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Teamwork in prayer: Enduring bond of Isaac and Rebecca as a model for marital spirituality
Isaac and Rebecca struggled to conceive a child for 20 years and we are told that Isaac faces Rebecca as they are praying, which means they prayed together for as a team for God to give them children. It’s good for us that the Torah explains and expand upon the relationships. It helps us see how God wants or expects our marital relationships to work. Twenty years is a very long time to pray for something to wait patiently for the answer. This shows the character of both Isaac and Rebecca that they persevered in prayer for their sons. Isaac and Rebecca pray together for 20 years, demonstrating their close relationship and teamwork.
Obviously Abraham and Sarah prayed a long time for a child, too. Ishmael came first, when Abraham was 80-plus years old, if I recall correctly and Abraham was about 100 years old when Isaac was born so they prayed many decades for Isaac. The patriarchs and matriarchs in the Bible, including Abraham and Sarah, demonstrated patience and perseverance in their prayers, highlighting the importance of these qualities in a spousal relationship.
In our modern culture, we do not have such patience. When the Bible gives us the way of life and we apply it, that’s great, but if we don’t apply it, that’s not so great. So there are some cultures and some time periods within our own culture here in the United States, where true teamwork between spouses as reflected in Isaac and Sarah were not advocated. If we learn to apply biblical principles to our lives, we are better off spiritually, unfortunately, we see there are cultures that do not live biblical principles and those cultures are spiritually lacking.
Sons of the Spirit vs. sons of the flesh
But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. The LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”
Genesis 25:22–23 NASB
Why did God want or desire or set it up such that Rebecca’s two children would come and they would fight argue bicker whatever, and they would separate like this?
In this case, God uses personal examples in the lives of the Patriarchs to teach us the difference between the sons and daughters of the spirit v. sons and daughters of the flesh. God brings these “villains” into our lives to reveal and strengthen our character.
The main “villain” in Isaac’s life was not Ishmael, but Abimelech, while in Jacob’s life, his “villain” was Esau.
Even going back to Isaac and Ishmael for a moment, in that story, Ishmael is the son of the flesh while Isaac is the son of the spirit, which is brought up in great detail and explained by the Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians.
I think the way the Torah introduces Esau and Jacob from the very beginning, even from the womb is that Esau is a son of the flesh and Jacob is a son of the spirit. Although Jacob did some really bad things, too, don’t get me wrong. Jacob was not perfect, he had a lot of issues. The blessings give to Jacob invokes HaShem’s name both times while the blessings given to Esau did not invoke God’s name at all. Jacob’s blessings were somewhat physical but mostly spiritual while Esau’s blessings were purely physical.
What is a complete person?
When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents.
Genesis 25:27 NASB
Jacob was a “peaceful” man, but this is not the peace in the word shalom. The word here translated as “peaceful” in the New American Standard Bible is actually the Hebrew word תָּם tam (H8535) which is the root of the word תָּמַם tamam (H8552), which means “complete” or “perfect.” Jacob was “complete” or perfect in his tent. He was self-assured and did not derive his self-worth from the world.
Esau, on the other hand was a “skillful hunter.” The word “hunter” is only found in one other part of the TaNaKh, where the same word is used to describe Nimrod in Genesis 10:9. Esau was not a hunter of men, he doesn’t have imperial designs the way Nimrod, did but Esau did have a similar motivation. He was very much a man who derived his sense of self in relation is interaction with the outside world, and an extrovert, whereas, Jacob, was an introvert, preferring the inside world.
God is using them to teach us lessons about certain types of people and behaviors, showing us which He approves of or likes and which ones he does not.
Genesis 4:20 says that one of descendants of Cain was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. Jewish tradition says that people described this way are shepherds, who take care of flocks who move with their flocks from place to place for the sake of the flocks themselves and are settled. Hunters don’t move through the world like that. Hunters continually move all the time, they never really settle anywhere. Shepherds care about the land that their flocks will graze, they have a set course that they travel throughout the year for the sake of the flocks. Shepherds monitor and care for the land, thinking of the long term benefit to their flock. Hunters do not care deeply about the location they are dwelling, about the earth. A complete person is one who has both a physical life and a spiritual life.
