Esau – The Lowedown

Genesis 32

²²But during the night Jacob got up and sent his two wives, two concubines, and eleven sons across the Jabbok River. ²³After they were on the other side, he sent over all his possessions. ²⁴This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn. ²⁵When the man saw that he couldn’t win the match, he struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket. ²⁶Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is dawn.”

But Jacob panted, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷“What is your name?” the man asked.

He replied, “Jacob.”

²⁸“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “It is now Israel, [Israel means “God struggles” or “one who struggles with God.”] because you have struggled with both God and men and have won.”

²⁹“What is your name?” Jacob asked him.

“Why do you ask?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

³⁰Jacob named the place Peniel—“face of God”—for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” ³¹The sun rose as he left Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. ³²That is why even today the people of Israel don’t eat meat from near the hip, in memory of what happened that night. (Genesis 32:22-32, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

The book of Genesis is a rich collection of narrative stories that outline the rise and birth of the Jewish nation.

In this segment of Scripture, Jacob has just fled from his Uncle Laban, with whom he had spent 20 years serving. Their relationship had cooled considerably and Jacob ends up making a quick, hasty and unannounced departure because he fears Laban and what he might do once he learns Jacob is intent on leaving.

With Laban in his rear-view mirror, Jacob is now about to face his brother Esau, whom he had fled 20 years prior. The last time he saw his brother, Jacob had tricked his father into blessing him with the blessing that was supposed to go to Esau. As a result, Esau was intent on killing Jacob, which was the primary reason Jacob ended up with his uncle Laban in the first place.

As you can imagine, Jacob is experiencing a lot of uncertainty and anxiety in his life, with close personal relatives who don’t exactly like him threatening him with physical, bodily harm.

Jacob has done all he can do to try to strategically disarm the situation with Esau but he still doesn’t know if it will be enough. Jacob has sent his loved ones across the river and he is now all alone in the camp. It’s at this point that he has a physical encounter with the angel of the Lord.

One has to wonder what this encounter is all about and what it means. Why would the angel of the Lord come and physically wrestle with Jacob?

I think the encounter Jacob had, though real, is also symbolic of the encounter we all have. For Jacob, his struggle was not really with Laban, nor was it with Esau. His struggle was with God and this encounter essentially brought Jacob to the end of himself.

I was a wrestler in high school so I know a bit about the sport. High school, collegiate and Olympic wrestling is NOTHING like the wrestling you see on TV, which is mostly staged entertainment. By contrast, olympic style wrestling is a grueling and physically demanding sport that is all about control. Each participant seeks to control his or her opponent and is awarded points based on the different levels of control that occur.

If you think about it in this context, one can imagine that this wrestling match Jacob had with the angel of the Lord was a struggle for CONTROL. Jacob had had encounters with God before, but this encounter essentially was a wrestling match for Jacob’s personal identity and destiny.

As Jacob struggles with God, the encounter is essentially a stale-mate, signifying Jacob’s stubborn refusal to relent and submit. However, the man (the angel of the Lord) disables Jacob at the hip, showing that as much as we might resist God, He is ultimately superior to us and at any time, He can disable us. He is sovereign.

Finally, Jacob asks the man to bless him. I think this demonstrates Jacob’s ultimate desire to know and be known by God – to finally submit to God’s desires and plans.

What’s interesting about this is that God’s blessing of Jacob is a demarcation point in the identity and destiny of Jacob. God tells Jacob that He is changing his name. No longer will he be known as Jacob, which literally means “grasper of the heal” or figuratively, “deceiver”. Instead, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, which means “God’s Warrior”.

Jacob ends up in an all-night wrestling match with God for control of his life. The struggle ends the following morning with Jacob’s identity and his destiny literally changed forever.

It’s doubtful that any of us will have a physical wrestling match with the angel of the Lord. But our struggle for meaning, purpose, direction and identity is real nonetheless.

We each struggle with who we are going to become and whom we are going to serve. God has plans and desires for us and He promises that if we follow Him and His ways, we can experience fullness of life spiritually.

But the struggle for control is real. Our sinful nature prompts us to rebel against God and go our own way, seeking to carve our own path. This often leads to brokenness and heartache as sin often does. And it ultimately separates us from the one who desires to bless us, just as He blessed Jacob.

