Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #4 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we going to be reading Genesis 28:6-9:

And when Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

I will stop reading there.  We have been looking at the spiritual meaning of this.  We understand the historical setting.  It does not appear to be good for Jacob, historically.  He has acted deceitfully and obtained the blessing in place of his brother Esau, and Esau was extremely upset.  He was furious to the point of plotting murder. 

This is a common thing with mankind, we know, over the course of history.   Men kill in anger.  In their wrath, they strike out and they put others to death because they are so upset and angry, and this was the case with Esau.  But, remember, he was respectful enough to wait because he thought his father was going to die, as Isaac was 120 and it was the time for death, according to that statement made back in Genesis 6 where it said man’s years would be 120.  And, yet, they misunderstood it, apparently, because Isaac would live another sixty years after this, but Esau did not know that and neither did Jacob, so Esau was not acting upon his impulse to kill.  But the anger was boiling inside of him, and we can see from these verses that we just read that he is not only upset with Jacob, but he is upset with his mother and father.  Did he learn that Rebekah had helped Jacob and set the whole thing up?  It is possible.  You know, it is hard to keep secrets in a family, especially over something like this.  There would have been questions: “Father, how could you have mistaken Jacob for me?  I am a hairy man, and he is a smooth man.”  The father may have said, “Well, I felt him, and he had hairy hands, just like you, so he must have put the skin of a goat on his hands and the back of his neck.  And when I smelled him, he had on your clothing, so it was the smell of my son Esau.”  It would not take too much detective work, especially knowing that his brother Jacob was a conniver, as we would have to say, when he bought the birthright for a bowl of pottage.  “But it was too well put together,” Esau may have thought, “for Jacob to have done this alone.”  And maybe he did go to his mother.

Of course, this is speculation.  The Bible does not tell us, but he was upset with both of his parents and he was not hiding it.  And how was he going to show his displeasure, being so angry with the whole family?  It would be through outright disobedience. 

First, we read in Genesis 28:6:

And when Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

God is making it very clear that Esau was fully aware of this.  He knew what was going on.  Then it says in Genesis 28:7:

And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;

So Jacob obtained the blessing, and he received the commandment from his father and mother to go and get a wife, and he obeyed.  He obeyed like a dutiful son.  Can you imagine if it were you and you were in Esau’s situation?  You are running these things through your mind, and the bitterness that could creep into your thinking and how you could begin to despise not only your brother, but your mother and father as well?  Yes – they were watching out for Jacob, and he is “a good little boy.”  He is obeying his parents, his mother and his father.  Then it says in Genesis 28:8:

And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;

That is true.  Rebekah did not just say that in order to make an excuse to send Jacob away.  We saw earlier that Esau had married when he was 40 years old, which would have been 20 years earlier.  It says in Genesis 26:34-35:

And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

So this was not something new.  He had already committed this sin earlier in his life.  And, yet, this is different.  He was engaging in the same sinful behavior.  He did not learn his lesson.  He was going to marry another ungodly woman and someone outside the family line, and not a worshipper of JEHOVAH, but a worshipper of some other kind of god.  So Esau was doing this, but he had already done it before.  In order to try to see the difference, I suppose it could be that when he was a younger man of 40 (since people lived to such great ages), he met these women and there was a natural attraction.  He had strong feelings toward them and, perhaps, impulsively, he married.  The only problem with that is there were two of them (wives).  How did that happen?  I do not know.  Later on, Jacob will have strong feelings for Rachel, but he will end up with two wives because of something the father did.  Did that happen to Esau?  We do not know.  All we know is that God tells us that he took to wife Judith and Bashemath.  They were both Hittites, but, apparently, they were daughters of different men, so that is not the same situation as with Jacob.  But I would say it was probably a more emotional decision and an inability to hold back the desires of the flesh, given that he was a natural-minded and carnal man.  He had always been unsaved.  So the flesh has governed him, and he never had a living soul within him.  He had the “breath of life,” which animates his physical body, but he never had a living spirit.  It had always been “dead,” so he would have followed the dictates of the flesh.  Knowing, perhaps, that it would displease his parents, and not wanting to do that earlier when he was 40, but it just turned out that way.  So one day he went to mom and dad and he tells them, “I have gotten married, and I have these wives, and I hope you are not too displeased with me.”  Of course, it was a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah that he had done this, but it was done.  You know, the Bible tells us that once someone gets married, you are married, and you cannot undo it.  It is a serious step to enter into a marriage, and Esau took that step, and from that point there must be an acceptance of it.  So, you see, his mindset would have been much different.  Yes – it was displeasing to his parents, but he was not really intending or wanting to hurt them then.  