The Torah does not indicate that Esau had any kind of spiritual life. Nimrod, on the other hand, did have a spiritual life, which was very distorted and messed up. Neither Ishmael’s or Esau’s descendants carried any belief in the God of their forefathers. Esau, was in a sense, like a cat, who hunted and operated in the world based only on instinct. He never looks to God for guidance. He is one who only looks out for the immediate need.
Esau gave away his birthright because it didn’t meet his immediate need for a bowl of soup. There no looking far into the future in Esau’s nature. That’s the image we have of Esau.
The Apostle Paul goes into this in detail in Romans 7 when he says that He does the things that his spirit doesn’t want him to do. And the thing his spirit wants him to do his flesh can’t comprehend. There’s a struggle back and forth and he can’t stop his flesh from winning at certain times, and he argues with his flesh, and sometimes the spirit doesn’t win the argument, but sometimes the spirit does win the argument. What he’s describing is the struggle of all normal human beings.
That is what we would expect from a “complete person”, wouldn’t we? The complete person has the flesh and the spirit and there this never ending battle between what I should do versus what my body wants to do and what I feel like doing in the here and now versus sticking to my long term goals.
With Jacob and Esau we have the comparison between the complete person and the incomplete person. The book of Galatians also goes into depth about the difference between a man of the flesh versus a man of the spirit.
‘The first shall be last and the last shall be first’
One thing that the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac have in common, is that both of them, at least initially were really fixated on their first born sons, putting a lot of time and emotional energy into them.
Abraham and Sarah also had their own disagreements and were a balance to each other. For example Abraham advocated for Ishmael twice while Sarah was very much against Ishmael and Hagar. We see something similar with Isaac and Rebecca. Isaac seems drawn to the son who is very fleshly oriented while Rebecca is more drawn to the son who is more of a complete person.
In Jewish tradition, it’s taught that men have to be commanded to connect with God, because men tend to look at the physical while women tend to look at the spiritual. Men have to be commanded to perform spiritual exercises while women tend to do this naturally.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you say, ‘In what way have You loved us?’ Was not Esau the brother of Jacob?” says the Lord. “Yet Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated, and I have appointed his borders for destruction and made his heritage as dwellings of the wilderness.”
Malachi 1:2–3 SAAS
When Esau spurned the birthright, that seemed so insignificant to him, even though it was rightfully his by the fact that God willed for Esau to be born first, he showed his true character. This tells us much more about who Esau was than about who Jacob was. God seems to hold Esau’s spurning of the birthright against him, judging him very harshly for it. God also seems to hold it against Esau’s descendants, too.
Herod and Hamas: Unraveling the thread of fleshly mindedness in descendants of Esau
We can see in hindsight from the writings of Obadiah, that Esau’s descendants were a very spiritually angry people. Esau hated his brother Jacob and his descendants over many generations applauded whenever the descendants of Jacob suffered nay misfortune. The people of Edom continued in the hatred of the people of Israel that they inherited from their forefathers to this very day. Obadiah records, hundreds of years later, the intense spiritual anger that Esau had towards Jacob that he passed on to his descendants. The Edomites had the exact same intense hatred for the people of Israel that their forefather had for Jacob.
Although God does not punish the children for their father’s sins, if they sin in the same manner as their father, they will bear the same consequences.
So this case, Obadiah records the store of when the people of Israel are being carried off as captives and some tried to escape, the Edomites slaughtered the Israelites who tried to escape. They, they caught them and killed them off, because although God essentially allowed a route for some of the Israelites escape captivity, Edom said, “Oh, no, no! No one gets to escape. We’re gonna make sure everyone’s dead” and they did. I won’t go into depth about modern Islam, but the truth is their treatment of Israel is very similar.
