What’s your legacy? Life or death? Order or chaos? Spirit or flesh? (Lessons from Jacob and Esau)

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The Bible account of Eysau/Eysav (Esau) and Ya’akob/Ya’akov (Jacob), continued, is not merely the story of extreme sibling rivalry between fraternal twins.

In the Torah reading תּוֹלָדוֹת Toledot (Genesis 25:19–28:9), God reveals to Rivkah (Rebekah/Rebecca), their mother, what else is going on:

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 25:23 NASB 1995

God teaches by repetition, He gives us the same story, over and over again, so that if we don’t get the lesson in one story, a slightly different spin on it will get our attention and we will learn the lesson.

Jacob is called the “blameless man” not in the sense that he never did anything wrong but in the sense that he was complete. Jacob admired, feared and respected God’s power.

Esau is called the “hairy red” man, the first Edomite. The “hairy” man is untamed, and unpredictable. He is a man of the earth, of blood.

What is the lesson of Esau and Jacob? One lesson is the spiritual danger that comes from living one’s life after the dictates of our own hearts and delighting in our flesh and fearing no one rather than seeking to live after God’s heart and delighting in the spirit of wisdom and fear of the LORD.

Who do you think you are?

Who we come from doesn’t necessarily define who we are or will become. Some of us have come from godly homes but some of us came from very ungodly homes and we have had to totally change paths to walk rightly.

Esau did not have to walk away from the path of God as he did. From Jacob, we were given Israel and from Israel, we receive both the physical gift of the Messiah Yeshua but also the spiritual gifts of monotheism.

Jacob’s name in Hebrew, יַעֲקֹב Ya’akov, means “protrusion” something that sticks out, usually a reference to the heel (Job 18:9), footsteps (Psa. 77:19) or even one’s rear end (Jer. 13:22).¹ There’s a great prophecy in Gen. 3:15 that the heel of the seed of Eve will kill the serpent that injured that heel.

We see in Torah how Esau is the one who was true usurper, not Jacob. We read thought the Torah that Esau tries over and over again to insert himself into the righteous lineage, butting heads over and over again with Israel’s descendants.

On the flip side, if we aren’t “born again” into the best of the legacy passed to us, we can turn into an abomination. If we aren’t born again into the best of what our legacy is, we’re not born again. Jacob stepped up and accepted his legacy, while Esau did not. Jacob took up the family business, in a sense and successfully passed it on to the next generation.

We also have to recognized the good around us on one hand but also be very, very cognizant and observant of the dangers of “following one’s own heart” and going after what pleases one in terms of what is pleasing to the eye, what might appear on the surface make one wise? This harkens back to the Garden to Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve followed their hearts and the consequences were dire. We must desire to be mature, wise and complete in the knowledge of God and desire a relationship with Him.

Who made whom?

The title of the reading Toledot is often translated as “generations,” but more literally it is used in the Bible to communicate much more.

We see that in the Bible that toledot can refer to a literal father-to-son relationship or an ancestor-to-descendant connection. It simply means that this person (or thing) came from that person (or thing). This is extremely important, because being a part of the generation of a particular person is not just a physical inheritance but a spiritual one.

There are 10 toledot passages in the Torah:

of creation (Gen. 2:4)
of Adam (Gen. 5:1)
of Noach (Gen. 6:9)
of the sons of Noach (Gen. 10:1)
of Shem (Gen. 11:10)
of Terah (Gen. 11:27)
of Yishmael (Gen. 25:12)
of Yitskhak (Gen. 25:19)
of Eysau (Gen. 36:1, 9)
of Ya’akov (Gen. 37:2)

What is the “genealogy” of the heavens and the earth? Gen. 1:26–27, 31 shows us that the pinnacle of creation is mankind, that God declared “very good.” The image of God through mankind is now in the world.

The heavens and the earth were created for mankind. We are not an afterthought. We do not live on a mediocre planet around an unremarkable star in a ho-hum galaxy. We are not a virus on the earth. The earth was made for us as image-bearers of God.

Human beings, for better or worse, are God’s image on earth. Insofar as we choose life, we are living in God’s legacy. When we choose to seek wisdom outside of God’s revelation, we choose death.

Adam’s legacy was the legacy of being a son of God.
Noach’s legacy was the preservation of the “breath of life.”
Shem, Japheth and Ham’s legacy is the separation into the nation of the world.
Another legacy of Shem is as the protector of God’s Name (HaShem = The Name).
Terah’s legacy was Abraham
Ishmael’s legacy is the knowledge of the faith of Abraham
Esau’s legacy is Edom (later called Idumea), continually at war with Ya’akov’s legacy.
Isaac’s legacy is practicing the faith of Abraham and passing that on to Ya’akov.
The legacy of Ya’akov is the people of Israel, named after Jacob’s new moniker from Heaven.

We in our modern day, even in just the past couple of years, we see that the sons of Ishmael and Esau are beginning to acknowledge the blessing that God gave to the sons of Jacob, in the Abraham Accords. Ishmael and Esau are coming to realize that the Prince of Persia is their real enemy, not Israel.

These prophesies demonstrate God’s foresight and insight, not only to see what is happened on the surface but also to understand what is going on under the surface. What happens in the physical realm is a reflection of what happens in the spiritual realm.

Complete man vs. restless man

Jacob is described as an אִישׁ תָּם ’ish tam, “blameless man,” often translated as “peaceful man.” That’s not in the sense that he never did anything wrong but in the sense that he was “complete.”

Tabernacle sacrifices had to be תְּמִימִם tamim (Ex. 29:1), literally “complete,” but understood to be “without blemish.”

