Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #7 in Genesis 36, and we will read Genesis 36:7-8:

For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.

We have been trying to understand what we can from these verses.  We saw that verse 7 is very similar to a passage back in Genesis 13 at the time when Abraham and his nephew Lot dwelt together.  They were sojourning together, and they both had great substance of cattle, and a very similar thing was stated about their situation.  Then Abraham suggested that they separate themselves from one another.  In our last study, I pointed out how this ties in with what happened over the course of the church age as the New Testament corporate churches often divided one from another.  And yet we would have to say that in that denomination, there were the elect; and in that other denomination, there were the elect.  But they divided and separated from one another, and that was according to the will of God.

What is going on here?  We know that Esau left the land of Canaan because he was going away from the “face” or “presence” of his brother Jacob, and we also know that it happened at a time after the blessing of the firstborn was made known – Isaac blessed Jacob.  Jacob, with his mother’s help, had deceived Isaac, and she made him to appear like Esau in his dress; and she made his hands appear like Esau’s when she took the skin of a goat and put it on the back of his hands.  So Isaac was unable to detect that it was actually Jacob, and he blessed him.  Then Esau came in later, and he realized what had happened, and he was crying and calling out to his father, “Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also.”  Then his father blessed him with the blessings of the earth.  It was an earthly blessing that was given to Esau while the blessing of the firstborn was a rich, spiritual heavenly blessing.  Following this, Esau was greatly troubled, and he sought to comfort himself by planning to kill his brother, but Jacob was directed by his parents to go to Haran, and to stay there for a while.  The period of time became 40 years, and sometime within that period of time Esau determined to leave his home in Canaan and to go to mount Seir.  That is the country he went to, and in doing so he would leave the presence of his brother Jacob.

We talked about how the people of the world are represented by Esau, or Edom, which is the same word as “Adam,” or “man.”  And mankind after the fall in the Garden of Eden went away from God, and they started living their lives apart from the kingdom of heaven.  That is pictured, but we also know that there is another spiritual picture here, since Esau can represent the unsaved within the churches and congregations who had identification with the kingdom of God but were never truly saved.  Certainly, Esau had identification with God.  He was of the godly line; he was as close to the kingdom of God as anyone could be, and yet he was not in it.  God had elected to save Jacob, and not to save Esau.  He loved Jacob, and hated Esau.

We saw in Genesis 33 that when Jacob left Haran, and he met his brother Esau, Esau was on his way to mount Seir, and he wanted Jacob to come with him.  Jacob kept saying, “Let me find grace in the sight of my Lord,” and Esau relented.  But Jacob went on to Succoth, and he returned to the land of Canaan, as we saw in the following chapters in Genesis 34 and Genesis 35.  If you remember when we went through Genesis 32 and Genesis 33, we saw that Esau was a figure of the Law of God, especially regarding mount Seir.  Let me put it another way.  Mount Seir is a figure of the Law of God, and Esau is a figure of those that follow the Law in order to try to obtain righteousness, but that is an impossibility, and they go the way of the covenant.  That is their pathway in trying to achieve eternal life, and the Bible does lay out that possibility because that was the “original” way for man to live when God created Adam.  The one condition for continued life was to obey God, and when they failed to obey God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die.  But if they did not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would live.  That was the implication.  It was “conditional life” that was based on keeping the Law.  Disobey the Law, and death would come.  That was the original covenant with mankind, which mankind failed to keep. 

Then God introduced the “covenant of grace” afterwards to those that were yet to sin.  Grace is only grace when there is sin involved.  So later the Lord introduced grace, which is connected to the atoning work of Christ at the foundation of the world.  Today we just think of grace, and that was the only Gospel that we considered, and we do not think of that other Gospel, although that other Gospel is inherent in false religions everywhere, as they tell their adherents, “This is what you have to do (to become saved).”  And the false Christian religions lay out “laws.”  They do not present it that way, but that is what they are doing when they lay out a law of “accepting Christ,” and performing that “work of faith.”  It is a covenant of works whereby you must do a work that is pleasing to God, and then you will live forever.  It is a promise, but it is not true because once someone starts down that road of seeking righteousness with God through the keeping of the Law, then they have placed themselves under the Law, and they are under the obligation to keep the whole Law perfectly.  They think, “All I have to do is obey God’s command to believe, and then I will be saved.”  No.  To believe is a “work,” and they are now trusting in their “work of faith” in regard to the Law of God.  So if that is their response to the Law of God, then they must keep all the other Laws that the Bible presents.  They have to keep the whole Law, and if they break one Law, they are guilty of all.