But this time is different, as he watched the goings-on very carefully, and he saw the fact that his brother Jacob was sent away for the purpose of getting a wife that was not of the daughters of Canaan, the woman of that land.  And, maybe, very despitefully, he said to himself, “So these women around here are not good enough, just like I am not good enough! Well, I will show you!”  So with decadent, willful intent, we read in Genesis 28:8-9:

And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

He saw, and then he went and did the very thing his mother and father were trying to prevent in the life of Jacob.  “Here you go, Mom.  Here you go, Dad.  I am going to get a wife of the daughters of Canaan, just because you do not like it.”  You know, he was 60 years old, and we might identify this type of behavior with a rebellious teenager, but he was striking out.  He was doing something that he already knew had been a source of grief to his parents, and he hopes it will be a source of grief again.   He wanted to hurt them, and I am sure he did.  They probably just shook their heads and were saddened all the more over their dear son Esau.  Oh how they sorrowed over him.  And we should not think that Rebekah did not care for him.

By the way, I do not think we have touched on this.  Remember, Isaac as his father is typifying God, and Rebekah as his mother is typifying the Word of God that gives birth to the elect.  We become born again through the Word, and then the Word of God provides us with “milk,” and we feed upon the Word and it nourishes us, cherishes us, and causes us to grow, spiritually.  So when we put it altogether, we see that Rebekah is a picture of the Word or the Law and with Christ, who is so closely identified with the Word.  And that explains how Rebekah had all this knowledge and knew which of the sons must obtain the blessing and how she worked to orchestrate so he did get the blessing.  Then she protected Jacob by sending him away.  We have covered all that, but we have not seen the (spiritual) relationship between Esau and Rebekah.  If Rebekah represents the Word of God or the Law of God and also Christ, then where does that leave Esau?  They were both born of her.  She had twins, and the children struggled together in her womb. 

I think the way we can understand it is through that Scripture that says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  It was the Word of God that went out and called all, “Come to the marriage feast!”  The Word of God went forth telling sinners there was hope and a Saviour, potentially, and, therefore, “Come to the Word of God, the Bible.”  And many came and they were jam-packed together in the congregations, mostly through the unfaithful doctrines regarding that call.  The true call of the Bible would have said, “Men and women, you are dead in sins and dead in trespasses, and you cannot do anything.  So come to the Word of God and to God Himself, because what is impossible with you is possible with God, and it is the day of salvation!”  That should have been the call, with a strong emphasis on the fact that you cannot do anything, and that would have kept down the number of tares that entered into the congregations.  But, of course, God kept the teaching of the “faith of Christ” and the purest form of the Gospel of grace in reserve until the time of the end when He intended to save the great majority of the elect, and that was just recently (from 1994 to 2011).  But during the church age, they looked through a glass darkly as they looked at the Bible, and all kinds of “twists” were put on saving faith and how men could become saved.  So this enabled masses of people to come into the congregations who were never saved, but they were assumed to be saved.  They were baptized and called Christians, and then things got worse and worse and worse, until we got to the time of the end and practically everyone in the churches was unsaved.   And that is why such a small number (the remnant) of God’s elect came out (of the churches) at the time of the end.

