The Older Shall Serve the Younger

Although it’s popular to hold that the patriarch Jacob was a wicked deceiver who got punished by God, I believe the text’s description of him as “blameless” is true. Let’s note the full context of Genesis 25:27, “Esau was a skillful hunter (צַ֖יִד), a man of the field, while Jacob was a blameless (תָּ֔ם) man.” Notice that Jacob being “blameless” is contrasted with Esau being a “hunter,” why is that? I’d say it’s because the first time we see this word is in Genesis 10:9 where we learn about “Nimrod… [the] mighty hunter,” who happened to lead mankind into repeating the sin of Adam at the Tower of Babel (Gen 10:10 cf. 11:2). This suggests that Esau, like Nimrod, and the city-builder Cain before him, is a wicked man, while Jacob is truly blameless (cf. Job 1:1-8). 

However, my detractors will ask, how can this be if Jacob cheated Esau out of his own birthright? Well, did the birthright belong to Esau? God doesn’t seem to think so:

The Lord said to [Rebekah], “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”

Genesis 25:23

Although many take this as a simple prophecy of what’s going to happen in the story, I think this text is saying something more: God intends Jacob to be the covenantal heir. In order to see this, we have to consider Genesis 25-35 as whole. 

To begin, in Genesis 25:29-34, Esau returns from hunting, comes up to Jacob, and (literally) says, “give me some of that red (הָאָדֹ֤ם),” to which Jacob replies that he’ll only give it to Esau if he sells his birthright, and Esau agrees. What’s going on here is that Esau, like Nimrod, has recapitulated the sin of Adam. Adam’s sin was, among other things, trying to take that which did not belong to him, and that’s precisely what Esau has been doing. We’re told that Isaac “loved Esau,” which doesn’t mean that he didn’t love Jacob, but rather that Isaac preferred Esau as the covenantal heir, a position that truly belonged to Jacob, as Rebekah knew (cf. Gen 25:28), and the Lord later confirms (cf. Mal 1:2-3). Why did Isaac do this? It’s because Esau provided Isaac with the food he likes! Like Adam, Esau tried to steal the covenantal blessing through food, and thus lost it in this same way.

If there’s any doubt about this, consider why Esau demands “red” from Jacob. Although the text later identifies this as stew, the fact that it’s not called stew, but simply “red,” appears significant. For one, the word “הָאָדֹ֤ם” is a clear echo the “הָֽאָדָ֖ם” we meet in Genesis 2, who’s better known as “Adam,” and the fact that Esau is given the name “אֱדֽוֹם” (Edom, which sounds like both “red” and “adam” in Hebrew) in this very context, solidifies that Esau is a new Adam. Not only this, but hidden in the names of both Edom and Adam are the letters “דָּם,” which make up the Hebrew word for another red substance, namely “blood.” Importantly, prior to this story, the word blood only shows up in two other places: the murder of Abel by Cain (Gen 4:10-11), and God’s command to Noah after the Flood, “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Gen 9:4). 

I bring this up because the reason why God forbade mankind from eating blood was to prevent him from recapitulating Adam’s sin. Part of Adam’s sin consisted of trying to steal life from God (cf. Gen 3:22), and so the prohibition on eating life (blood) was to remind humanity that life belongs to God and not to man. Any attempt to unlawfully seize this red lifeblood would result in a disinheritance of the covenant, as it did in Eden. Tying this back to Esau demanding “red” and being named “Edom” (red), in the context of him losing his inheritance of the covenant, we can see how Genesis 25 is clearly intending to portray Esau as the wicked Adam-Cain-Nimrod, who’s been unlawfully trying to steal the covenant from its rightful heir, the blameless Jacob.

Furthermore, this latter point is important to understand if we wish to decipher Genesis 27-28. In Genesis 27, Esau is once again trying to steal the covenantal blessing through food, but this time Rebekah steps in to put an end to it, and she does this by deceiving Isaac. Like Joseph, who later conceals his identity from his brothers in order to bring them to repentance (Gen 42-45), Rebekah is able to awaken Isaac to his own wicked deeds through this deception, causing him to bless Jacob “by faith” (Heb 11:20), even after realizing that he was deceived (cf. Gen 28:1). This enrages Esau, and fully turns him into a new Cain, wanting to murder his coventnally preferred brother (Gen 27:41), causing Jacob to flee into exile.

You would think that if Jacob had done something wrong, this is where God would step in to set things right, however, that’s not what He does. Instead, “when the sun had set” (Gen 28:11), God gives Jacob his famous dream about the true “ladder” between heaven and earth, which Jacob names the “Gate of Heaven,” in an ironic allusion to Nimrod’s Tower of “Babel,” the “Gate of God,” the false ladder to heaven. It’s in this context that God gives Jacob the blessing of his forefathers, “Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth… and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 28:14).

Hereafter, Jacob arrives at the house of Laban, and is originally treated as a son, but soon becomes a slave. Jacob is seduced into marrying into Laban’s house, trapping him there for years, during which time he’s paid slave-wages. Eventually, Jacob is forced to flee from Laban, who, like Pharaoh after him, pursues Jacob as he leaves the house of bondage. After this, Jacob prepares to encounter his estranged brother Esau yet again, and that’s when God appears and “wrestles” with Jacob all night until he “prevails,” revealing that it’s been Him all along. From the beginning, through his struggles against Esau, Isaac, and Laban, God has been wrestling with Jacob, making him a stronger and stronger foundation for “all the families of the earth” to be “blessed” in, which is why it’s here that Jacob is named Israel, the one who prevails with God.

As an aside, after asking Jacob for his name, Jacob returns the question to the Angel of the Lord, and He replies, “Why is it that you ask my name?” Unfortunately, we won’t get our answer until Manoah asks the same question in Judges 13:17, to which the Angel of the Lord replies, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is Wonderful?” This name “Wonderful” won’t show up again until it’s given to a promised child in Isaiah 9:6, a child whom the LXX translators identified as “the Angel of Great Counsel,” but that’s a story for another time.

After prevailing in all his trials, Jacob is reconciled with his brother Esau “at the rising of the sun” (Gen 32:31 cf. Mal 1-4), thus reversing the sin of Cain and Abel by converting the heart of the (formerly) wicked firstborn brother. It’s at this point that Jacob has completed his ascent up the heavenly ladder, reaching “Succoth” or “the clouds” (Gen 33:17), and he begins his evangelization-conquest of the promised land, in order to fulfill his covenantal duty to bless all nations (Gen 34-36).