We have passed Jacob’s history in review
up to the moment when he “saw God face to face, and his life was preserved”,
and he was changed from supplanter to prince.
Such is his transit, from catching his brother’s heel in creature
strength to losing the power of the flesh for spiritual force, from scheming,
bartering, and lying to obtain the blessings that vanished into thin air to
vowing with awe-struck heart, and praying with earnest self-abnegation to the
God of Bethel, the God of all grace.
Jacob well set forth in type Israel’s
history. First the reliance upon self,
then the exile, the servitude, the return and the new name — a Prince with God:
and over all, from before birth and
throughout that eventful pilgrimage, the God of Abraham and of Isaac, in very
truth the God of Jacob. We now retrace
our steps to the time of Jacob’s birth to note what is said concerning Esau,
for he too is typical.
The epistle to the Galatians uses the two
sons of Abraham as a figure, Ishmael representing those in bondage, Isaac those
who are free. Romans draws attention to
Esau and Jacob, teaching that they are not all Israel that are of Israel, and
that the true Israel is the child of promise.
Not only did Abraham have two sons, the one a type of the flesh and the
law, the other a type of promise and covenant mercy, but Isaac also had two
sons, Esau and Jacob, who in their turn reflect in type the seed of truth and
of evil.
Esau when he had grown is described as “a
cunning hunter”. The word for “hunter”
occurs 12 times in Genesis and is used of two persons only, Nimrod the mighty
hunter and Esau the cunning hunter. Esau
is further described as “a man of the field”.
Jacob in the same verse is called “a plain man”. Why this rendering should have been chosen we
do not quite see. The very next
occurrence of the adjective is found in
Job i. 1, “this man was PERFECT
and upright”. In Song
of Solomon v. 2 and vi. 9
it is rendered “undefiled”. The
substantive is rendered in Gen. xx.
5 “integrity” (margin,
“simplicity”, “sincerity”), and these
three words together with uprightness are the words that are used to translate
it throughout some twenty occurrences.
In the emphatic form tahmeem we
find the word used of Noah, “Noah was a just man and perfect” (Gen. vi.
9). It is used of Abraham in the words,
“Walk before me and be thou perfect” (Gen. xvii. 1). It is used of the Passover lamb, “your lamb
shall be without blemish” (Exod. xii. 5). Every occurrence of the feminine form is
translated “integrity”. The last thing
we should say of Jacob (as taught by our traditions) is that he was sincere,
upright, simple or perfect. Who would
think of Jacob and Job together?
Nevertheless God who trieth the heart and knows what is in man
definitely describes Jacob as a perfect or sincere man, whilst
generous-hearted, easily-appeased, hale-fellow-well-met Esau is termed a
profane person. God seeth not as man seeth,
man looketh upon the outward appearance, but God looketh upon the heart.
The second description of Jacob is
“dwelling in tents”. This fact is
referred to in Heb. xi. 8, and is there used as a sign of faithful
patience in view of the promise:--
“By faith he (Abraham) sojourned in the
land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tents with Isaac
and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.”
The epistle to the Hebrews uses both the
words which describe Jacob with special purpose, perfect and dwelling
in tents. The same epistle describes
Esau as a profane person who sold his birthright. Esau thus becomes the exact opposite of
Jacob. Esau is held up as a warning to
these Hebrews who were beginning to draw back, whose endurance was waning. Such could not be renewed again unto
repentance, and are pointed to Esau:--
“Who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright, for ye know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the
blessing, he was rejected; for he found no
place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (xii.16,17).
The chapter goes on to speak of those who
were the church of the firstborn ones, who are here warned against selling
their birthright for a little respite.
Esau’s second name (Edom) is taken
from this selling of his birthright for a mess of pottage, “that red” as he
called it. Esau’ second name links him
with his profanity, and Jacob’s second name with his loss of self and his
royalty, Esau is named after a mess of lentils, Jacob is named Prince of
God. Esau comes in from the field
saying, “i am faint … i am at the point of death; and what profit shall this birthright do to
me?”. Jacob after an all-night wrestle
with the angel, touched at the breaking of the day upon his thigh so that the
sinew withered, still clings tight saying, “i will not let thee go except thou
bless me”. Esau after selling his
birthright “did eat and drink and rose up and went his way; thus Esau despised his birthright”. How many more have done the same! Jacob on the other hand, though he works with
base tools and crooked means, pursues his end — THE blessing. We make no excuse for the method nor the
means, but we do ask the reader, whether God Who judges the motive may not
after all amid all that is false and fleshly see earnest desire, not for ease,
comfort, or worldly greatness, but the heart’s cry, “Oh that I may receive the
blessing of Abraham, and take my place in the line of God’s purpose”. For this frail flesh will lie and deceive,
for this suffer exile and the heat by day and the frost by night, but
nevertheless Jacob the perfect man shall by one path or another come at last to
see the face of God, repent, believe, and inherit the blessing.
Esau’s next evidence of his nature is
given by his choice of wives. Jacob had
two wives — but not of choice, yet Jacob’s wives were of his kindred, he
allowed not his “generation” to be contaminated, being like Noah “perfect as to
his pedigree”, for the Abrahamic blessing involved a “seed”. Abraham’s care for Isaac’s wife will here
come to mind. When Esau was forty years
old he married two Hittites! These were
“a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebecca”.
It is in keeping with Esau’s typical character that his Hittite wife
should bear a Hebrew name, “Judith”, but her name alone was Hebrew. Esau, finding that Isaac straitly charge
Jacob not to marry one of the daughters of Canaan and that his own Canaanitish
wives were not pleasing to his parents, manifests the utter incapability of the
flesh of doing a spiritual act by taking a wife this time of the line of
ISHMAEL! Oh unhappy man! Judith, Hebrew in name, but not in heart: Ishmael, son of Abraham truly, but of bondage,
not of promise. Esau has many followers
in the religious world to-day, who vainly seek to copy the outward things of
faith but manifest their profanity and their folly thereby. It is but the “form of godliness”.
Jacob’ words when he meets Esau after
their long separation are repeatedly of grace. When Esau said, “Who are these with
thee?” Jacob replied, “The children
which God hath graciously given thy servant”. When Esau asks the meaning of the droves he
met, Jacob replies, “These are to find grace in the sight of my
Lord”. Esau magnanimously tells Jacob to
keep what he has for himself: “I have
enough my brother”, but Jacob urges, “If I have found grace in thy sight
that the present be received … because God hath dealt graciously with
me”. His parting words with Esau are,
“Let me find grace in the sight of my lord”. After this Jacob erected an altar and called
in El-eloe-Israel, God, the God of Israel. We must remember as we read this that Israel
at that moment was the one individual — Jacob. It was
Jacob’s personal testimony to God Who had so wondrously kept His word.
The generations of Esau are given, and
kings and dukes are in his line. Edom
looms large in the day of judgment, the prophets speak much of its sin and its
punishment. Isaiah lxiii. gives a tragic figure of wrath, but the
subject is too great to be dealt with here.
Jacob with his many failings finds many a
parallel in the believer to-day. The
very possession of “two natures” in the child of God will manifest itself in an
erratic walk while the flesh is not reckoned dead, while the thigh bone is not
out of joint. It is easy to be worldly-minded in the world, or heavenly-minded in heaven, but to be
always heavenly-minded in the world needs great grace. May we who do not spare our censures on
Jacob’s meanness and cunning emulate his desire for the thing that matters most; and while we sound out the praise of noble
generous Esau, take heed that we do not for a mess of this world’s pottage sell
our birthright.
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