Genesis 25–33

Jacob and Esau

Twin brothers, a stolen blessing, twenty years apart and a hug nobody saw coming. Jacob and Esau is a family feud with a strange and hopeful ending.

The story

They were fighting before they were born. Rebekah's pregnancy was so rough she went and asked God what was happening, and was told she was carrying two nations, and the older would serve the younger. Esau came out first, red and hairy. Jacob came out holding his heel. His name means something like 'heel-grabber', and he lived up to it.

Esau grew into a hunter, his father's favorite. Jacob stayed near the tents and was his mother's. One day Esau came in from the field starving, Jacob was cooking lentil stew, and Jacob named his price: your birthright for a bowl. Esau said what good is a birthright to a dead man, swore it away, ate, and left. The text's verdict is short: Esau despised his birthright.

Years later Isaac is old and blind and wants to give Esau the blessing before he dies. Rebekah overhears, and the plan is hers: dress Jacob in Esau's clothes, goat skins on his arms and neck, a dish cooked the way Isaac likes it. Jacob's only objection is that he might get caught. Isaac is suspicious. 'The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.' He blesses the wrong son.

Esau walks in minutes later, and the scene is brutal. Isaac shakes. Esau lets out a cry the text calls exceedingly great and bitter. Do you have just one blessing, my father? There was one, and it's gone. Esau decides that once his father is buried, Jacob is dead. Rebekah hears, and sends Jacob to her brother Laban, 'for a few days'. It will be twenty years.

On the road Jacob sleeps with a stone for a pillow and dreams of a stairway to heaven, with God at the top promising to be with him. In Haran the trickster gets tricked: he works seven years for Rachel and wakes up married to her sister Leah. He works seven more. Laban changes his wages ten times. Then God tells him to go home.

Home means Esau. Jacob sends messengers ahead and gets back one sentence: Esau is coming, and four hundred men are with him. Jacob is terrified. He splits his camp in two so that half might survive, prays, honestly and scared, and sends wave after wave of livestock ahead as gifts.

That night, alone by the river Jabbok, a man wrestles him until dawn. Jacob won't let go without a blessing. The man puts his hip out of joint, and renames him Israel, 'for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed'. Jacob limps into the morning to face his brother.

He bows seven times on the way in. Esau runs at him. Then he throws his arms around him, kisses him, and they both cry. Esau doesn't want the gifts; he has enough. Jacob insists, and says a line that only makes sense after the night before: seeing your face is like seeing the face of God. They part in peace. The text doesn't say whether they ever became close. It does say that when Isaac died, the two of them buried him together.

The verse to keep

Genesis 33:4WEB

Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept.

Gen Zsame meaning, your words

Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around him, hugged his neck and kissed him, and they both cried.

Jacob has spent the night expecting four hundred men and a fight. What he gets is a brother running at him with his arms open. If you've ever dreaded a reunion, read this one twice.

What it actually means

This is the Bible being honest about families. Parents with favorites, a mother running a con, a brother who sells out his future for lunch, another who steals a blessing. Nobody in the story is clean. And God chooses Jacob anyway, not because he's good but because God had said so before either of them was born. If you need the people in the Bible to be role models, Genesis will keep disappointing you. If you need it to be about a God who works with what's actually there, this is your chapter.

The night at the Jabbok is the turning point. Jacob has spent his whole life getting the better of people. Now something gets the better of him, and he holds on anyway, and he comes out of it with a new name and a limp. Then Esau, the one who was wronged, is the one who runs. Forgiveness in this story comes from the person you'd least expect, and costs the guilty party nothing but a night of fear.

What it doesn't mean: that God rewarded the cheating. Jacob paid for it with twenty years of exile and a father-in-law who out-cheated him. And 'the elder will serve the younger' is about nations and callings, not a verdict that Esau was worth less. The text gives Esau the most generous moment in the whole story.

Worth arguing about

1Every parent in this story has a favorite. What did that do to the brothers, and have you seen it happen?
2Jacob wrestles all night and won't let go. Is there something you've been fighting God about? What would it mean to hold on for a blessing instead of walking away?
3Esau had every right to be furious. Why do you think he ran?
4Jacob leaves the fight with a limp. Does that read as a loss or a gain to you?

Read it yourself: Genesis 32–33

World English Bible. 52 verses.

¹Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. ²When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s army.” He called the name of that place Mahanaim. ³Jacob sent messengers in front of him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, the field of Edom. ⁴He commanded them, saying, “This is what you shall tell my lord, Esau: ‘This is what your servant, Jacob, says. I have lived as a foreigner with Laban, and stayed until now. ⁵I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.’” ⁶The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” ⁷Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed. He divided the people who were with him, along with the flocks, the herds, and the camels, into two companies. ⁸He said, “If Esau comes to the one company, and strikes it, then the company which is left will escape.” ⁹Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country, and to your relatives, and I will do you good,’ ¹⁰I am not worthy of the least of all the loving kindnesses, and of all the truth, which you have shown to your servant; for with just my staff I crossed over this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. ¹¹Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and strike me and the mothers with the children. ¹²You said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which can’t be counted because there are so many.’” ¹³He stayed there that night, and took from that which he had with him a present for Esau, his brother: ¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵thirty milk camels and their colts, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten foals. ¹⁶He delivered them into the hands of his servants, every herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass over before me, and put a space between herd and herd.” ¹⁷He commanded the foremost, saying, “When Esau, my brother, meets you, and asks you, saying, ‘Whose are you? Where are you going? Whose are these before you?’ ¹⁸Then you shall say, ‘They are your servant, Jacob’s. It is a present sent to my lord, Esau. Behold, he also is behind us.’” ¹⁹He commanded also the second, and the third, and all that followed the herds, saying, “This is how you shall speak to Esau, when you find him. ²⁰You shall say, ‘Not only that, but behold, your servant, Jacob, is behind us.’” For, he said, “I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” ²¹So the present passed over before him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. ²²He rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. ²³He took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that which he had. ²⁴Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day. ²⁵When he saw that he didn’t prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained as he wrestled. ²⁶The man said, “Let me go, for the day breaks.” Jacob said, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob”. ²⁸He said, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed.” ²⁹Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why is it that you ask what my name is?” So he blessed him there. ³⁰Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” ³¹The sun rose on him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped because of his thigh. ³²Therefore the children of Israel don’t eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the hollow of the thigh, to this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip. ^33:1Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah, Rachel, and the two servants. ²He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear. ³He himself passed over in front of them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. ⁴Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept. ⁵He lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, “Who are these with you?” He said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” ⁶Then the servants came near with their children, and they bowed themselves. ⁷Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves. After them, Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed themselves. ⁸Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company which I met?” Jacob said, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.” ⁹Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours.” ¹⁰Jacob said, “Please, no, if I have now found favor in your sight, then receive my present at my hand, because I have seen your face, as one sees the face of God, and you were pleased with me. ¹¹Please take the gift that I brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” He urged him, and he took it. ¹²Esau said, “Let’s take our journey, and let’s go, and I will go before you.” ¹³Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die. ¹⁴Please let my lord pass over before his servant, and I will lead on gently, according to the pace of the livestock that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord to Seir.” ¹⁵Esau said, “Let me now leave with you some of the people who are with me.” He said, “Why? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.” ¹⁶So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. ¹⁷Jacob traveled to Succoth, built himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. ¹⁸Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan Aram; and encamped before the city. ¹⁹He bought the parcel of ground where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money. ²⁰He erected an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel.

Whole book: Genesis

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