Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #8 of Genesis, chapter 25, and we are reading from Genesis 25:21-23:

And Isaac intreated JEHOVAH for his wife, because she was barren: and JEHOVAH was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of JEHOVAH.  And JEHOVAH said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

I will stop reading there.  We had started to look at what the Bible has to say about barrenness.  In our last study, we saw that the Bible likens children to fruit.  Remember, it said in Psalm 127:3:

Lo, children are an heritage of JEHOVAH: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

The womb relates to children being born, and God speaks of the “fruit of the womb,” and this is why He says in Psalm 113:9:

He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children…

So the barrenness of Sarah, for example, produced the promised seed, Isaac, which was a figure of the actual “seed,” who was Christ, singular.  So we can understand this as the fruit of the womb that God had promised.  And I thought this would be an interesting thing for us to look at because the Bible has a lot to say about this.  Go to 1Corinthians 15:23-24:

But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

Christ is the firstfruits, and Jesus is actually the first of the firstfruits.  He is typified by the “wave offering” when the harvest would come in, and then later the firstfruits would identify with the fruit of Pentecost.  So Christ is the first of the firstfruits.  In other words, He is called a “fruit.”

We also see this picture in Matthew 21:33-41:

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. Then the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

Let us ask the question concerning this vineyard: “What is it picturing?”  You might be surprised, but it is actually picturing the end of the nation of Israel.  And what is surprising is that it is in the New Testament  that we find a parable describing the end of the nation of Israel.  And it is very clear because the “son” comes last of all, after many servants had been sent before him.  Those servants were beaten, killed and stoned, and they would identify with all the prophets that God sent to Israel over the course of their relationship with God.  God sent many prophets, and they did horrible things to them.  But, finally, at the time of the end of Israel as God’s representation, God sent His Son, and they said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.”  Clearly, the son of the householder who planted and owned the vineyard is Christ.  We can see it very plainly. 

Also, the response to the parable (He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons) lets us know that at the end of this vineyard, there would be another vineyard.  There would be another organization that would have an intimate relationship with God.  Israel was the outside representation of the kingdom of God on earth during its time.  Then when God ended that close relationship with them, He began the church age and started ministering His Word through the churches and congregations over the course of the church age.

So there were two vineyards.  It is curious that we do not read of the vineyard of the corporate church in a parable that Christ spoke in the New Testament, but we read about it in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah.  In Isaiah 5, God speaks of a vineyard, and that vineyard is teaching us about the church age.  But in the New Testament, God speaks of a vineyard that is teaching us about Old Testament Israel.  You know, in our minds, we might have reversed the two, but this is how God chose to do it.  It says in Isaiah 5:3-7:

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of JEHOVAH of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

In this account, the vineyard was not let out to other husbandmen – this vineyard was destroyed.  And that is what happened to the churches and congregations.  So the reference to “the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant” is a spiritual reference to the churches, not to literal, physical national Israel.

So we saw in Matthew 21(regarding Old Testament Israel) that they slew the heir, the son of the householder who owned the vineyard.  Actually, that was what produced the fruit.  Jesus is the “fruit” of the Old Testament’s “early righteous rain.”  We read in Joel chapter 2 of three seasons of rain.  It says in Joel 2:23:

Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in JEHOVAH your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately…

We can understand that word translated as “moderately” as the word “righteously.” And then it goes on to say in Joel 2:23:

… and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.

So we have three rains.  There is the “former rain righteously” or early righteous rain.  Then the former rain or early rain, and the latter rain.  Then it says in Joel 2:24:

And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.

There is the “fruit.”  The rain produces the fruit.  Christ is the fruit of the Old Testament, and God helps us to understand that with a historical parable in 1Kings 21 where we read of a man named Naboth that owned a vineyard.  His name is #5022 in Strong’s Hebrew Concordance.  If we look it up, we see it is derived from another number that can be traced back to the word for “fruit.”  So Naboth’s name actually means “fruit,” and we will read about what happens to Naboth in 1Kings 21:1-5:

And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, JEHOVAH forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?

We can see the similarity with the parable of the vineyard in that parable where the husbandmen desired to seize upon the inheritance: “If we kill the son, we will get the inheritance, the vineyard.”  And that is what the King of Israel desired; he desired the vineyard.  At that point, he did nothing wrong.  He just desired the vineyard.  But, you see, one of Ahab’s big problems was that he had an evil wife Jezebel, and Jezebel stirred him up to do great evil.  Jezebel wanted to comfort her husband, so she said in 1Kings 21:7-14:

And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: And set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die. And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead.

Then we read in 1Kings 21:16:

And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

We can definitely see the similarity between what happened to Naboth and what happened to the Lord Jesus.  Notice that there were two men, sons of Belial, that bore witness against him and, of course, they were lying.  They were false witnesses.  Compare that with what we read in Matthew 26:59-61:

Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

They finally found their two false witnesses “at the last,” just as it mentioned in the parable in Matthew 21:37:

But last of all he sent unto them his son…

That was the end of Israel, and the two false witnesses that rose up against Christ are in view in 1Kings 21 with the two men that were sons of Belial or sons of Satan, the Devil.  The Devil is a liar and the father of it.  And they had no problem lying, even when it would cost a man his life, as long as they got paid.  So they ended up falsely accusing Naboth (the fruit) and killing him, just as Jesus was falsely accused.  And He is the fruit of God that the “early righteous rain” that fell over the course of Old Testament history finally produced.  The death of Jesus Himself was the “fruit.”  It was the fruit and, of course, that set off the events that would transpire after Christ’s death, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the establishing of the New Testament churches, and the end of  Israel as God’s representation on earth. 

We can see that Jesus is the fruit.  For a more direct statement, we can turn to Luke 1 where Mary came to visit Elisabeth.  It says in Luke 1:40-42:

And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

And who was in Mary’s womb?  It was the God man, the one conceived of the Holy Ghost.  He is Immanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the fruit of the womb. 

So I think we can see the reason for the fact that Sarah was barren for a long time, and not just Sarah, but the child that Rachel bore after she was said to be barren, which was Joseph, another type of Christ; or, the child that Hannah bore after she was said to be barren, who was Samuel, another type of Christ; or, the child Sampson, a type of Christ, and his mother was said to be barren.

In a couple of places, like where Rebekah gave birth to Jacob and Esau, I think the (spiritual) picture changes because Esau was born also.  We know that Jacob is a type and figure of God’s elect, and God’s elect are also in view with Christ, as we saw in Galatians 3 where Christ is the seed.  But then God tells us that all that are in Christ are counted for the seed.  All that great multitude that are as the stars in the heavens are in Christ, so it is all bound up together and related.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, I want to mention one more thing regarding the “fruit of the womb” and Elisabeth, who also was barren, and we will try to understand a little bit about her barrenness and God then blessing her with a child.  There is an interesting thing about this.  I do not know all we can learn from it, but there is an interesting thing that I think needs to be mentioned.  Then we will move on and look at the two children born to Rebekah in this account in Genesis 25.