I am going to begin a daily commentary on about 5 chapters of the Bible every day. My grandaughter and her friends are doing those readings daily. Aug 31 is Genesis 26-30 so read those chapters and then this blog article. I will include some great images that I hope come through ok.

I love the story of Jacob which begins with 25:19-34 which was covered on the Aug 30 reading. The birth of Jacob and Esau. Esau the firstborn with special birthright privileges (twice as much inheritance as the firstborn) but he gives his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew! Typical redneck hunter who didn’t appreciate his birthright. How could anyone give up 1/3 of his inheritance for a bowl of stew! A lof of kids raised in the church get off to college after being grounded in the faith all their lives only to give it up to some atheistic or skeptic view of God and the Bible. The stats say we lose 2/3 of church kids by the time they finish college.

Chapter 26: God renews to Isaac his nation/land/seed promise he made to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 (the nation would be then nation of Israel, the land would be the promised land of Canaan, and the seed promise would be salvation through Jesus Galatians 3:16). Then “like father like son”, Isaac goes to Gerar in Philistine territory and tells the same lie that Abraham did, i.e. he told Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister so that Abimelech would not kill him to take his wife! Did Isaac not know that Abraham told that same lie about his wife Sarah twice and how much trouble it caused? Did Isaac not trust God to protect him from Abimelech? Then quarreling with the Philistines over wells of water that Isaac drilled until finally Isaac and Abimelech make a treaty to not harm each other. Isaac is allowed to drill another well at Beersheba and he builds an altar there. Beersheba will be an important location in the journeys of Jacob.

Esau’s lack of spiritual concern pops up again as he marries two Hittite women which grieves Isaac and Rebekah greatly. They no doubt remember how Abraham sent Eliezar back to Haran to get a godly wife for Isaac (chapter 24). How Eliezar prayed for God’s guidance and success in his mission. Rebekah would have been a believer in the one true God, El Shaddai. Now Esau is marrying two Hittite pagan women. The Hittites were known as the “people of a thousand gods”, worshipping gods like Tarhum the storm god and king of the gods, the sun goddess of Arinna, and many others. Esau’s lack of spiritual concern is why God chose Jacob, the younger, to be in the seed line of Jesus and not Esau.

This is a great image that tracks the journey of Jacob beginning in Beersheba, to Haran, and ending up back in Canaan in Hebron where Isaac dies. Follow his journey on the map as you study the rest of Jacob’s life.

BEERSHEBA. This journey begins in Beersheba when Jacob, with Rachel’s guidance, deceives an aging, almost blind, Isaac into giving his final blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. The birthright was already gone to Jacob and Isaac couldn’t change that, but he hoped he could give Esau a final special blessing. Jacob stole it (Genesis 27 for details). After that, Esau planned to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac would die, so Rebekah sent Jacob off to Haran under the pretense of sending him to get a godly wife from their relatives just as happened with getting Rebekah for Esau. BTW Genesis 27 shows the damage due to favoritism in families. Was there favoritism in your family if you have siblings? Most people will say there was but then say they were not the favorite child! But very seldom does favoritism do to the extremes of Jacob lying several times to his father and stealing a blessing from a sibling! Isaac seems resolved (chapter 28) that the promises to Abraham will be fulfilled thourgh Jacob, not Esau, even though Esau was his favorite. He sends Jacob off to Haran to get a godly wife.

BETHEL. (Genesis 28:10-22) Jacob is 77 years old when he begins his journey from Canaan to Haran. On the first night, he sleeps on a rock and has a dream of angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven. He interprets this as a sign of God’s presence and protection and names the place, Bethel, “house of God” (where God dwells). Typical of Jacob, he makes a conditional promise that if God will bless him on his journey then he will give God a tenth and will make El Shaddai his God! Jacob is always trying to get blessings by his own cunning and ingenuity. Did you ever do the craft “Jacob’s ladder” with string when you were little? Get some yarn and pull up a youtube video on making a “Jacob’s ladder” if you can. My wife finally did it after 30 minutes. Some of my kids in my Bible classes did it quickly while watching the video.

HARAN. (Genesis 29, 30 you can read the details). Bottom line, he spends 20 years in Haran: 14 years working for Laban (Rebekah’s brother) and 6 years after that working for Laban for wages paid in sheep, etc. Jacob conned his brother out of his birthright and blessing, and now he meets a bigger con man in Laban who deceives him into 7 extra years of work to get Rachel and then continues to deceive Jacob by changing his wages 10 times over the last 6 years in Haran. Karma for what Jacob did to Esau. But God continues to bless Jacob and make him wealthy. He gives Jacob 11 sons and one daughter during those 20 years in Haran. I feel sorry for Leah, the “unloved wife who had weak eyes, whatever that means!”), but God gave her 6 of the 11 sons. Jacob’s only wife he loved was Rachel who finally had Joseph and Joseph automatically became Jacob’s favorite son. Years later Rachel would have a 2nd son, Benjamin, while dying in childbirth near Bethlehem in Canaan, and Joseph and Benjamin became Jacob’s two favorite sons. That favoritism cause much trouble for Joseph as we will see later on. These 12 sons would become the 12 tribes of Israel. Talk about a dysfunctional family! Seems like all the patriarchal families were dysfunctional! That gives you hope if you came from a dysfunctional family!

This blog was a rush job so I hope you can read Genesis 26-30, the Aug 31 reading, and read the article today. The next reading is Sept 1, Genesis 31-35. I will do a blog article for that early tomorrow. I hope this helps and is not too long.