Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #14 of Genesis, chapter 25, and we are going to read Genesis 25:22-30:

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. 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. And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them. And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study we asked the question, “If it was God’s plan for Jacob to receive the birthright and the blessing of the firstborn, then why not simply cause Jacob to have been born first?”  It would not have been any problem for God to position the twins in the womb so that Jacob would be the one who came out first.  So why allow Esau to be the firstborn son, possessing for a time the right of the firstborn, but only to lose it later by being supplanted by his brother Jacob?

One clue is in the fact that Esau came out “red.”  The word “red” in verse 25 is Strong’s #132, but it is related to a few different words.  The word “red” is also in verse 30 where it says, “And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.”  The word “red” in verse 30 is Strong’s #122, and the word “Edom” is Strong’s #123.  The word “red” that identifies with the pottage is apparently how he got the nickname and he was called “Edom,” meaning “red.”  I think God just wanted to make sure the significance of Esau coming out “red” was not missed, and that is why within just a few verses we read of this incident with the red pottage and his name being called “Edom,” which means “red.”

Why is this significant?  The Hebrew word “Edom” is Strong’s #123, and it is related to “red,” Strong’s #122.  It is the word used in verse 30, and it is related to the word “Adam,” which is Strong’s #121.  So Esau’s birth as the firstborn son ties in spiritually with the creation of Adam.  Let us go back to Genesis 2 where God gives a more descriptive explanation and more detailed revelation about the creation of man.  He says in Genesis 2:7:

And JEHOVAH God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

The Hebrew word translated as “man” is Strong’s #120, and it is identical to #121, which is the word translated as “Adam.”  That is why Adam was called “Adam,” because he was a man, and God created Adam out of the dust of the ground.  In creating him, God made Adam an heir to the throne of God, or to the bountiful riches of God, because God was Adam’s father.  We know this from the statement made in the Gospel of Luke, in Luke 3, where there is a genealogy given, and I believe it gives seventy-seven generations that go all the way back to the beginning.  We read in Luke 3:38:

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Adam was the son of God.  God formed Adam.  He created him and gave Adam life.  In that sense, He begat him, and Adam was the son of God.  And Adam was “man,” and mankind is, as it were, the son of God.  In Genesis 25, God is telling us about these twin boys and how He separated them.  Let me read it, again, in Genesis 25:23:

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.

Two manner of people would be separated.   Remember what we read in Deuteronomy 32:7-9:

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For JEHOVAH’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

That gets into God’s predestination and election program, but it tells us that he “separated the sons of Adam.”  And Esau was later given the name “Edom,” which identifies with “red” and also identifies with “Adam” or “man.”  Esau is a type and figure of mankind, and this is why when God says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,” it is an all-encompassing statement that is summarizing the destiny of every human being that would ever live, or all the sons of Adam.  There would be two nations or two people: 1) those that are beloved, as Jacob, and are loved by God; and 2) those that are hated, as Esau, because God would not take their sins upon Himself in the Person of the Lord Jesus, and pay for them.  Therefore, they would remain under the wrath of God and be destroyed for evermore in God’s furious anger.

So these two baby boys are picturing God’s salvation program.  There was little baby Esau, and he came out first.  Significantly, according to the purpose of God, it had to be that way since the birth of these two boys would indicate the blessing that they were to receive.  You might say, “Well, that is the point.  It is backwards.  Joseph got the blessing.  God knew Jacob would get the blessing and, therefore, Jacob should have come out first.”  No – not when we look at it from the perspective of the original creation.  God made “Adam” or “man,” or “Edom.”  God made mankind in His own image and in His own likeness, forming him from the dust of the ground, and God gave him the earth and he was to have dominion over all things of this earth.  He was going to rule.  And more than that, he had an intimate, personal relationship with God and many spiritual blessings.  He had everything that anyone could ever want, and he had “life,” as long as he was faithful.  He could have gone on to live forever and ever and ever, being obedient to God.

But even though he was created in this glorious, original state of being sinless and good, and having a right relationship to God, and being the son of God and the inheritor of all things God would bestow upon him, in not too long a time he lost it all.  He lost it all by despising his birthright.  He lost the blessing of God and, as a result, he lost the inheritance of the firstborn son.  But he was the firstborn son.  Adam was first and before Jacob and before those that Jacob represented.  It had to be that Adam would first have to fall into sin before God would save someone’s soul, because there was no sin and no “deadness of soul,” and no one was yet dead in trespasses and sins prior to Adam’s partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and dying in that day.  Therefore, according to the plan of God, and out of necessity, the original birthright and blessing of the firstborn was Adam’s until he lost it by despising it.  And that is what sin is – it is despising the blessing of God.  Then “another” took his place, or all those that Jacob represented, the elect, beginning with Abel and a few here and there down through the centuries until God saved the great multitude.  This was the plan of God, and that is why Esau came out first, but he had his brother “on his heels.”  You know, we use that language of someone “being on our heels,” and it means they are right behind us as close as they can be.  That is the idea here when we read in Genesis 25:26:

And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.

