Genesis 27:41-29:13

I've read commentaries or heard people riff that the episode in chapter 28, where Esau marries and Ishmaelite because he finally figures out how much his parents hate his Hittite wives, is a prime example of why Esau was passed over for God's blessing: he just didn't get it.  Call him a knucklehead.  Call him clod-headed.  He despised his birthright, he was temporal (willing to give away his birthright for food); he didn't have the things of the future in mind.  But, really, was Jacob any better?  Jacob lied.  He stole.  He tricked his father into giving a blessing that wasn't his.  So why did God choose Jacob over Esau?

Romans talks about God's sovereign choice in choosing Jacob over Esau.  The point of the passage, boiled down in Stacey-speech, is that God will choose whom He will choose.  God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy: none of us deserve it or merit it, but God chooses to give it anyway.  God showed a definite pattern of choosing one over the other to give the Promises to: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau.  God did not give the promises to all the children of Abraham's flesh, nor all the children of Isaac's.  And He never really explains why, only that He has.  He is God after all (and we are not).

But reading the rest of chapter 28, I wonder if this is the real difference between Jacob and Esau: Jacob met God, and recognized it.  He erected an altar to commemorate the vision and the promise God had given him.  Would Esau have?  And even later, as we will read yet, when Jacob wrestles with God until morning, he is truly changed by the encounter (and not just physically).  How would Esau have reacted?  Would he have erected altars?  Would have responded so easily?  You'll see a difference in Jacob from this time forward.  The swindler will eventually be swindled, but I think his cheating days are done.  (This bares for a further reading to verify, but I can't at this moment remember an instance where Jacob himself cheated Laban, though Rachel did.)  Would Esau have been truly been clod-headed?  We really don't know; we never find out.

What about you?  What about me?  Are we clod-headed when we meet with the Lord?  Do we go in prayer and then never really listen and never really meet our Savior, our God?  Do we go through life, missing all the things God is trying to communicate to us because we are too anchored in the here and now?  I don't want to be like Esau.  Well, neither like Jacob as he is when he leaves his family's home.  But I would like to be able to listen to God and to hear Him.  I would like meet Him in my everyday life, and hear His voice when He speaks.

Tomorrow's Reading: Genesis 29:14-30:24