Genesis 25--From Abraham to Jacob and Esau

READ:  Genesis 25 English Standard Version
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.25

Abraham's Death and His Descendants
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25 Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. 5 Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. 6 But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country.

7 These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years. 8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 9 Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, 10 the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. 11 After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi.

12 These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham. 13 These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael; and Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, 14 Mishma, Dumah, Massa, 15 Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. 16 These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes. 17 (These are the years of the life of Ishmael: 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.) 18 They settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria. He settled over against all his kinsmen.

The Birth of Esau and Jacob

19 These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham fathered Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. 21 And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said to her,

“Two nations are in your womb,
    and two peoples from within you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
    the older shall serve the younger.”

24 When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Esau Sells His Birthright

29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) 31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

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After the death of Sarah, Abraham took another wife, Keturah, who appears to be one of his concubines from the way that the text reads.  And he had many more children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren during his lifetime that were born of this woman, but none of them would receive any inheritance from him because God had commanded Abraham that everything should be given to Isaac and that all the other children and their families should be sent out of the land, back to the East towards that land from which Abraham came before he was called because they would not inherit or have any portion in the land which had been promised to Isaac.

Abraham lived to be 175 years old before he died and was buried alongside his wife Sarah in the cave he had purchased in Hebron.  Isaac was blessed by God and settled near the well that was described the first time that we saw Hagar flee from Abram and Sarai when she was pregnant with Ishmael where she named this well Beer-lahai-roi (The Well of the God Who Sees Me).  While maybe not this exact well, this makes me think of Jesus speaking with the Samaritan woman in John 4 where He truly is the God who Sees each and every one of us where she says "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?"

God did not forget His promise to Abram and Hagar to bless Ishmael and make give him the blessing of descendants and land, but a land other than that promised to in the covenant that would pass to Isaac.  Ishmael Was the father of 12 princes and lived 137 years.  He settled in what appears to be the land later known as Midian and it appears the Ishmaelistes would later be known as Midianites.  We'll see Moses living in this land for 40 years and God leads his people through this land for another 40 years.    This picture might be helpful to show that the Isrealites would have to pass through the land of the Ishmaelites to get back to the Promised Land 

So, the Ishmaelites seemed to live in the land between modern day Egypt and modern day Iraq, extending all the way over to modern day Kuwait (possibly in the area know today as Saudi Arabia).  The Arabs that live in Saudi Arabia claim to be the ancient descendants of Ishmael, and it does seem that God's favor has been on them.

We then see one of the passages that will be later used in the New Testament to teach the doctrine of Election.  Rebekah was told that she was pregnant with twins and that each of her sons would be the father of a nation and they would be at war with one another and that the older would serve the younger, which was not the way that things normally worked--normally the oldest received the birthright and blessing in the family and would be the one in the position of prominence and power, but God had not designed it this way.  From the very beginning He said, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."  What exactly does that mean?  Did God hate Esau as a person or did God already see what Esau would be and not choose him because of this?  God doesn't choose any of us because of what we are or will be but He chooses for His good pleasure and His glory alone.  We don't really understand this other than God is the Elector and the only one who gets to make such choice and He has all knowledge and wisdom to be able to choose rightly.  In the same way some of us were chosen before we were born to be part of God's plan as our names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundations of the world (before creation).  This group will sometimes be referred to as "the elect" by me (and by some of the New Testament authors).  Paul will come back to this passage in the book of Romans and we'll study it more in-depth there but we've already seen other instances of election at work in Genesis where God has often chosen the younger son to be the one from which the Messiah would come.

We'll see differences between these men later, but Jacob was a shepherd, staying close to home and was close to his mother.  Esau was a hunter and an "earthy" man that was rough and rugged and had the eye of his father who loved to eat the wild game that Esau brought home.  Esau was definitely the stronger of the two and would probably win in an outright battle, but Jacob was cunning and a deceiver/trickster (that's what the name Jacob means) and would use his words and whiles to win his fights for him.

Is seems that although Isaac and Rebekah knew from the very beginning which son God had chosen, Isaac tried to make his own choice by not telling his sons and trying to disobey God's plan.  Rebekah would step in and interfere with this (we'll see this in the next chapter), but for now, we see that Jacob desired the birthright that Esau had and something told him this belonged to him.  Esau so devalued this that he would sell it for a bowl of soup/stew.  He was very desperate and possibly about to starve to death, but if he really believed that he was the one to inherit the blessing and covenant from God then he should have believed that God would take care of him no matter what.

Tensions would stay high between the nation of Israel (the descendants of Jacob) and the nation of Edom (the descendants of Esau) for a really long time (Herod that we read about in Luke 2 was an Edomite).  The Edomites would frequently join with the nations that were coming to oppress Israel and take them into bondage/slaver and would cheer the enemy forces on.  While they should be treating the Israelites as brothers and helping defend them, there was instead this bickering and sibling rivalry that never went away.  Again we see that generations of people are affected by the sins of an individual and that the hearts of the sons can be turned away by the sins of the father.