Jacob was complete in that he admired and respected God’s power.

Esau is called the “hairy red” man, the first Edomite. The “hairy” man is untamed, and unpredictable. He is a man of the earth, of blood.

If we pursue the “pleasure principle” or the flesh, we will inevitably end up on the path of the tree of knowledge rather than the tree of life. We can sleepwalk our way away from the narrow path of life. Those who are content with the ways of the world, are indifferent to God and their fellow man and live in ignorance and apathy.

If we see someone on the wrong path, we are duty bound to have enough mercy on them to show them the right path, to try to break through their ignorance and apathy. God has shown us mercy and we are to show it to others.

Esau was a man of the earth in an unrighteous way, but the Tanak gives us an example of a righteous “red” man in the person of King David. King David was the flip side of Esau. He was the man after God’s own heart and all that, but it also refers to him physically as being “red” or “ruddy” as Esau was. This may have referred to him as being a redhead or a ginger. But he may have been “ruddy” in the sense of this kind of earthiness.

Think about what God called King David to do to clean out the Canaanites from Israel once and for all, and the blood he had on his hands to fulfill the job God gave him to do. That’s why God said to him, “You can’t build the temple.” Although King David did what God wanted him to do, but he could not be the one to build a temple. God said that his son Solomon, who will not have that blood on his hands will be the one to build God’s temple. David was this earthy man who had to clean house, but Solomon was that house of peace.

Their story is the reverse of Esau and Jacob. David, maybe in a sense, was more like the Esau and Solomon is moire like that Jacob. Solomon, like Jacob was the intellect, the man of the tents, the man of peace who was able to build the temple.

Yet, David was more righteous than Solomon. Esau could have been righteous, but he didn’t want to be. Jacob wasn’t righteous by default, he was righteous because he desired to walk in God’s ways as his fathers did before him.

Well? Well? Well! (Genesis 26:1–32)

Isaac had the same fear of losing his life because a tyrant or warlord coveted his wife that Abraham had before him so when Isaac and Rivkah traveled to the Philistine territory, he repeats the lie his father told by passing Rivkah off as his sister, which was a whopper of a lie as she was his cousin, not his sister. At least Abraham was sort of telling the truth when he told the same lie a generation before.

We are told that Isaac was directed by God to move away from the Canaanite area of the Promised Land and live in Philistia, for a short time to live out the famine in the land. Isaac became a sojourner for a time, but this was not Isaac’s home. Isaac put down some roots there, but not permanent ones.

The Hebrew word for a new-comer or ex-patriate is “ger.” The root of the word “ger” is “gûr,” which, according to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament means “abide, be gathered, be a stranger, dwell” or “turn aside, tarry” in the Brown Driver Briggs lexicon.

“The root means to live among people who are not blood relatives; thus, rather than enjoying native civil rights, the גֵּר was dependent on the hospitality that played an important role in the ancient near east. When the people of Israel lived with their neighbors they were usually treated as protected citizens; foreigners in Israel were largely regarded as proselytes.”
Harold G. Stigers, “ג,” Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 1:155.

In the ancient world, just as it is today, access to water is life and prosperity. That is why God told Isaac to move his family to Philistia for a while to ride out the famine. As Isaac sojourned through out Philistia, he reopened his father Abraham’s wells, but the Philistines followed him and covered them up again, pushing him out. So Isaac moved to another area and reopened another well, which they would close up.

This pattern happened several times, until he moved to the region of Gerar, on the eastern edge of Philistia’s territory. At this place, Isaac was able to open up a well this is where his family survived the famine in peace.

Isaac was living on God’s timetable, not his own. God had already told Abraham that there would be a day when his descendants would take control of the land away from the Canaanites. God gave the Canaanites a long probationary period before Heaven brought in Israel as a permanent replacement.

Until the children of Israel left Egypt under the guidance of Moses, Abraham, Isaac and their descendants were sojourners in the Promised Land, biding their time until God gave it to them as a permanent possession. This is why Isaac was able to patiently keep the peace with the people of the land.

When Isaac went in and re-dug the wells that Abraham had dug up, he was re-establishing what his father had built up. He was working to restore his father’s legacy that had been trampled by the people of the land.

Praise be to the Holy One that when He made us, He didn’t just take a piece of clay and throw it up against a wall like a Jackson Pollack painting to see what would happen. God didn’t create the world or mankind in chaos (Isa. 45:12). But as a true artist, He formed mankind carefully, with thought and order. We are in the Master’s hands and the Master is forming us, shaping us even reshaping us into something, but that something is going to be much more glorious than what we are right now.

When Heaven’s servants want the perks but not the Presence

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name.

“But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’ You are presenting defiled food upon My altar.

“But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the LORD is to be despised.’”

“But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil?

“Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?” says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 1:6–8 NASB 1995

In Malachi 1-2, Heaven through the prophet² schools the priests, the descendants of Ya’akov’s blessed son Levi, because they were treating the LORD with indifference. It’s like they wanted the LORD to just go away. Following His rules had become too burdensome over time.

But what is the legacy that’s actually been handed down from one to the other? The legacy they treated with such indifference and disdain was the lifeline for the entire world.

So here we are. We have this legacy handed down to us from Adam to Noach to Abraham to Yitzkhak to Ya’akov to David to Yeshuah the Messiah (Jesus the Christ). Now we are a part of that legacy, grafted into the olive tree that Heaven planted (Israel). We are called to move this forward into the world and the carry the good news of the Kingdom into the world — not to bring chaos but order, not to bring destruction but life.

Summary: Tammy