The trajectory of Esau’s entire life hinged on that one decision to spurn his birthright. That mentally and philosophy of life carried on through his entire bloodline, for at least 2,000 years.
We see the same thing in King Herod, who was a descendant of Esau. He had no compunction about killing innocent children, even babies, if they got in his way, just like his forefathers in the days of Obadiah. Herod’s heart was also full of destruction and death with no understanding beyond his own immediate physical needs. He killed his own wife, his sons on the chance that they might kill him first and take his throne from him. He’s gonna die anyway, eventually everyone dies, right? But he didn’t care that he’s gonna die eventually. King Herod did not care about the spiritual world at all. Only the here and now mattered to King Herod.
So, Esau’s legacy of being extremely fleshly minded carried on in his descendants all the way to the days of Messiah Yeshua. Esau’s descendants had no spiritual discernment whatsoever.
We see even today, that Hamas, the terrorist group have the same bloodlust against the Jews that Herod did. They do not know how to do any distant planning, they do not think of what kind of world they are creating for their children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren to live in. That is unimportant to them. That mentality, that only cares about the bowl of red lentil soup, that cares nothing about a spiritual birthright, results only in death and destruction, not only in one’s own destruction and death, but in the destruction and death of those unfortunate to be within target range of such bloodlust and greed.
We all have a physical side and a spiritual side, when the physical side wins out over and over again, the spiritual side collapses and dies. If we feed our flesh, our spiritual side dies. Although our flesh does have needs, such as food, drink, sleep, and we need to take care of those, we can’t be overly concerned about the flesh at the expense of our souls. We have to remember that the needs of our spirit, and the long term, into eternity, should be our primary objective.
What you feed and test is what grows
As I mentioned previously, Isaac’s main spiritual foe was not Ishmael, but Abimelech. When Isaac and Rebecca travel towards Philisita, God uses Abimelech to test and strengthen Isaac. Remember the story where Isaac lies to Abimelech and claims that Rebecca is his sister, not his wife because he’s scared that Abimelech, or one of his people, will kill him just to have her because she was so beautiful? Well, Abimelech eventually found out the truth and gets really upset, but although he acts offended by Isaac’s insinuation that his life was in danger because of Rebecca, Abimelech’s instruction to the people tells us that Isaac’s fear was perfectly legitimate.
So Abimelech charged all the people, saying, “He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”
Genesis 26:11 NASB
Abimelech’s edict reveals to us that Isaac’s fears were based on facts on the ground, otherwise Abimelech would not have had to command his subjects specifically to leave Isaac and his wife alone. If there was no real risk to Isaac’s life, Abimelech would not have had to issue such a decree. We have to give Abimelech some credit because at least, he had a little spiritual discernment, but his subjects obviously did not, otherwise he would not have needed to warn his subjects so adamantly to not harass or Isaac and Rebecca.
The same thing happened with Abraham and Sarah when they went to Egypt and met Pharaoh. Pharaoh has to make a similar degree saying that no one can lay a hand on Abraham and Sarah. That tells me that both Isaac and Abraham were right. They knew what could happen to them that they could get killed. They knew that the Egyptians and the Philistines were flesh oriented people. The long term objectives didn’t matter much to them, only the immediate here and now mattered to them. Their reputation preceded them. Abraham’s and Isaac’s concerns were completely justified.
Ahab and Jezebel were also very flesh oriented, only carrying about what they needed here and now. Remember that Naboth had a vineyard near the king’s palace and Ahab really wanted it. Jezebel conspired to have Naboth killed and gave the vineyard to Ahab. Ahab was happy he got the vineyard and neither him or Jezebel cared about the fact that an innocent man was killed so he could have it.
So when God said, Esau, I have hated and Jacob, I have loved. God didn’t have Esau because of his looks. God hated Esau because, as He explained to Malachi, He crushed them because they continually disobeyed Him. Nothing good came out of Esau and rather than repenting of their sins, they rebelliously said that they were going to rebuild whether God wanted them to do so or not. Therefore God says to the Edomites, “I have you,” because the Edomites do not love God, they only care about the here and now.
