Rebekah, however, wants Jacob to receive the blessing, so she helps Jacob trick his dad into giving him the blessing. After all, his name means “cheat.” Rebekah teaches her son how to cheat to get what he wants.
Esau finds out what Jacob has done and plans to kill his little brother, so Jacob escapes to Haran, where his grandpa Abraham once lived. He eventually meets his Uncle Laban, and through Laban God will teach Jacob some valuable lessons about the results of cheating to get ahead.
First, Jacob meets Laban’s daughter Rachel. It’s love at first sight for Jacob, who falls head over heels in love with Rachel. She’s Laban’s second daughter, as she has an older sister named Leah. Jacob is so in love with Rachel that he agrees to work for Laban for seven years to win her hand in marriage.
So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. (Genesis 29:20)
Isn’t that sweet?
Well, after seven years of working and waiting, it’s finally time for Jacob to be married to Rachel. But the little cheat Jacob is about to run headlong into the master cheat Laban. He’s about to learn what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a vicious trick. On the wedding night, Laban sends his first-born daughter Leah, with a veil covering her face, into Jacob’s tent.
What a surprise Jacob receives the next morning when he realizes that he’s married to Leah. In his rage, he says to Laban, “Why have you deceived me?” The word for “deceived” there is a form of Jacob’s own name, so he’s sort of asking, “Why have you Jacobed me?”
Laban said, “It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn.” (Genesis 29:26)
In other words, “Jacob, in our country, we honor our firstborn. We don’t allow the younger child to steal from the older child.”
Ouch.
So Jacob works for Laban another seven years and finally gets to marry Rachel. Eventually, God tells Jacob to take his family and move back home. Which is fine, except he knows that Esau is still there and hasn’t forgotten what Jacob did.
God says something very important in Genesis 31:3, “I will be with you.” How many times would we obey God if we just heard him say to us, “I’ll be with you.” But, of course, he is with us, he’s always with us. If you’re a believer, your Father is always with you no matter what you’re facing.
On his way back home, Jacob has an encounter with God. He wrestles all night with a man, and this man turns out to be an angel of God. God gives Jacob a new name. He’ll no longer be known as “cheater,” but as Israel, which means “he strives with God.”
Jacob has grown up a lot over the last twenty years, and he and his entire family head straight toward an encounter with big brother Esau. Israel has decided to face Esau head-on. He’s not going to try any trickery to win over Esau. He’s going to face him like a man and what happens, happens. If he dies, he dies. He’s trusting God and putting it all in his hands. He’s a different person than the kid who robbed his brother of the family blessing.
But what about Esau?
But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. (Genesis 33:4)
If there’s a relationship in your life that’s damaged, even if it seems like it’s beyond repair, have faith. If God can heal the relationship between Jacob and Esau, he can heal yours as well.
Recall that God had made a tremendous promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12 and 15. God renewed that promise to Abraham’s son Isaac, not Ishmael, in Genesis 26:3-5. Notice there also God says, “I will be with you.”
Now, in Genesis 35, God renews that promise to Jacob, showing that the promise goes through Jacob, not Esau:
God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” (Genesis 35:9-12)
There is so much more to the story of Jacob, and there are so many lessons we can learn from his life. God was always with him, and God’s love for Jacob meant that he allowed the cheat to become the cheated. It was a difficult lesson, but one that was badly needed. Jacob grew in his walk with God and his trust in God. And through him, God’s promise to Abraham, the promise to build a great nation that would be a blessing to all the world, was kept.
To be continued…