I woke up this morning deeply troubled. Reflecting on stolen inheritences and stolen blessings. Not then. In present life. In present lives.
Why was it Esau who got nothing? Who had his blessings stolen. Wasn’t it Jacob who deceived? Twice? Yes, Esau was hungry and sold his birthright. But it was Jacob who took advantage of his hunger and manipulated him. It was Jacob who later deceived his father and stole his blessing. And yet it was Jacob who was blessed. Why?!
That makes no sense. Wasn’t Esau the one who was deeply wounded? Wasn’t his anger and his hate toward his brother justified? Everything that was holy was stolen from him. Stolen.
It made me think of holy things stolen. When a woman is raped her virginity and her sexual nature that is holy is stolen. It can’t be returned. When someone is abused, their sense of safety and protection is stolen. It can’t ever be fully returned. When someone murders another, that life is stolen from the family. Life is holy and that life can’t be returned.
Holy things are sacred. And when taken, they cannot be returned after being defiled. There can be hope and restoration again. But that sacred thing has been touched. Violated.
I think in this of the family of Ravi Zacharias. He lived a life of deception and sexual indulgence. I heard one person who spoke to the ministry that said his family is not devastated, they are decimated. Their trust, their love, their hope, their ministries, the holiness of trust…stolen. Sacredness stolen.
Then Esau’s blessing from a father was stolen. A friend’s blessing of a father was stolen. Another blessing ahead perhaps stolen.
Why? Why did God “hate” Esau then and love Jacob? Yes, Jacob was called before birth to be the leader even though he was the younger. But why did not God show compassion on Esau? The one who was violated and wronged?
The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” – Malachi 1:1-3
And wasn’t Esau ultimately righteous for having forgiven his brother? When Jacob came back to the land 20 years later, Esau welcomed him instead of going to war with him (Gen 30-35). He had moved from hate to forgiveness, even as the wronged one.
This causes the heart to ache.
But we can see something so true, something we would later see in the life of Manasseh.
1) Esau was godless and didn’t value his birthright when he sold it.
“See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son” (Heb 12:16).
From this we can see he didn’t highly value his birthright. He exchanged it for a single meal when he could have persisted. Both sons were acting in evil. Jacob for manipulating Esau and Esau for giving in to his lusts.
2) God’s hate for Esau was mentioned not prior to his birth or during his birth, but after his birth. Actually it states this far after Esau and Jacob’s death (Obad 1:10):
Because of the violence against your brother Jacob,
you will be covered with shame;
you will be destroyed forever.
When we probe a little further, we wonder what violence? We don’t even see violence by Esau against Jacob. Initially he wanted to which is why Jacob had to escape.
But we do see that it isn’t Esau and Jacob as individuals that God was expressing his anger, but rather to the households and descendants of Esau (Edomites) and the household and descendants of Jacob (Israelites). God says this in the next verse (Obad 1:11).
On the day you stood aloof
while strangers carried off his wealth
and foreigners entered his gates
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were like one of them.
What he is saying is that God’s anger was because when the Israelites were taken into captivity and carried off by the king of Babylon (2 Chr 36:15-21), the house of Esau, the Edomites, did nothing. They stood by and watched as if they themselves were one of them. And they “cast lots” for Jerusalem meaning they made game of it, taking bets on what would happen and perhaps even betting on some of the goods and properties.
Instead of fighting for the brothers Israel, they “stood aloof.” This was a “violence” of passivity to stand up to them.
Now that is a dangerous thing to say in modern times as this very concept has been twisted to mean things beyond what it means. But the truth remains that when one stands aloof when looking at evil, it is its own form of violence.
And this brings us into a stark reality that is unpleasant.
3) Esau’s hate had infected the generations. After Jacob had stolen all the blessings from him, it says this:
Gen 27:41 From that time on, Esau hated Jacob because their father had given Jacob the blessing. And Esau began to scheme: “I will soon be mourning my father’s death. Then I will kill my brother, Jacob.”
Jacob had deceived him twice, and taken everything from him. Esau at that moment exploded in hate, intending to kill his brother after his father died.
When Jacob realized his brother meant to kill him, he fled to his uncle’s land. There he lived for more than 20 years, growing his own family and hiding from Esau.
In the meantime Esau’s hate lived on. And presumably it spread to his children and grandchildren. That’s the way hate works. It defiles many.
Sometime during those 20 years Esau found it within himself to forgive his brother. This would fulfill his father’s final words to him before he died (Gen 27:39-40):
Finally, his father, Isaac, said to him,
“You will live away from the richness of the earth,
and away from the dew of the heaven above.
You will live by your sword,
and you will serve your brother.
But when you decide to break free,
you will shake his yoke from your neck.”
While in bitterness and unforgiveness, Esau lived in an empty hell of his own. But one day he forgave his brother and in doing so, “broke free” from and and shook “his yoke from your neck.”
The only problem is that his descendants did not so readily embrace that forgiveness. Enmity grew in their hearts towards their fellow Israelite brothers. And when Israel was taken captive, the house of Esau (Edomites) stood aloof, acted as if they supported Babylon, and cast lots for Jerusalem. Their passivity would be an evil so bad God would “hate” the house of Esau.
The house of Esau had violated the holy. Stolen the sacred. And desecrated the trust between brothers.
“See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (Heb 12:15).