History of Israel: Isaac, Jacob, and Esau

The story of the birth of Israel continues with Isaac and his twin sons, Jacob and Esau. How did the older son come to serve the younger? How does Jacob live up to his name? Why was Esau rejected for the covenantal blessing? How was Jacob deceived into marrying the wrong sister? This episode of Bible Backdrop continues to cover the story of Israel's history by talking about the people that were instrumental in the founding of the nation.

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Transcript

Hello again everyone and welcome to the next episode of Bible Backdrop. On this episode, we’ll look at the adventures Isaac, Esau, and Jacob. As I said before, these episodes will go into some detail on the people involved, but we will eventually look at things from a higher level. We need to set the foundation here to take us into the future episodes. By the end of the next episode, we’ll be with Joseph in Egypt. After that, I’ll go into some depth about Egypt...the politics, culture, and religion. This will set us up for the Exodus and campaign to take the Promised Land. 

Before continuing, I do have a correction from the previous episode. I mentioned that the Midianites described in the book of Judges may have been of the line of Ishmael. I found this is not true...they are actually from Abraham. After Sarah passed away, Abraham had a concubine named Keturah who bore him several sons. One of these sons was named Midian who became the father of the Midianites. So they were distant relatives to the Israelites. As we move ahead with this story, it will be interesting to see how many of Israel’s enemies were descended from Abraham or Lot.

Now that’s out the way, let’s look at Isaac. From our last episode, we remember that Abraham had two sons (before the several he had with his concubine). These were Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, had been sent away but God had mercy on them. Isaac, on the other hand, stayed with his family as he was to inherit all of Abraham’s wealth along with the promise of becoming a great nation. When Isaac was 40, Abraham sent a servant to find Isaac a wife from among his own people and not among the Canaanites. When making the promise, Abraham asked the servant to do something odd: he made the oath with his hand under Abraham’s thigh. Why? Well, there are two explanations I’ve been able to find. First, “under the thigh” may be a euphemism for...well...the male anatomy. The thought is that God had promised a seed for Abraham’s son and grandson; the servant taking the oath would be taking the responsibility for finding Isaac’s wife and helping fulfill the covenant. It also could be because Abraham had been circumcised and this was the sign of the covenant between him and God. Again, by placing his hand there and taking the oath, the servant would be accepting responsibility for continuing the covenant. The second explanation is that it could have literally been under the thigh which, in that culture, meant that the servant was submitting to his master in fulfilling the oath. So the servant takes the oath and goes to find Isaac a wife. Kinda wonder if we should bring back this method of finding a wife...minus the oath taking. Then again, most people probably wouldn’t want their kids at home until they’re 40.

Now that I’ve gone seriously off topic, back to the story. The servant goes to find Isaac a wife and only has a general idea of where to go. He prays for guidance and God, again, is gracious in answering the servant’s prayer. It is at a well that he meets Rebekah, who fulfills the servant’s request for a sign. He immediately asks to meet with her family to tell them of his errand. They agree to the terms but ask if she could stay for a little while, probably due to the suddenness of the request. The servant asks leave to go immediately and they finally relent.

When returning, Rebekah meets Isaac and they are quickly married. However, like Sarah, Rebekah is initially barren. It was 20 years later, when Isaac was 60, that she became pregnant...with twins. When she felt them moving around, she asked God what was happening and the answer came back that she had “two nations within her womb.” That had to be quite a weight on her. God also told her that the “older will serve the younger.” This was very unusual as we’ve discussed in previous episodes. The oldest always got the inheritance, but we’ll see how the younger gets it in this case.

The twins are eventually born and the first is very hairy, so he is named Esau which means hairy. The second is born grabbing Esau’s heel so they name him Jacob which means he grasps the heel, a Hebrew idiom for he deceives. Both children, however, live up to their name. Esau becomes a hunter and Isaac loved the food he made for him but Jacob stayed around the tents and was Rebekah’s favorite. You can see that this probably won’t end well, right?

Sure enough, we later see a story of Esau coming back from a hunt while Jacob was cooking up a lentil stew. Esau, believing he was at death’s door, asked for some stew. Jacob is willing to give him some...in exchange for his birthright. Esau agrees as his mind is on the here and now. He trades the eternal reward for the temporary one. So what, exactly, was the birthright? The birthright was given to the oldest son who would receive a double portion of the inheritance and became the head of the family when his father passed away. The double portion was to take care of the family members still living together: the widow, any younger sons and any unmarried daughters. It also came with a lot of prestige as now they would be responsible for family decisions. Think of them as being the captain of a ship. They had all authority but they also had all the responsibility. Esau basically gave it all up for a bowl of soup. I mean, if it was BBQ, I could understand...but soup? Ugh. Anyway, the Bible states that “Esau despised his birthright.” This didn’t mean, at the time, he hated Jacob for the trade...just that he didn’t think much of it.

