Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #3 of Genesis 32, and we will be reading Genesis 32:3-12:

And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; And said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, JEHOVAH which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

I will stop reading there.  We are trying to understand what is going on in this chapter, and it is another difficult chapter of the Bible.  Actually, we could say all the Bible is difficult because the Bible is full of hidden truth, and the difficulty is in discovering the underlying meaning, the hidden truth that is the treasure in all of Scripture.

In the verses I read, as well as the other verses in this chapter, there are some hard things to understand.  For example, it says in Genesis 32:3:

And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

The word “messengers” is the same Hebrew word that was translated as “angels” in Genesis 32:1:

And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

And now in verse 3, it says, “And Jacob sent messengers…” It could be translated as “angels” because it is the identical word, but we know that “messengers” is a more accurate translation.  He sent some of his servants to carry a message to his brother Esau, so they were messengers.  So Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, and it says in Genesis 32:4-5:

Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.

That is a strange thing.  This is unusual, is it not?  Jacob is a type of Christ, as we have learned in the previous chapters, and now he has his flocks, his family, and his servants, and he has come out of Haran.  We looked in detail at how that fits in with Christ delivering His people out of the kingdom of Satan.  And Jacob goes on his way, and the first thing we know is that he sent these messengers to Esau, and we know that Esau can represent mankind.  Remember that Esau is called “Edom,” as it says in verse 3: “And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom.”  If we go to Genesis 36, we read in Genesis 36:1:

Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom.

Esau is Edom, and Edom is a word that identifies with “red.”  The Hebrew word for “Edom” is Strong’s #123, and it is from Strong’s #122, “red,” and it can also be translated as “ruddy.”  And that word is related to Strong’s #122, which is the word translated as “Adam,” and that word is related to #120, the word for “man.”  Actually, there is no difference in spelling between “Adam” and “man.”  They have the same consonants and vowel points.  We have the same consonants for “Edom,” and  for “red,” also.  So, basically, they are the same word, and the only difference is in vowel pointing.  There is no difference between “Adam” and “man,” but in the case of “Edom,” instead of an “alpha” vowel point, they gave another one that would sound more like the letter “e.”  So that tells us that “Edom” is strongly identified with mankind, and Esau is Edom. 

So if we look at the spiritual picture, we see Jacob, a type of Christ, sending messengers to the land of Seir, the country of Edom, which would point to the people of the world.  And that would fit in with Christ sending his people with the message of the Gospel, and He is sending it to mankind (Edom).  But what is this message?  He told his brother that he sojourned with Laban, and that he had oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants, and then he said, “and I have sent to tell my lord,” and that is almost sounding subservient as he is calling his twin brother “my lord.”  And then he added, “that I may find grace in thy sight.”  And, yes, this is the usual word for “grace,” as in when Noah found grace in the eyes of JEHOVAH.  It is that word that indicates the grace and favor of God toward sinners (that are elect).  But we know that the Bible says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”  So, here,  it is not to those that are hated under the wrath of God and that hear the message of the Gospel that they might find grace, but it is completely opposite here – it is Jacob petitioning Esau that he (Jacob) might find grace in Esau’s sight.  Talk about difficult!  This is very difficult to understand, and it is not just here, but let us turn to Genesis 33 when Esau finally showed up, and we find these statements made in Genesis 33:8:

And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? And he said, These are to find grace in the sight of my lord.

Now look at Genesis 33:10:

And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand…

Then it says in Genesis 33:15:

And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord.

Again, and again, we find Jacob requesting and petitioning Esau that he might find grace in the eyes of Esau, his lord.  It just seems to turn everything upside down from what we understand of the Gospel and the spiritual pictures that are laid out in the Word of God. 

And it is not just this difficulty, but let us go back to Genesis 32.  Historically, we know why Jacob was afraid of Esau.  He had stolen the blessing from Esau, and Esau had determined to kill him, as it says in Genesis 27:41-43:

And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob. And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee. ow therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran;

That is why Jacob fled, and he has been gone 40 years, and now he is returning, and he is fearful that Esau has not changed, and that is why after Jacob broke up his family and possessions into two bands, it says in Genesis 32:11:

Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.

After expressing his fear, Jacob reminded God, in Genesis 32:12:

And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

He reminded God of the promise given to Abraham and to Isaac, and which was also given to Jacob himself.  And if Esau smote him, then what about the promise that Jacob’s seed would be as the sand of the sea that cannot be numbered for multitude?  So we can see how that does fit in with the spiritual teaching from the last chapter regarding Jacob, a type of Christ, going to Haran to attain his wives, his children, and his flocks.  It is basically the multitude that is counted for the seed.  Christ is the seed (singular), but all those that are saved are counted for the seed in Him.  And that helps to frame this chapter, in one sense, where there is threat and danger to the great multitude, and it is coming from Esau or Edom.  And yet, God had promised that there would be the “seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.”  They were to receive the eternal inheritance of the land of Canaan, pointing to the new heaven and the new earth.  So that is one helpful thing that helps us to solve the riddle of what is going on here.

And it is a riddle.  That is, it is a parable.  It is hidden, mysterious language, but there is something else that is difficult.  Besides Jacob petitioning Esau that he might find grace in his sight, listen to this language that is used in Genesis 32:13:

And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau his brother;

Notice how many times you will hear the word “presents,” as it goes on to say in Genesis 32:14-23:

Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals. And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee? Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob's; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he is behind us. And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him. And say ye moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of me. So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that night in the company. And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had.

Again, we see the petition to find grace in the sight of his lord Esau, and there are presents that accompany this petition that he might find grace.  Again, drove after drove (flock after flock) had a present for Esau.  And we wonder, “What is happening here?  What is the spiritual meaning?  What is the spiritual picture in all this?” 

You know, this is another chapter that I read through many times, and I did not understand it.  I was not looking forward to teaching from it because I did not understand.  Sometimes, I can just struggle through verse after verse, as God has not yet opened up my eyes to understand.  It just seemed so strange and odd.  How can there be a spiritual picture here? 

But then it “clicked,” by God’s grace, and, again, we will see a wonderful presentation of the Gospel, and a beautiful picture of God’s salvation program.  And it all fits perfectly with everything we already know, once we apply the “key,” who is Christ, and we can apply it when He gives us the key.  It is all done by God.  I already admitted that I did not understand a thing here.  And, you know, that is how it is in chapter, after chapter, and verse, after verse.  But is the time in which the Lord is revealing many things, and I think He is going to reveal some understanding to us concerning the things happening in this chapter, and it will make sense.  We will come to understand this unusual language, and all that is going on.

In order to do that, there are some key things to know.  Esau is Edom.  That is important.  And also the land of Seir is important.  So when we understand what Edom represents and what Seir represents, then we will understand the “presents,” and then we will understand the language of “finding grace.”  At least we will have a better understanding than when we came to this chapter.  At least I can say that of myself, by God’s grace.