Most all of the nations around Israel, not just Hamas, their professed goal is the death of Israel, through her entire history even to this day, which is pretty short sided.
It’s commonly believed that Ishmael’s descendants ended up in the Saudi Arabia while Edom’s descendants ended up on the east side of the Jordan. Who knows for sure? I am not so concerned about their physical DNA but their spiritual DNA. We see in the people who live in these areas are very focused on acting in the short term. They don’t care much about how the decisions now will affect their grandchildren and great grandchildren. Esau’s shortsidedness didn’t go away. In every generation it pops up again in his descendants to our day.
We all have this continuous battle of struggling between indulging short sided fleshly needs and focusing our attention on our long term spiritual goals to get to our promised land. The flesh is short sighted but it is not dumb.
| Esau | Jacob |
|---|---|
| Flesh | Flesh and Spirit |
| Nearsighted | Longsighted |
Jacob had long term, lifelong, even eternal goals, Esau did not. To Jacob, the birthright was worth far more than a bowl of lentil stew. Jacob was willing to make that exchange, because he knew his brother Esau was short sighted.
Why did Jacob go along with Rebecca’s crazy idea?
Jacob did not want to go along with Rebecca’s conspiracy at first. He told her that if his dad found out about their scheme that he would be in serious trouble and Rebecca tells him that whatever punishment Isaac wants to inflict on him that she will bear it instead. Chabad has an interesting article on this very topic:
When Jacob saw that his mother was prepared to take the fall, to risk the potentially lethal curse of Isaac, he realized that these were no ordinary blessings…. If his mother was prepared to risk being cursed by the holy Isaac, this was proof enough to Jacob how absolutely critical it was for these blessings to be conferred upon him and not Esau. And so, then and there, Jacob agreed to his mother’s request…. Jacob, like all Jewish boys, loved his mother. But he and his mother loved G‑d and were fully aware of the sacred responsibility on their shoulders to be guardians of our faith….
Yossy Goldman, “Did Jacob Not Care for His Mother?” Chabad.org, accessed Nov. 18, 2023
So however the original prophesy was given to Rebecca, it was given and there is no doubt about it. So she always knew what the promise was, and according to Torah, she heard directly from God. So I think that it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt that when she was maneuvering and making her moves, she was that human interaction much like Sarah might have had with Hagar, just trying to make a move, and being caught up and wanting to see something fulfilled. And I think that there’s a lot of room that should be given in that area. There’s no criticism of Rebecca here. Both Isaac and Rebecca had their ups and downs and all of us have our good points and our bad points.
We have another example of trying to help God out. Be careful when you try to manipulate circumstances to make it happen.
Did Rebecca have any authority to transfer any lethal curse that Isaac might have thrown at Jacob to herself? I would think the answer would be No, not unless God affirmed or agreeed with that transfer. When the people in Yeshua’s day said, “May His blood be on us and our children” do they have authority in God’s name to do such a thing? My inclination is to say no. God says in Ezekiel 18 that He doesn’t do that. People can do that, just like David punished some of Saul’s descendants through one of his concubines for what Saul did to the Gibeonites, and gives them over for execution, but this is not how God operates. He does not punish children for their parent’s sins.
Was Jacob’s conniving for Isaac’s blessing and the birthright all for nothing?
Isaac lived a long time. He was still alive when Jacob returned to the Promised land with his family, and Rebecca may have still been alive when he returned, we don’t know for sure. Both Christian and Jewish tradition says that Rebecca passed away while Jacob was gone, but that isn’t clear from a plain reading of the bible itself.
Isaac lived until Joseph was roughly 30 years old. Isaac died a year before Joseph became Prime Minster in Egypt. So, most likely Jacob did receive his inheritance from Isaac. Jacob also earned a good portion of Laban’s estate, too. So even though Jacob got the double portion of Isaac’s physical estate, he received the far more important spiritual inheritance. We know that Esau went to Isaac and he begged and he cried and begged some more because he was mad about the birthright and the blessing being “stolen” by Jacob but God did not listen to him.