Later, we see Jacob live up to his moniker as being “the deceiver.” As Isaac ages, his eyesight grows dim and he believes he will die soon. He calls over Esau and asks him to kill some game and make the food he likes, then he would give him his blessing. This wasn’t just a kind thing to do...it was a covenant style contract, almost like a last will and testament. However, Rebekah overhears and decides that the blessing should go to Jacob. She makes a similar dish from a goat and puts the goatskins on Jacob so that when Isaac touches him, he would feel the hair and think it was Esau. Jacob fully participates in the deception, but Isaac is suspicious. However, the food and goatskins make him believe it’s Esau and he ends up giving the blessing to Jacob. So the birthright gave him the material wealth and the blessing put Jacob into continuing the covenant relationship with God. 

Why did Rebekah do this? Well, first, Jacob was her favorite and thought the blessings, both material and eternal, should go to him. However, the Bible gives us another clue. It says that Esau took two wives, but not from the same family as Abraham and Isaac. Instead, he marries two Hittite women and the Bible says they were “a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.” The Hittites followed after different gods and this along with other customs consistently butted up against what Isaac and Rebekah wanted for their sons. He did not listen to his parents and went his own way. Since normal cultural practice was that families stayed together, they were always around and may have argued with Isaac and Rebekah, bringing constant grief to them. Esau, while having all the advantages, has given them up to chase his own earthly desires.

The problem with Esau’s wives, along with the conflict now between the two brothers, pushes Rebekah to tell Isaac to send Jacob away to her family so that he could find a bride there. Isaac agrees and sends Jacob to Rebekah’s brother, Laban who lives in Paddan Aram. This is an area near Harran where Abraham left his family to go to the land God directed him to go. Jacob obediently goes and this triggers something in Esau. Realizing how his parents were not happy about him marrying the women from Canaan, he then marries a daughter of Ishmael. This may have been to smooth things over with Isaac and Rebekah in the hopes that, if something happens to Jacob, then he would be back in their good graces.

Meanwhile, Jacob heads to Paddan Aram and has a vision along the way. He sees a ladder between heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending on it. The commentary on this vision is extensive, so I won’t go into it here. God also speaks to Jacob and reinforces that he will fulfill the covenant God made with Abraham. The vision must have been reassuring in that desolate place while all alone. Jacob wakes up, builds an altar and names the place Bethel, meaning house of God. It seems that at this point he understands the reality of who God is while before he may have simply heard stories from his mother and father. God became very personal to him.

After all this, Jacob continues and finally makes his way to Paddan Aram. There he meets men from his uncle Laban and, shortly after, meets Laban’s daughter, Rachel. He tells her that his mother, Rebekah, is Laban’s sister and she runs to tell her father. Jacob is so overcome that the Bible says he “began to weep aloud.” Whether it was from joy, relief, or from being near Rachel, nobody knows. It may have been all 3. Laban hurries to meet him and welcomes him into his family.

After a month, Laban says that Jacob can’t work for free and that he should be paid wages. Jacob asks to marry Rachel and Laban agrees that he can work for him for 7 years in exchange for marrying his daughter. If you recall in the episode on marriage, this was not uncommon as a ‘mohar’ or bride price. Especially if one did not have the means to pay with some other medium of exchange...like gold or jewelry. 

After the 7 years are over, Jacob asks for his wife. Laban invites everyone to the feast and Jacob is now married. Oh yeah...did I tell you that Laban has an older daughter named Leah? She was described as having “weak eyes” but there’s no further explanation of what that means. It could mean that her eyes lacked luster...that she had weak eyesight...or that she wasn’t as beautiful as Rachel. Anyway, Jacob is now married and goes to sleep with his wife. When he wakes up in the morning...it isn’t with Rachel. It’s with Leah. The deceiver has been himself deceived.

Now, you’re probably asking the same question I did: How in the world did Jacob not know it was Leah instead of Rachel? There are several explanations as to how Laban pulled this off. First, Leah may have been heavily veiled although I can only imagine that the veil would have eventually come off. Second, the Bible says it was evening so it was probably very dark. So even if the veil had come off, he may not have been able to tell. Third, they had just been having a feast and Jacob may have tipped back a bit more than he should have. Finally, there may have been enough similarities between Rachel and Leah that, with the darkness and the wine, it was hard to tell the difference in the moment. We’re not sure what the feast was like as this was before the time when wedding practices we discussed in the earlier episode had been established. Jacob may not have even seen his bride until that night. 

