Episode 290 - "Jacob's obedience and Esau's spite" - Genesis 28:1-9

Gen. 28:1 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. 2 Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. 3 God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” 5 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

Gen. 28:6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, 9 Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.

I don’t know about you. But Isaac seemed pretty upset when he realized that Jacob had deceived him, causing him to give Jacob the blessing he intended to give Esau. Yet, in this segment, Jacob appears to have a “What’s done is done” attitude. There’s no apparent conflict between Isaac and Rebekah for her part in the scheme. Of course, I’m assuming that Isaac knew Rebekah had a part in the deception. More importantly, it appears to me that Moses is showing us how Isaac is acting according to the pattern of his father Abraham, and concurs with Rebekah that Jacob should go to the land of their family, where Abraham had come from, and where Abraham had sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac. He sent Jacob there with another blessing. In this blessing, he instructs or reminds Jacob from where his blessings will come. We have no indication yet that Jacob trusts his father’s God. Yet he does obey his parents.

This sets up the contrast to what Moses reveals next concerning Esau. Esau had already taken multiple wives who were Hittites, which echoes back to Cain's descendant Lamech, who married two wives and was very defiant to the LORD (Gen 4:17-19). Now, Esau decided he would spite his parents even more by taking another wife, and this time it was a daughter of Ishmael. This is a slap in the face to Isaac. Esau was quite willing to do what his dad wanted, anticipating what he would get in return. But when Jacob deceived Isaac and stole the blessing, Esau revealed that he was never worthy himself to receive the blessing. Later, when Jacob’s descendants left Egypt after 400 years in bondage, the LORD gave them the Law, primarily summed up in the Ten Commandments. One of the commandments was to “Honor your father and mother.” (Ex. 20:12)

I was tempted to continue further into the text again this week. But I found this section to make me think about how things don’t always go as I would like. Sometimes, I may feel cheated in some capacity, that some injustice has been done, and my inclination might be to desire retribution on everyone I believe to have had a part in it. But that’s not right. I think Isaac shows us the right way. Our priority is to act in a right way and pray that the LORD will bless those he wants to bless through the situation. He’s the one in control, and the LORD can turn the circumstances into something very special.

Next week, we’ll look into Jacob’s experience on his flight to his uncle Laban’s home.