Faith and Scheming - Genesis 27:46-28:9
INTRODUCTION:
Last Sunday we looked at one of the sadder chapters of the Bible that portrayed Isaac and all of his family at a spiritually low point in their lives. Each contributed to the grief and disappointment that resulted from their sin. We ended last week’s message with a very angry Esau bent on murdering his brother just as soon as they buried their father and a distraught mother who wanted to get Jacob out of harm’s way by sending him to her father and brother in Paddan-Aram.
As we come to the end of chapter 27 and the beginning of chapter 28 a passage we have read before when I spoke to our young people about being equally yoked with believers, but we did not go into this passage and look from Jacob’s perspective at what was happening in his family. This morning we will see that Isaac has become spiritually aware again and wants to do what is right in God’s eyes, trusting God instead of his senses since they failed him. But Rebekah and Esau have not learned their lesson and they continue to trust in themselves and their schemes to try and get their way. So we see contrasted for us the faith of Isaac and the scheming of Rebekah and Esau and we will learn that faith brings blessing, scheming brings heartache.
Let’s pray and then get into our passage of Scripture this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis 27:46-28:9. This is the last time we will see Isaac alive, the history turns fully to Jacob after this point the only other time we read about Isaac is when he dies 43 years from this time. Please stand as we read God’s Word.
Genesis 27:46-28:9,
“Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?’ So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.’ Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,’ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.” (Genesis 27:46–28:9, NASB95)[1]
REBEKAH’S PLEA (Genesis 27:46)
Rebekah is fearing for Jacob’s life and wants to send him away to her father’s house to her brother Laban. She does not tell Isaac the truth about why she wants to send Jacob away and it is very possible if she did Isaac would not have believed that Esau was truly planning on killing Jacob, but we will never know because instead she played off the grief that she and Isaac had endured for many years since Esau had married two Hittite women, descendants of Heth. Heth was the son of Canaan and the progenitor of the Hittites. The phrase translated “I am tired of living because of these daughters of Heth” could be literally translated “I abhor or loath my life because of these wives of Esau.” She then tells Isaac that if Jacob takes a wife from the Hittites or any of the Canaanites living in the land then her life will not be worth living. The Canaanite peoples were a mixed breed, they included dozens of groups and clans into their society by treaties and marriages. The surest way to lose tribal distinction was to intermarry with a people of mixed elements. For Jacob to marry a Canaanite would destroy the purity of the line, but more importantly it would destroy the purity of Jacob’s faith, he would be led away from God. We know that this happened as we looked a few weeks ago at how Solomon was led away from following the Lord with his whole heart as his father David had done. What led him away? His marriage to many foreign women who led him astray to follow after their gods.
Though Rebekah did not come truthfully to Isaac, but again trusting in her own schemes to get Jacob away from Esau, she came with a precedent, was this not how she had come to be the wife of Isaac? Abraham made his servant swear that he would not get a wife from the Canaanites for Isaac. Listen to the account in Genesis 24:1-4, “Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, ‘Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.’” (Genesis 24:1–4, NASB95)[2] That is how Rebekah the daughter of Bethuel and the sister of Laban had come to the land of Canaan to be the wife of Isaac. By complaining about the wives of Esau she knew that she would be touching Isaac in a tender point which must have been afflicting his heart, the obtaining of a proper wife for his younger son. Rebekah drives her point home by declaring that if Jacob marries a Canaanite woman then her life will not be worth living. Using the marriage of Jacob she again deceives Isaac for the sake of her son, so that Isaac will consent to let Jacob travel to her former home in Paddan-aram to take a wife from the daughters of Laban. Isaac agrees whole heartedly with Rebekah that the purity of their line must be preserved. Abraham had set the precedent and by marrying into their own clan they preserved the purity of the line and remained loyal to one’s own family. This was to be the precedent to be followed by the Israelites when they became a nation, they were to marry within the Israelite community, maintaining the purity of the nation and as already stated of most importance so that the purity of their faith would not be compromised.
ISAAC’S PLAN (Genesis 28:1-5)
Sandwiched in between the scheming of Rebekah and Esau we see Isaac’s plan unfold in faith, he had learned his lesson from what had happened with the blessing and put his trust and faith back in God and not in his senses of touch, taste, and smell. Agreeing with Rebekah that Jacob needed to marry within the family we are told that Isaac calls Jacob to himself and blesses him and commands him that he is not to marry a daughter of the Canaanites. He tells Jacob to go to the household of Bethuel, his mother’s father and to take for a wife one of the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother. But before sending him on his way, this time knowing full well what he was doing, having had his spiritual sight restored he renewed the blessing which had been deceptively obtained the first time. Isaac makes no mention of Jacob’s deception, but understands that Jacob is God’s choice, God’s sovereign choice of the one to carry on the family line, to inherit the covenant promises and Isaac does not hold anything back this time. The blessing is spoken in the name of God Almighty, the name that God had given to Abraham when he had made his covenant with him in chapter 17. This name of God in Hebrew is Ēl Šadday and when this name is used to refer to God it either refers to His ability to supply abundantly (The Abundant One) or to His majestic strength (The Almighty One). Isaac says, May Ēl Šadday who made the covenant promises with Abraham bless you and make you fruitful and multiple you into a company of peoples as He promised to do for Abraham. May He also give you and your descendants the land in which you have been sojourning, which means living as a foreigner and a stranger in a land that is not your own. In other words, may Ēl Šadday give you the promises of the land that He gave to Abraham. Then Isaac urged his son Jacob to go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel and to get a wife from the daughters of Laban. Those who inherit the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant were not to endanger those blessings by intermarrying with the Canaanites. The Canaanites were the people they were to drive out of the land when they took possession of it that would be hard to do if they had intermarried and become a part of the family. Family purity and spiritual purity must be maintained in all generations. Isaac may have lost his eyesight, but these verses show that he had gained back his spiritual eyesight as he passes on the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant to the son of God’s own choosing.
