“Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.”
– Genesis 32:11
Hi James and Ellen,
Is there someplace where you know that you need to go to but you really do not want to go there because there is a kid – or a guy or gal, there who you really do not want to see? Is there something that you know that you really need to do but you are really anxious about doing it because the kid – or the guy or gal, whose help that you need to have to do what you need to do really detests you? Is there kid – or a guy or gal, who you know who you really need to talk to but you really do not want to talk to him or her because you know that you will need to ask him or her to forgive you for having said or done something really harsh or unkind to him or her? Esau and Jacob were twins. Esau and Jacob were born about 4,000 years ago. Esau was born seconds before Jacob. Jacob’s name means deceit. Jacob was his ma’s favorite kid. Because Esau was born before Jacob, Esau was who was to receive the birthright portion at the time of his dad’s death. The firstborn son when Esau and Jacob were alive was to get when his dad died a double portion of their dad’s estate. A very famished Esau – after spending time hunting, dismissively gave up his birthright portion for a bowl of hearty stew that Jacob was making. When the day arrived when Esau’s nearly blind dad – who was on his death bed, decided that it was time for him to pass the birthright portion on to Esau, Isaac asked Esau to take his bow and arrow to kill for a tasty meal for him some wild game. After Esau left to do what his dad asked him to do, Jacob’s ma told Jacob to bring her two young goats from the household flock which she turned into a delicious meal. Because Jacob’s ma wanted Jacob to get his dad’s birthright portion and because the back of Esau’s hands and Esau’s arms were hairy and knowing that her husband would touch Jacob’s hands and arms, Jacob’s ma covered the back of Jacob’s hands and his arms with goatskins. Jacob and his ma fooled Jacob’s dad into believing that Jacob was Esau resulting in Isaac giving his birthright portion to him instead of to Esau.
How do you think that Esau felt when he realized that he had been taken advantage of by his kid bro? What do you think that Esau would have wanted to do his kid bro after he realized that he had been hoodwinked by his kid bro? Do you think that Esau could have been stopped from killing his kid bro – because of Jacob having fooled his dad into giving him the birthright portion that he was to get, if he had found his kid bro before Jacob took off on the really long hike to the town of Haran – which would be in the country of Syria today, where his Uncle Laban lived? After years of living with or near his Uncle Labon, Jacob deliberately alienated himself from his Uncle Laban. By the time that Jacob finally had enough nerve to head back to where he grew up as a kid in the land of Canaan, Jacob was married to two of his Uncle Laban’s gals, he had 11 sons, he had accumulated large flocks and/or herds of sheep and goats, cattle, donkeys and camels and he had menservants and two maidservants. When Jacob crossed the point that was halfway point between where his now hostile Uncle Laban lived and where his presumed still angry big bro Esau lived, Jacob sent his big bro a letter telling Esau that he was on his way back home and that he wanted to make things right with him. Moses recorded in Genesis 32 Jacob’s return trip to his family home in the land of Canaan.
When Jacob’s letter couriers returned after having delivered the letter that he wrote to his big bro, they told Jacob that his bro was on his way with 400 of his guys to meet up with him. What would you do if you knew that a kid – or a guy or gal, who you had deluded, conned and/or duped was on his way to meet you with a large troupe of guys? Verse 11 says that Jacob asked God to “Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.” Jacob also told God at this time in his prayer that he was going to expect God to take care of him because of the promise that God had made to his granddad Abraham when God told his granddad Abraham that He was going to have his granddad Abraham’s extended family prosper to the point where his granddad Abraham’s descendants would be as many as the sands of the sea – making them uncountable. After Jacob hatched a plan to put 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 30 female camels with their young calves, and 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys in the care of his servants, Jacob told his servants to give – in hopes of appeasing Esau enough not to kill him, the goats, sheep, cows and bulls, camels and donkeys as gifts to his big bro from ‘his servant Jacob’ who would be following them. Jacob then set up a camp to spend the night. Jacob – for some reason, decided during the night to have his two wives and their two maidservants along with their 11 boys cross the Jabbok stream’s ford with all their possessions while he stayed back alone in the camp. Jacob had who thought was a guy – but Who actually was God, visit him. God physically wrestled with Jacob through the night – ultimately having God wrench one of Jacob’s hips out of its socket. God changed Jacob’s name that night to Israel. The name Israel means striving with God and prevailing. What takes place next in Jacob’s life story is recorded by Moses in the next chapter which your grandpaa . . . what your grandpaa took from this chapter of Jacob’s life story is that even though you will invariably make gaffes, God may still bless you as He did with Jacob even though Jacob was a deceiver who filched something that was not his.
Genesis 32 (1155)