Jacob, Esau, Bible Dictionary

Jacob obtained the birthright over his brother Esau. This was due to Jacob’s worthiness and marrying in the covenant, while Esau despised his birthright and married outside the covenant

My wife brought up a comment made recently by a member of the ward. He was basically trying to interpret this as Esau represents the “worldly man” and Jacob represents the “spiritual man”. God blesses the spiritual and not the worldly. The next part was what bothered me more. He said this also shows that when Israel is scattered they will be indistinguishable from the world, but God knows them and will bless them, restoring their divine birthright.

To me this is illustrates a great frustration of mine, that is it takes the text of the bible and instead of reading it for what the author intended we read back in centuries of history and our own theology and read it back into the text. No where in the text can you make any claim about the scattering of Israel here.

Esau is screwed from the beginning.

The first problem I see with this story is that Esau never stands a chance. Even assuming this story is real and historical and not etiological we run into the problem of Rebekah learning from the Lord(YHWH) that

Two nations are in they womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from they bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Before they are even born Rebekah knows that whoever the younger is will be the stronger and the elder will serve the younger. This by itself is already problematic to me for a few different reasons.

In this case it’s already been predetermined what is going to happen. While I don’t have a problem with the argument that God knows what’s going to happen, but we still have our agency and make the choice. That argument would seem to imply that no one else should be made aware of the future especially if they have the ability to use their own agency to make it happen. This perhaps implies that had the Lord not told Rebekah this before hand then Esau would have been blessed instead of Jacob.

It’s also worth noting that later in verse 28 it says

Isaac loved Esau, … but Rebekah loved Jacob.

As mentioned above Isaac doesn’t know this ‘prophesy’, but Rebekah does. This seems to bare out that Rebekah would love Jacob more because she knows he will be stronger and Esau will later serve him. If she knows that why would she love Esau more. Isaac loves Esau so again he must not know about the prophesy.

Jacob, the favored.

Jacob extorts the birthright from Esau. I don’t have a way to read the text and come away with a different opinion. That is what the text says. If this is Moses writing the story why does he frame it in this way if this isn’t what really happened. There may be some hyperbole involved here as well. Was Esau really ‘at the point to die?’ Was he just tired from a long day, and didn’t want to make his own meal? sure. I think that’s the best interpretation you could come to if you need Jacob to not be a complete dick. Maybe Esau is known for exaggeration. He could have made his own meal. Jacob had been there for a while preparing this meal that was just enough for one. He didn’t know Esau would be coming and would be hungry. By giving him this meal would mean that he himself would go hungry for the day and possibly longer. That seems to be the best case scenario. However I still think the ‘Christlike’ thing would be to say ‘I’ve been cooking this all day, I’m starving, but you can have half.’ Then they both may be hungry still, but both with something.

If you take the text literally however, it comes off as Esau coming home from the field about to faint. He asks for the meal and is met with the request to sell the birthright. Depending on how you read the next verse Esau says

I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

It is difficult to read this without at least some exaggeration. He probably wasn’t literally going to die if he didn’t eat then. That would be the only reason I can see for the later line that says ‘thus Esau despised his birthright.’

However Even in the best scenario I can’t see Jacob being ‘honorable’ in this scene. It is also potentially worth noting that this seems to have no impact on the events that occur later. If you took out this one scene the story would continue without a hiccup. If this had taken place why go through the later deception. Jacob could have just told Isaac that Esau gave him the birthright. If he did then why does Isaac not respect that ‘trade’? It does just seem odd to me that this whole story everyone seems to know that Jacob should have the blessing and birthright except for Isaac.

Family ties

The story then moves on to discuss a famine and Isaac and his family traveling and ending in Gerar where he pretends his wife is his sister. Similar to Abraham earlier in Genesis. It’s an odd thing to me that we have to constantly be lying here. Especially here where it seems to imply more harm could have happened because he wasn’t honest with King Abimelech. Regardless this is a whole other topic that is outside this scope.

The next time we see Esau we learn about what appears to be his grievous sin

34 ¶ And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:

35 Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

The sin here is he marries Canaanite women. Maybe more specifically he married outside the covenant.

This is odd to me because it looks irrelated to what was happening prior and is just two paragraphs and moves on to talk about Isaac being old. It seems out of place, but really is the only reason one could come up with as to why Esau should lose his blessing. We have the selling of the birthright and the mention of marriage to these Canaanite women.

We also getting this being the reason in multiple church sources. If we look here at the initial quote that can be found jacob son of isaac in the Guide to the Scriptures

Jacob obtained the birthright over his brother Esau. This was due to Jacob’s worthiness and marrying in the covenant, while Esau despised his birthright and married outside the covenant

By all accounts Esau should be the one that is chosen by normal convention at the time. This brings up two points in my mind. First, does Jacob obtain the birthright because of his obedience? Second, does Esau lose his birthright because of his disobedience? Third, both? The problem with the first is that up to this point in the story Jacob hasn’t done anything to show his worthiness. He convinces his brother to sell his birthright, but in a way that i don’t think should be considered ‘righteous’. The third option maybe, but again up till now Jacob hasn’t done anything overtly ‘righteous’, unless we want to say abstaining from ‘sin’ is righteous. Seems a little murky to me. I would say it has more to do with Esau losing his birthright and Jacob being the other option who will later do righteous things. If that’s the case however does that imply that Esau would have been blessed if he hadn’t married outside the covenant?