For Jacob it was wonderful that upon leaving home he was able to do so with his father’s blessing. But he could not depend on his father’s faith. He would have to meet God and make some decisions on his own. As we will see it took Jacob more than 20 years to reach a place of real surrender, and we will see that he pays dearly for his unbelief and rebellion. Jacob was not a young man when he started out on this journey. He was at least 77 years old. Genesis 47:9 states that Jacob was 130 years old when he went down to Egypt during the 7 years of famine. Joseph was 17 when he was sold into Egypt, and 30 when he was presented to Pharaoh. Add to Joseph’s age 7 years of plenty and 2 years of famine and you have Joseph at about 39 years of age when Jacob comes to Egypt. This means Joseph was born when Jacob was 91 years old. Genesis 30:25 indicates that when Joseph was born Jacob had already completed his 14 years of service for his wives. This is how we know that Jacob was 77 when he began walking on his own.
ESAU’S PROPOSAL (Genesis 28:6-9)
Esau was watching this all unfold, he saw Isaac renew the covenant blessing to Jacob and he heard his father command Jacob not to take a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites, but to go to Paddan-aram and take a wife from the daughters of Laban, Rebekah’s brother. Then he noted that Jacob obeyed his parents and departed to go to Paddan-aram. Esau surely knew the grief that his wives brought to his mother and father, but it seems this event caused him to realize for the first time how displeasing his choice of wives were in the eyes of his father. Even though Jacob had received the birthright and the blessing, Esau still loved and respected his father and wanted to do what he could to please him.
Esau, upon realizing this, seeks to mend this rift between himself and his father by making an alliance with Ishmael, Abraham’s son, by marry one of his daughters in addition to the two Hittite wives he already had. Why he thought this would mend the rift I do not know, this was the son that had been born to Hagar and had caused so much strife for Isaac when he was a boy. This was the son whom Abraham had, by God’s command, cast out. He had sent Ishmael and Hagar away. The event is in Genesis 21:9-12, “Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, ‘Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.’ The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.’” (Genesis 21:9–12, NASB95)[3] Again we see that Esau has no regard for God or the promises of God. At every step this son makes we see his spiritual incapacity and unfitness, even when he tries to act kindly and dutifully towards his parents. His proposal to Mahalath did not bring reconciliation, but rather drove a wedge deeper between him and his parents. His scheme to put himself back into good graces with his parents did not work out and the grief, hurt and disappointment were still there. The prediction of his father would continue to play out in his life as he chose himself over God again and again.
CONCLUSION:
In this passage we have the last words of Isaac, we see Rebekah for the last time and Esau just appears briefly in the rest of Genesis as he relates to Jacob. The next time we read about Isaac is at his funeral 43 years after this chapter. The history is now mainly the history of Jacob upon whom the covenant promises and blessings rest. Isaac we see in this passage is walking again by faith, his spiritual sight restored, we see this as he renews and expands his blessing on Jacob by calling on Ēl Šadday (The God of Abundance and Majestic Power) who had appeared to Abraham and had given him the covenant promises and blessings that were now being bestowed upon Jacob, the son of promise, the son of God’s own choosing. That blessing included the promise of many descendants through whom the Messiah would come, and the promise of the possession of the land where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived as foreigners and strangers. By faith Isaac commands Jacob to keep the line of the covenant pure both physically and spiritually by taking a wife from the daughters of Laban.
In contrast to Isaac’s restored faith we see Rebekah and Esau still trusting in the flesh and in their scheming to try and get the good that they desired, only instead to find disappointment and heartache. Rebekah never saw her beloved son again, she died before he ever returned to Canaan. Esau’s proposal to Mahalath did not restore the relationship that had been severed due to his Hittite wives, it just caused more disappointment and heartache. Rebekah and Esau trusting in themselves instead of trusting in God.
The message to us, the application for us is that faith is living without scheming. Our Scripture reading warned us this morning to put everything we do in God’s hands and to trust His will to be done. The blessing we so desire will come because God is good and when we trust His goodness is poured out on us. We do not need to fear the future because we are the children of Ēl Šadday (The God of Abundance and Majestic Power).
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995