But, anyway, Rebekah was a type and figure of the Word or the Law or the Lord Jesus, and she conceived and gave birth to both Jacob and Esau.  She was mother of both, but the Word of God favors those that were chosen and predestinated to obtain God’s salvation before the foundation of the world.  The Word of God (Christ) favors those whose sins were laid upon Him, and He paid the penalty for them.  And that is why Rebekah had that favoritism.  You know, with earthly mothers and fathers, it is the worst thing possible to favor one child over another, and later Jacob would make that mistake when he favored Joseph over his other sons, which caused tremendous jealousy, and it caused those other sons to do harm to Joseph.  It is just not a wise thing for parents to favor one child over another child.  They have to do their best, and maybe you feel more kind or loving toward one over another, but do not ever reveal it, if you can help it.  Never reveal it.  You want to be “even-keeled,” and treat each the same.  Historically, Rebekah failed at that.  But in her failure of treating both sons equally and in her favoring of her son Jacob, God was painting a picture.  He is illustrating an important truth about those that are “called,” and the elect are called along with the non-elect.  That is, when they entered into the churches or when the Gospel went forth outside the churches at time of the end, the Gospel went forth and called everyone, along with the elect.  We are “called and chosen,” while the professed (non-elect) Christians were only “called.”  Therefore, the Word of God was much more favorable, and looked much kindlier upon God’s elect than those that would be left in their sins.  So that helps us to understand Rebekah’s relationship to Esau a little bit better, and we can see why God permitted her to have those kinds of feelings.

Of course, there is another question in Isaac seeming to prefer Esau.  I do not know fully how to understand that, but we do know that God does have a love for mankind, in general.  God created man, and when we read the genealogy in the Gospel of Luke, where it says that a man begat another or was the son of this man or that man, and then it says that Adam was the son of God.   There is a close relationship between God and man.  Adam was formed from the dust of the ground and he was God’s son.  Fathers have strong feelings and compassion toward their sons, and we are all descendants of Adam, saved and unsaved, so it is fitting in way, and it helps us to understand God’s general kindness and goodness and feelings of compassion.  He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and He sends the rain on the just and the unjust.  You see, God gives everything possible that He can to mankind, despite man’s sinful rebellion and despite his tremendous wickedness and his hatred of God Himself.  And, yet, God has blessed him with many things, just as when Esau failed to obtain the blessing of the firstborn son, he nevertheless enjoyed an earthly blessing.  God would have man to enjoy whatever he can enjoy of this creation for the limited time that he is able to enjoy it.  So God allows the people of the world to experience certain joys and feelings of pleasure as they live their lives, but it is extremely limited to a short while.  And God is fully aware of that and, therefore, He has feelings for them, just as the Lord Jesus Christ had feelings for Jerusalem and wept over it.  It is a terrible thing.  It is an extremely sorrowful thing that these people that were created in the image of God, Adam and his unsaved descendants, must die.  They will not live forever in glorious bliss, joy and happiness with God in a new heaven and new earth, but they will die with this earth and this creation, and they will cease to exist for evermore.

Getting back to Genesis 28, we are going to look, Lord willing, at this two-fold truth that God is putting on display to us:

1) Esau is observant in witnessing (certain things).  Twice we read this: in verse 6, Esau saw that Isaac blessed Jacob; and in verse 8, Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac.  So he was keenly observing what is happening at the time that Jacob obtained the blessing, but he did not. 

2) Then in response, there is willful disobedience.  Keep in mind, again, who Isaac and Rebekah are representing, God and the Word of God.  And Esau is representing those in the corporate church, as well as all unsaved individuals, but especially those in the churches and congregations at the time of the end when God finally separates the wheat from the tares.  Then there is this willful disobedience.  It is as if the churches are saying to God, “We are going to do what we want to do, and we want you to know it.”  It is very blatant, willful sin.