And that is the covenant that Seir (which identifies with mount Sinai) presents, and God is the One who makes that link in Deuteronomy 33:2:

And he said, JEHOVAH came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.

We recognize that the reference to “ten thousands of saints” coming with JEHOVAH is referring to Judgment Day.  And He came from Sinai.  And what happened at mount Sinai?  That is where the Law of God was given.  We understand that, but why does God says that JEHOVAH came from Sinai, and arose up from Seir unto them?  What does Seir have to do with Sinai?  And what we find is that Seir is synonymous with Sinai, spiritually.  Seir is also representing the Law.  The same link is made in Judges 5 where Barak comes with ten thousand, where we see that similarity with Deuteronomy 33.  Then after they won the victory, we read in Judges 5:1-5:

Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying, Praise ye JEHOVAH for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto JEHOVAH; I will sing praise to JEHOVAH God of Israel. LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before JEHOVAH, even that Sinai from before JEHOVAH God of Israel.

Again, verse 4 mentions Seir, and verse 5 mentions Sinai.  The two are joined together.  They are mentioned together because Seir is a picture of the Law, and that is the reason that when Esau said to Jacob, “Come with me to Seir,” it was as if he was saying, “We will keep the Law together.  Join my covenant, and we will be like-minded in our ‘religion’ by trying to keep God’s Law to obtain righteousness.”  But Jacob was repeatedly stressing, “Let me find grace.”  Remember we saw that 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.

Then it say sin 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: for therefore I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me.

Then we read in Genesis 33:12 that Esau said to Jacob, “Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee.”  He wanted him to return with him to Seir. But Jacob said in Genesis 33:14-16:

Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir. 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. So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir.

Jacob did not go.  Why not?  It was because Jacob had found grace, the other “covenant,” the other way of pleasing the Lord and obtaining righteousness that was not through man’s work of keeping the Law, but through the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ who bore the sins of His elect.  And the Law of God struck Him dead, and therefore the Law of God was satisfied.  The Law received perfect satisfaction, and afterward could make no accusation against any whose sins Christ had paid for as He stood in their place.  Then God bestowed the sceptre of His grace to those sinners through the shed blood of Christ that paid for their sins.  And that was why Jacob was pleading, “Let me find grace in the sight of my lord.”  Jacob saw Esau’s face as though it was the face of God.  And God comes with His Word, and His Word demands obedience: “Keep my commandments.”

It was as if Esau was saying, “Follow the Law; come to mount Seir; come to Sinai, and we will follow the Law.”  But by God’s grace, His elect people know that we cannot follow the Law.  If we go the route of Seir and follow that covenant, it will mean death for us, either the first day, or somewhere along that way.  We will falter and fail, and we will come under the wrath of God.  We will not experience the blessing.  We will not live, but we would die.  So that is why there was such desperation as Jacob said, “Let me find grace in the sight of my lord.”  And that was the case.

But Esau went the way of Seir, so he identifies with that covenant.  Remember that in Galatians 4 God lays out these two covenants, or these two pathways of getting right with God.  And, of course, one of those ways is not possible with mankind because man cannot keep the whole Law.  Nonetheless, it remains a legitimate covenant, and a legitimate pathway, if any were able to keep the Law perfectly.  Galatians 4 speaks of two women and their sons.  Ishmael was born to Agar (Hagar), and Isaac was born to Sara (Sarah).  We read in Galatians 4:22-24:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

It could just as easily read, “the one from Seir,” because the two are synonymous.

Then it goes on to say in Galatians 4:25:

For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

You see, that covenant begats bondage.  Coming under the Law enslaves the man, and brings him into the condition of bondage to sin and death, the Law being over him.  He cannot get out from under the Law because the problem is that the Law is condemning him.  “For the wages of sin is death.”  So all his life, he will live in bondage until he dies, because that is the penalty demands for transgressing the Law.  It is a terrible thing.  But then it says in Galatians 4:26:

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Then it says in Galatians 4:28-29:

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

As for Edom, or Esau, his descendants would go on to persecute the descendants of his brother Jacob, historically.  And spiritually that is the case as well.

Let us go back to Genesis 36:8:

Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.

When we get together in our next study, we will look at Genesis 36:9:

And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir:

Then we are given more names of his descendants.  It is a difficult chapter because of that.  It is not easy to get a “flow” of what is going on as far as the spiritual meaning, but we will pray for wisdom.  Keep praying for wisdom, and we will check out what we are able to check out to see what we can understand, Lord willing, in our next Bible study.