You can imagine that Jacob isn’t exactly happy about this turn of events. My guess is Rachel wasn’t either, but she had to listen to her father. Jacob confronts Laban and he gives him a line about their custom is to marry the older daughter first. My guess is that he didn’t have any suitors for Leah so this was the only way to get her married. As we find out later, Laban was not very wealthy until after Jacob started working for him. However, he’s willing to let him marry Rachel after the week of wedding festivities is over...for another 7 years of labor. Jacob, getting a taste of what he’s done to Esau, agrees and he is married to both Leah and Rachel.

Soon after all this, the Bible describes the children that are born to Jacob. Here you see the start of the 12 tribes of Israel as each tribe is named after one of the sons...except for two, but we’ll get in that a bit later. Leah gives Jacob four sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel is despondent at this point as she has not had any children and complains to Jacob. He responds like most men would: What do you want me to do about it? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for lack of trying. Rachel pulls a page from Jacob’s grandmother, Sarah, and gives Jacob her maid, Bilhah, as his wife to have children through her. Unlike Sarah and Hagar, however, Rachel was happy when her maid became pregnant. Bilhah bore two sons...Dan and Naphtali. When Leah sees this and notices she stopped having children, she decides that two can play at this game. So she gives Jacob her servant, Zilpah, as a wife. Zilpah also has 2 sons...Gad and Asher. Then we have an interesting side story.

Reuben, the oldest, finds some mandrake plants during the wheat harvest. The mandrake root was believed to be able to cure infertility, so Reuben takes them to his mother since she has been barren for some time. Rachel asks for the mandrakes and Leah pushes back saying that Rachel has stolen her husband and also wants the mandrakes? I’m sure this came about as Jacob was spending more time with Rachel because (1) he truly loved her and (2) he wanted her to be able to have a child. Rachel barters that Jacob can spend the night with Leah in exchange for the mandrakes. Leah agrees and tells Jacob when he comes in that he will spend the night with her. As a result, Leah becomes pregnant with her fifth son and names him Issachar. Soon after, she is pregnant with her sixth son and names him Zebulun. Later, she has a daughter named Dinah.

Finally, after what was probably many years of heartache, Rachel had a child...a son...and she named him Joseph. So if you’re keeping score at home, Jacob has 4 wives, 11 sons and 1 daughter. That has to keep his schedule pretty full.

I think this is a good place to stop for now. Next episode, we’ll see Jacob return to Canaan, find out how he gets the name Israel, and how they end up in Egypt. If you are enjoying Bible Backdrop, please leave a 5 star rating and review. You can do so on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Word of mouth is still the best way for word of this podcast to get around, so please tell a friend and have them subscribe. If you wish to get in touch with the show, you can e-mail me at biblebackdrop@gmail.com. Thank you and have a great week!

The young messenger bowed low and delivered his message to the man his master directed. This man was different from his master, but he could see the family resemblance. Unlike his master, the man was very hairy and it was of a reddish tint. Or was that just his skin color...burned from long hours in the sun.

The man heard the message and looked to be in shock. He asked the messenger to step away while he considered the response. The man, Esau, couldn’t believe what he had just heard. His brother, Jacob, was nearby and sent the messenger ahead...obviously, to see what kind of welcome awaited him. Esau contemplated and thought back to the past. His brother, the trickster, had made him bargain for his birthright for a bowl of stew. Later, he passed himself off as Esau to get their father’s blessing. His eyes narrowed as he remembered those days long ago.

His gaze softened a bit. He looked around and took stock of what he had. Three wives...children...sheep...goats...beasts of burden. Would it do to fight his brother for sins of the past? What was done, was done...and maybe Jacob had learned a lesson or two. There was no point in fighting now.

And yet...it might be fun to play one last trick on his brother. He knew Jacob had to be worried or he wouldn’t have sent the messenger. He smiled to himself. Yes...one last trick on little Jacob. Hardening his gaze again, he called the messenger back over and told him to report back to his master. Esau was coming to meet him...with 400 of his men. Yes...he heard correctly...400. Make sure my brother knows. The messenger bowed and left. Esau smiled, then laughed out loud knowing the panic this would cause with his brother. Maybe a taste of his own medicine wouldn’t be so bad for Jacob.