The most important blessing Jacob inherited was the blessing of God hearing his prayers, that was way more important than any material possessions Jacob may have received from Isaac. God hearing your prayers is a huge blessing.
To give Esau a little credit, after Isaac sent Jacob away specifically to find a wife, Esau realized how bad form it was for him to have married his two Hittite wives, since they were so rebellious. Without the input or blessing from his parents, Esau decided to quickly and rashly “fix the problem” by marrying a third wife, finding a woman from Ishmael’s family. Rather than asking his parents how he could fix his relationship with them, he acted his flesh, with a shortsighted view and hurried up to marry an Ishmaelite wife, racking up three wives. Isaac only married one wife so would Esau’s stockpiling more wives really please Isaac and Rebecca? We have no record of them approving of this third wife either. He uses his Ishmaelite wife as a band-aid to cover over the error of marrying the two Hittite women. Instead Esau doubles down on dumb.
Esau was a very short sighted, very nearsighted person. All he thought about was the here and now. Shortsighted people are not ignorant, they do have some comprehension. It’s just that the solutions to whatever problems come their way are always very short sighted.
I will not say that Jacob always thought with the long game in mind. He could be just as short sided as Esau at times. When he racked up his four wives (two of them being sisters), the conspiracies between Rachel and Leah to have more children for Jacob in the name of winning his love were just as short sided as Esau thinking that merely marrying an Ishmaelite wife after marrying two Hittite wives would bring overflowing joy to his parents. These examples are given to us as a warning that in every generation there is a temptation to slip into satisfying the short term needs of the flesh rather than the long term eternal needs of the spirit. The battle between flesh and spirit never goes away and when looking at the dynamic between Abraham and Isaac and then Isaac and his sons, shortsidedness can be hereditary.
Birthright and blame: Echoes of Esau in the Israel-Palestine conflict
Esau only cared about himself, and tried to slander Jacob and saying that Jacob stole his birthright when Jacob actually bought it from him fair and square. The Scriptures never accuse Jacob of stealing it. That’s just Esau saying that. Esau may believe in his mid that Jacob stole it but he was just lying to himself. Esau didn’t care about his birthright, he spurned it. Jacob may have been a bit conniving, but he was actually focused on the long game. Esau was not, he only looked at the natural things and to satisfy the desires of his flesh. Esau was all about “me, myself and I.” Esau’s recollection is completely absurd and illogical.
We see this same dynamic in the politics of the Israel and Palestinian disputes to this day. The gentile nations from the Romans, to the Arabs, the crusaders, and the Ottomans have all stolen the Promised Land from the Jewish people and when the Jewish people came back to take back their inheritance, they slander the Jews calling them “occupiers” and “colonizers.”
Hamas and the rest scream that the Jews stole the land. They didn’t steal it, the Ottomans and the Arabs sold it to them and what wasn’t sold to them was given by the British and the U.N. The Arabs and the Ottoman’s thought the land was worthless, until the Jews bought it and made it into something. Esau thought his birthright was worthless so he sold it to Jacob for something that was “worthless” which was a bowl of soup, but then Jacob made it into something worthwhile and Esau resented him for it.
When Jacob approached Isaac to get the blessing, he approached Isaac with the hands like Esau but with the voice of Jacob. We see the same idea with the crucifixion of the Master. The Jews turned Him over, but it was the Romans, the Gentiles who nailed Him to the Cross. This is so the redemption can be universal.
Individuals like Esau resist engaging with factual information, preferring to stick to their preconceived notions. Attempting to challenge their narrative and highlight its shortcomings is met with resistance, as they’ve emotionally invested in a particular perspective. Breaking through a narrative to which they are deeply attached proves challenging, mirroring Esau’s unwavering belief in the false notion that Jacob unjustly took his birthright, despite Esau willingly selling it to Jacob. This human tendency to embrace falsehoods is a fascinating phenomenon that affects us all.
Summary: Tammy