In this story that can’t be because Rebekah received the prophecy that it was always going to be Jacob. Why is marring outside the covenant so wrong? I don’t think there is anything ‘morally’ wrong with marrying outside one’s own religious or cultural background I do think there is some wisdom in finding a spouse that has a similar culture to your own. Particularly if the intent is to pass down exacting family traditions to your offspring.

As a simple example my family on Christmas eve had a tradition where my mom would make a small bowl of pudding and hide one almond in one of them. We would each eat the pudding and whoever picked the one with the almond would get to open a present that night. My wife’s family didn’t do that. Guess what my family doesn’t do? We don’t do that in my family. If that was important to me I should have married someone who also had that same tradition. That would ensure it was passed down. Same thing can be said for religion. Especially back then when really who was there that followed the one true God of Israel? Well Israel isn’t even a thing yet, so it’s just Abraham, and Isaac. Earlier in Genesis 24 Abraham explicitly refused to let Isaac marry a Canaanite.

3 And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:

So Isaac doesn’t marry a Canaanite, but is led to Rebekah who is his cousins daughter.

Terah ├── Abraham [M] Sarah │ ├── Isaac [M] Rebekah │ │ ├── Jacob (Israel) [M] Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, Zilpah │ │ └── Esau (Edom) [M] Canaanite wives + Ishmaelite wife │ │ │ └── Ishmael [M] Hagar │ ├── 12 princes (Arab tribes) │ └── Mahalath [M] Esau │ ├── Nahor [M] Milcah (Milcah is his niece, daughter of Haran) │ ├── Bethuel │ │ ├── Rebekah [M] Isaac │ │ └── Laban │ │ ├── Leah [M] Jacob │ │ └── Rachel [M] Jacob │ │ │ └── Other children (Uz, Buz, etc. – less central to covenant line) │ └── Haran │ └── Milcah [M] Nahor └── Lot

So for me this is all a little odd, but I don’t really care that much about the close familiar relationship with older men and younger women, and being so closely related to begin with. It’s a different time and I do feel like we have to take some liberties here and just assume God knows what he’s doing. This close pairing though seems to be related to needing a covenant people and you achieve this by marrying people with the same religious belief in the one true God let’s say. A couple of things. First, the covenant is with Abraham. Terah for all intents and purposes is a ‘bad’ guy. From the book of Abraham we learn Terah worships other Gods, which seems to be the basis for most of the covenant talk anyway. The covenant is essentially I will be your God and you will be my people. Terah must not really be apart of that as he is constantly worshiping other Gods. However Abraham’s brothers must be to some extent. For the most part all the women come through Nahor, who is also married to his niece through Haran. They are also all through the line(seed) of Terah. We essentially have the Men coming through Abraham and the women coming through Nahor.

Lets look back at Esau for a moment. According to the story we have Esau getting married to multiple Canaanite women. This seems to be the crime/sin for which he loses his blessings. We then have the scene where Isaac is tricked into blessing Jacob instead of Esau. I will get to there shortly, but I think I need to bring up a few more points regarding this interesting family ties.

After the ‘blessing’ by Isaac Rebekah sends Jacob away to her brother Laban’s house. Then she says to Isaac

I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

The daughters of Heth are the Hittites. They are also local Canaanites from the land. I think it’s interesting to note that Rebekah is worried about Jacob taking a local Canaanite woman to marry. If this is such the grievous sin that lost Esau his blessing why would she be so worried about this being a possibility? Wouldn’t he have just experienced the grief it caused his parents to see his brother do that? Why include this as part of the story at all? I don’t think it would be for nothing. I think this is probably more the result of these stories being passed down through different groups of people and this is an attempting to bring all the stories together to tell this origin story. If this is literal history however it seems to imply that there was some chance that Jacob could have married outside this covenant. Regardless there is this interesting concern that is brought up.

The next interesting thing that comes up is chapter 28 seems to be a sort of different telling of the story where we see Isaac sending Jacob away to go to Laban and charges him to not marry a Canaanite. Why does this command come now? Shouldn’t this have been known about before. If it was known why do they have such a huge problem with the concept of marrying outside of the covenant. We also see Esau seeing now that his Canaanite wives have caused grief for his parents. He then tries to rectify this by marrying a daughter of Ishmael. This still seems to be wrong, but it is somewhat portrayed as a realization of sin, then a process to try and rectify the sin. Isn’t this the process of repentance? Unfortunately it seems he still didn’t marry correctly and this wife is not in the covenant. This does seem somewhat odd, but I guess fine. Technically this marriage seems like it should be a better fit in some ways. This wife is a direct descendant of Abraham whom the covenant is made. This does make it appear as if the woman of the line is important, but I’m not clear on how. I would have thought a descendant of Abraham would be better even if the son in between is not of the chosen line.

Either way

The other question I really have is it seems like they just don’t communicate with anybody. I would have thought if Esau was going through the steps to marry multiple Canaanite women there would have been some discussion and perhaps outright banning from Isaac of the marriages. Why didn’t Isaac send Esau to Laban first? Second, wouldn’t the same be said for Jacob. I would think something this important would be a topic at some point in the 40 years of the children’s lives. How do they get to the point where they have weddings and still have these issues with other siblings. Even then According to Isaac he want Esau to have the blessing. The marriages would have occurred first. If this was the big problem it was, why is Isaac still on board with blessing Esau?