We have talked about Esau and the name “Edom,” and how it relates to Adam.  But let us talk about Jacob’s name.  It is Strong’s #3290, and it is derived from a word that is Strong’s #6117.  These words have the same consonants, but Jacob’s name has the Hebrew Yod before it, and the other word, Strong’s #6117, does not have the Yod, but it has the other three consonants, so it is very clear that this is the word.  The word “heel” is Strong’s #6119 and related to #6117, which the word “Jacob” comes from, and we find this word, Strong’s #6119, used in Hosea 12:3:

He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:

Of course, this is referring to Jacob, who took his brother by the heel, and this was going on in the womb.  This is how he got the name of “Jacob.”  This word is also found twice in Jeremiah 9.  It says in Jeremiah 9:2-5:

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith JEHOVAH. Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

The word that was translated as took “by the heel” in Hosea 12:3 (and which the word “Jacob” comes) is translated here as “utterly supplant.”  That it, it is the same word used twice, so it strengthens or reinforces the word.  It does not say “supplant, supplant,” but it says, “utterly supplant.”  So it is a strong emphasis on “supplanting.”  Here, in an interesting way, it is a warning by God to the apostate nation of Israel and, in turn, it refers spiritually to the apostate New Testament church.  He is warning, “ Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant,” or will “take you by the heel” in order to go before you to be first. 

Now we know, historically, that God worked it out so this would happen with Jacob and Esau.  And we know it was all according to the plan of God.  And we know that later on, there will be deceit involved as Jacob got the blessing instead of his brother Esau.  His mother told Jacob to go get a kid of a goat from the flock and she made the meat his father loved.  Then she took the skin of the goat and put it on his hands and the back of his neck, so he would feel “hairy” when his father felt him.  Later when Esau came in, after Jacob had gone out, having received the blessing, then Isaac does say of Jacob that he came with “subtilty,” so there is no denying in the historical account that Jacob deceived his father to obtain the blessing for himself, with the help of his mother.  It was through the deception that he did receive the right of the firstborn, and Esau lost the right of the firstborn because of this deception.  But we also know that it happened according to the perfect will of God, as God intended for Jacob to get the blessing, and He permitted these things to take place, even though they were sinful in certain ways.  Yet He worked through this sinful operation and the conniving of Rebekah.  And Jacob was not sinless, as he went along with it and participated in it and, yet, God used these things to finally have the blessing fall upon the one it had to fall upon. 

Now in Jeremiah 9, the brother that utterly supplants is all negative, and it is speaking of those deceitful, underhanded and wicked people that mishandle the Word of God, the Bible, and it is not for good in any way that they were doing these things in the apostate churches and false gospels.  They were doing damage.  So that helps us to get the picture that God wants us to get regarding Jacob not being pure and holy and sinless in any way.  That has nothing to do with the fact that he was chosen of God and God had determined to love him, and He has loved him with an everlasting love.  And God points that out in Romans 9 that before either had done good or evil, He made the choice.  Then when we see these twin brothers, what do we find?  We find sin on both sides.  We see Esau despising his birthright, and he sold it for a bowl of red pottage, and later on we will see him carefully trying to obtain the blessing with tears, so he is a manipulator himself.  There was nothing good in Esau.  He was also a sinner.  There are two sinners in view, and that we can understand with certainty.

But, again, Jacob’s name means “to take by the heel,” or “to supplant.”  In Genesis 27, the chapter where the blessing is given to Jacob over his brother, it says in Genesis 27:32-36:

And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed. And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?

We will not get into that, but Isaac proceeded to pronounce an earthly blessing to him, and there are certain earthly blessings that God has provided for mankind, whom Esau represents, but the bountiful and exceedingly rich spiritual blessing that God has in store for His son, once this supplanting has occurred is no longer “Adam” or no longer “mankind,” but it is for the ones that Jacob represents, the elect of God, because they are in the Lord Jesus Christ who was said to be the “second Adam,” in 1Corinthians 15.  He is the Lord from heaven, so Christ is really the heir.  He is the seed that inherits the Promised Land, but the elect are counted for the seed in Him, so we then come to the forefront.  We become heirs of God and sons of God, and we are given the inheritance of this world. 

You know, that is the reason for the “order” and the reason that the elder must serve the younger, the elder being mankind (the descendants of Adam) that were here first.  They obtained the inheritance of this earth first, but “the meek shall inherit the earth.”  We will usurp them and receive the inheritance of the new heaven and new earth.

It goes on to say in Genesis 25:26:

And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.

We know exactly when Jacob and Esau were born because we know that Isaac was born when Abraham was 100, and Abraham was born in 2167 B. C.  And that would mean that Isaac was born in 2067 B. C., one hundred years later.  And sixty years from that point would make the year of their birth 2007 B. C.  It is a very interesting date because it is exactly two thousand years before 7 B. C., and in 7 B. C., Jesus was born.  Jesus entered into the human race.  As I just mentioned, Jesus was the “second Adam,” so there is a very direct timeline or time path from the birth of Jacob and Esau to the birth of Christ, exactly two thousand years.

We will have to continue this in our next Bible study.