Chapter 13—Jacob and Esau
God knows the end from the beginning. He knew before the birth
of Jacob and Esau, just what characters they would both develop. He
knew that Esau would not have a heart to obey him. He answered the
troubled prayer of Rebekah, and informed her that she would have
two children, and the elder should serve the younger. He presented
the future history of her two sons before her, that they would be two
nations, the one greater than the other, and the elder should serve
the younger. The first-born was entitled to peculiar advantages, and
special privileges, which belonged to no other members of the family.
Isaac loved Esau better than Jacob, because Esau provided him
venison. He was pleased with his bold, courageous spirit manifested in
hunting wild beasts. Jacob was the favorite son of his mother, because
his disposition was mild, and better calculated to make his mother
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happy. Jacob had learned from his mother what God had taught her,
that “the elder should serve the younger,” and his youthful reasoning
led him to conclude that this promise could not be fulfilled, while
Esau had the privileges which were conferred on the first-born. And
when Esau came in from the field, faint with hunger, Jacob improved
the opportunity to turn Esau’s necessity to his own advantage, and
proposed to feed him with pottage, if he would renounce all claim to
his birthright, and Esau sold his birthright to Jacob.
Esau took two idolatrous wives, which was a great grief to Isaac
and Rebekah. Notwithstanding this, Isaac loved Esau better than Jacob.
And when he thought that he was about to die, he requested Esau to
prepare him meat that he might bless him before he died. Esau did not
tell his father that he had sold his birthright to Jacob, and confirmed it
with an oath. Rebekah heard the words of Isaac, and she remembered
the words of the Lord, “The elder shall serve the younger,” and she
knew that Esau had lightly regarded his birthright and sold it to Jacob.
She persuaded Jacob to deceive his father, and by fraud receive the
blessing of his father, which she thought could not be obtained in any
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