Reflection

When have you struggled for control of your life with God? What were the circumstances? What was the outcome?

What are some areas in your life that you struggle to yield control to the Lord?

Jacob was given a new identity and a new destiny. As followers of Christ, the Bible says that we have a new identity and a new spiritual destiny. What is your understanding of the identity and destiny that we have as followers of Christ?

What keeps you or hinders you from fully experiencing and living out of the identity and destiny that God wants for you as a follower of Christ?

God gave Jacob a limp, I think, to remind him of his frailty and need to depend on God instead of himself. What are some ways God reminds you of your limitations and need to trust God instead of depending on yourself?

Photo by Aqib Shahid: https://www.pexels.com/photo/men-wrestling-in-mud-5217427/

Genesis 27

¹When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”

“Here I am,” he answered.

²Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death. ³Now then, get your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. ⁴Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like* and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing* before I die.”

⁵Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back, ⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, ⁷‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the LORD before I die.’ ⁸Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: ⁹Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. ¹⁰Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing* before he dies.”

¹¹Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I’m a man with smooth skin. ¹²What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.”

¹³His mother said to him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”

¹⁴So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. ¹⁵Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. ¹⁶She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. ¹⁷Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.

¹⁸He went to his father and said, “My father.”

“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”

¹⁹Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing.”

²⁰Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”

“The LORD your God gave me success,” he replied.

²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

²²Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” ²³He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. ²⁴“Are you really my son Esau?” he asked.

“I am,” he replied.

²⁵Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.”

Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. ²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.”

²⁷So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said,

“Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.

²⁸May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine.

²⁹May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

³⁰After Isaac finished blessing him and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. ³¹He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

³²His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?”

“I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.”

³³Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!”

³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”

³⁵But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

³⁶Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

³⁷Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?”

³⁸Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.

³⁹His father Isaac answered him,

“Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above.

⁴⁰You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.” (Genesis 27:1-40, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

In Genesis 27, we encounter a situation that demonstrates how our character traits seem to pass on to the next generation.

If you remember, Abraham was not always as honest and faithful as his reputation might suggest. In Genesis 20, Abraham deceives Abimilech, telling him his wife Sara is actually his sister out of fear that they will kill him to get her if they knew she was his wife. I wrote about this passage in my post “Old Habits are Hard to Break”. This wasn’t the first time Abraham had resorted to deception to alleviate his own fears.

In Genesis 26, Isaac also deceives Abimilech (likely a different ruler with the same name due to it being years later). He claims his wife Rebekah is his sister because he fears that because of her stunning beauty, the locals might kill him to take her if they believed she was his wife.

Now, a few chapters later, Isaac is an old man and he can no longer see. He invites his oldest son Esau to go and kill some wild game and make a delicious meal for him so that he can offer him, his oldest son, his blessing, something that was standard in the Ancient Near Eastern culture.

But Jacob and Rebekah have other plans. Jacob has already enticed Esau, his older twin to sell his birthright for a cup of lentil stew and now, with his mother’s help, he deceives Isaac into giving him the blessing that would normally be given to the older son. In this way, Jacob is establishing himself as the heir instead of Esau.

A few things stand out to me as I read this passage. First, it’s interesting to see that Esau has selective memory. He claims that Jacob had deceived him to get his birthright when the truth of the matter is that Esau didn’t care enough about his birthright and willingly gave it to Jacob in order to satisfy his hunger.

The second thing that stands out is that character traits like deception can be passed along to those around us whom we influence. Rebekah, who saw the deception of her husband in Genesis 25 is a willing accomplice, even the author of the deception that Jacob perpetrates on his father Isaac.

Because of this act, Jacob ends up fleeing his home, out of fear that his brother will kill him. This act takes him away from his family for many years.

Fortunately, Jacob is able to re-write his own story, as all of us are. This one incident doesn’t end up defining Jacob. Instead, God ends up giving Jacob a new name (Israel) and a new destiny, the patriarch of a new people who would be God’s chosen people.

Reflection

What character traits, good or bad, have you picked up from your family?

How can you ensure that you limit the negative traits you pass on to your kids?

What are some incidents in your life that haunt you and tend to define you?

How can you allow God to rewrite your story so you are not defined by that one negative circumstance?

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash