Struggling Under the Blessing (Part 1)

One of the general lessons from the Genesis narratives regarding Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph is this: Simply that God’s grace supersedes human will, human scheming and human sin. God has a purpose for which he is working—the redemption of a people who will belong to him. He is forming from among those who will respond to God’s call his own people to be a treasured possession from humanity. This purpose has culminated in the coming of the Lord Jesus and his proclamation of the Kingdom of God.

The Scriptures give us multiple examples of people’s faith response to God and his revealed word. In this I want to look at Jacob. He was a man who believed in God but who trusted more in himself and his ability to save his own neck when he was in trouble. But God met him and changed him into a man of faith whose life became pivotal for the well-being of his family and millions of his descendants. Let us see what we can learn from the life of Jacob.

Some background information is needed to better understand the story told in Scripture about Jacob. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and one of two sons of Isaac. He and his brother were twins and were born because God granted Rebekah children after barrenness (Genesis 25:21). Jacob was born second in line to his brother Esau—who came out of the womb first and thus was the “first-born.” (Genesis 25:24-26) Even in the womb they jostled together to the point that Rebekah as severely distressed (Genesis 25:22). God answered her cry for help and gave her understanding of what was happening inside of her body by stating the outline of the destinies of these sons and their descendants. “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23, NRSV)

This bit of information about these twins helped Rebekah and will help us to understand what God’s purpose for Jacob’s life was. For as the grandsons of Abraham and Isaac they came under the covenant established by God with Abraham—that is the covenant of blessing on Abraham and his descendants through whom God would be bring divine blessing to all the peoples of the earth (see Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-17; 15:5-21; 17:9-14, 17-21; 22:15-18; 26:2-5; 28:13-15; 35:9-12). But in the ancient world the eldest inherited the majority of the wealth from the father and thus held the prestige of being the next patriarch of the family. The fact that Jacob did not get out of the womb first put a speed bump in God’s declared will that the “elder shall serve the younger.”

Now I think that it is appropriate to assume that Rebekah had told Jacob about this prophetic word she received from God. Thus he would have known that God had destined him for great things.  And thus the rivalry with his elder brother would have been that much more fierce (probably encouraged by his mother). To further complicate the family dynamics there was a division of favoritism between the two sons—Isaac favoring Esau and Rebekah favoring Jacob (Genesis 25:28).

This gives us the backdrop to the deception that Jacob and his mother conspired to trick Isaac to give Jacob (the younger son) the blessing which should have belonged to the elder son (Genesis 27:1-29). They had tried to take matters into their own hands to secure the blessing from Isaac of the divine inheritance of Abraham (27:28-29). Isaac had determined to give this to his eldest (his favorite) son Esau. We do not know if he knew of the prophetic word given to Rebekah or not but he clearly intended to pass along the blessing to the son that God had not chosen to receive it.

What then was the lesson Jacob learned from this “stealing” of the blessing from Esau? Simply that deception works if you are smart enough to pull off it off. But he also learned that being deceptive has consequences. For him, it meant he had to flee his family and home because his brother was so angry he wanted to kill him! (27:41-45) Thus Jacob’s life becomes that of a nomad who has to travel and figure out how to become economically prosperous on his own far from his family and home.

Yet here we find that God’s grace is extended to him and God personally speaks the blessing of Abraham as applying to him (Genesis 28:10-17). But because God is gracious does not make life easy for Jacob! He meets an even more industrious deceiver in his distant relative Laban. While seeking as a wife one of his daughters he got tricked into marrying both her and her sister and labors for Laban a total of 14 years. (see Genesis 29-31) 

The remainder of this wandering nomadic way of life I will not detail here. But eventually Jacob knew that it was time for him to return home (Genesis 32:9-12). He was terrified of his brother and still convinced that Esau was intent upon killing him. Yet off he set with his wives, children, servants and wealth to come home (32:13-21). God had already spoken to him through a dream or a direct word. This brings us to the decisive night he met God face to face in a context of wills and physical combat. This will prove to be the turning point of his life as the grandson of Abraham and heir of the divine blessing.