Jacob Departs (Gen 28:1-9)
Genesis: The Book of Beginnings • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
If you have your Bible, please turn it to Genesis 28:1-9.
We’ve been working through the lives of Jacob and Esau and last week, we witnessed the event that finally drove the entire family apart as Jacob stole the blessing from Isaac that was humanly intended for Esau, the firstborn; but divinely intended for Jacob.
Of course, we know that Jacob utilized deceitful means to do this; and yet, through God’s providence, we see God doing exactly what He said He would do when He told Rebekah that the older would serve the younger.
This morning, we’re in a little bit of a transitionary passage—meaning, it links last week’s passage with next week’s passage. As such, it’s a passage that’s usually glanced over—people don’t really pay too much attention to it, but as we know, all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for us; and I think if we just take a deeper look at this passage, you can see where that profit is.
Jacob and Esau are moving onto the next stage of their lives—Jacob will soon face some poetic justice for what he has done to his brother, but first, we simply see him move; Esau tries to win favor by taking things into his own hands, but it doesn’t really make a difference.
Let’s read Genesis 28:1-9 together.
1 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. 2 Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. 3 God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” 5 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.
6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, 9 Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.
As we study this passage, we’re going to split it into two parts and I’ve kept very simple names for each section: (1) Jacob (1-5) and (2) Esau (6-9). Both sections act as a transition from the account of Jacob stealing Esau’s blessing to what comes next—it could very easily be glanced over, but I’m hoping that by the time we finish up this morning, you’ll have a full understanding of not just what this text says and means, but how you can apply it faithfully today.
With that said, we could very easily just read through this and not really know what it means, so let me explain how we’re taking it before we dig in. The goal for today is for your to walk out with a firm understanding that your choices in life do matter and how you respond to issues in life has an impact.
Contrast this with last week, where we clearly understood Jacob stealing Esau’s blessing as a matter of providence that didn’t derail God’s plan for Jacob.
Last week we thought through the fact that even when we sin, God still providentially works all things for the good of His people. This week, we’re going to consider the truth that our choices have effects particularly on other people, but also on our relationship with God.
Prayer for Illumination
Jacob (1-5)
Jacob (1-5)
Our text starts with Isaac calling Jacob to him before sending him away.
In v. 1, the Bible tells us that Isaac calls for Jacob, and gives him a direction or a command, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” but rather, v. 2, “arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.” Let’s break that down a bit.
God’s people had recognized early on the need to separate their lineage from that of others—it was to maintain purity within their own lineage and really to be loyal within their own family.
Of course, we know, later on as the family grows into the nation of Israel, there is a command from God that they not intermarry with other nations, but that was primarily due to the idea of being unequally yoked—God didn’t want them to marry people that would carry them into idolatry—the worship of false gods.
But at this time, that command hasn’t been given—so, we could assume that the primary reason at hand is just to keep their lineage separate from that of other lineages.
So, Isaac tells Jacob to go to a place called Paddan-aram, go to the house of Bethuel, who is Rebekah’s father, and take on of the daughters of Laban as a wife.
Laban is Rebekah’s brother, which means that Jacob’s wife would be his cousin, but don’t let that get you up in arms.
We can’t be anachronistic, which means we can’t place our current standards on the standards of the Ancient Near Eastern Culture.
In our current culture and society, this isn’t a normal relationship—in almost half of US states, this would be illegal.
But, in their culture, this was a perfectly normal thing to do.
And, in the case of Isaac’s family, it’s again, part of how they keep their own lineage pure and how they show loyalty to one another.
Now, before Jacob is sent off, Isaac pronounces a blessing on him in vv. 3-4, “God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham.” I’d argue that there are two elements to the blessing:
The first element in this blessing is the hope for Jacob and his family to be fruitful and multiply—this statement for mankind to be fruitful and multiply has existed since Genesis 1-2.
It’s reiterated multiple time—generally after creation, but specifically to Abraham and his family—that they would multiply and have offspring more numerous than the stars and the sands of the sea.
It makes sense then that Isaac would pass this same ideology to his son, who now has not just the inheritance, but also the blessing.
The second element in this blessing deals with Jacob’s offspring taking possession of the land of his sojournings.
This idea is reiterated multiple times between Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob—that while they’re presently wandering through these lands, eventually God will give their people this land.
It makes sense then that Isaac would pass this same ideology to his son, who now has not just the inheritance, but also the blessing.
Really, what we ought to see in this additional blessing from Isaac to Jacob is a continuation of the Abrahamic Covenant—think about it with me.
All the way back in Genesis 12, God made a promise to Abraham, Genesis 12:1-3, “The Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (NASB)
In addition, v. 7 of Genesis 12 says that “the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’” (NASB)
In Genesis 15, God expounded on that covenant with Abraham. Genesis 15:5-15, God took Abraham outside and said, “‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then [God] said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.’ But [Abraham] said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
God has Abraham set up the traditional Ancient Near Eastern custom for swearing oaths before God causes Abraham to fall into a deep sleep and God says, “know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.”
In Genesis 17, an additional element of this covenant is revealed as God includes the element of circumcision.
In Genesis 22, Abraham is reminded of the covenant by God.
In Genesis 26, Isaac is then given the covenant by God. God tells him in v. 3, to “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.”
In Genesis 28, we see Isaac recognize that God had picked Jacob to be the recipient of the promise, that’s why he gives this particular blessing, which greatly resembles the Abrahamic Covenant.
Note that God still has a moment in which He specifically gives that promise to Jacob, but that won’t happen until later in Genesis 28.
The very mindset here is that Isaac realizes that God will continue the promise given to Abraham, given to him, to Jacob his younger son.
v. 5 then concludes this section with Isaac sending Jacob away.
It finishes up with Jacob obeying his parents and going to Paddan-aram, to Rebekah’s brother Laban.
And, in this section of the passage—that’s the last that we really hear directly about Jacob—he’s going to Paddan-aram to find a wife with the blessing of his father, who has recognized that the Abrahamic Covenant will now pass on to Jacob.
Now, the text takes a shift to focus our attention to Esau, who is still acting unusually. Look at vv. 6-9,
Esau (6-9)
Esau (6-9)
6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, 9 Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.
So Esau sees this whole event—I don’t think that he was necessarily watching from a dark corner or anything like that—I think he probably noticed what was going on and he heard his father’s statement that Jacob “must not take a wife from the Canaanite women.”
And Esau makes a realization—that he ought to marry someone of their own lineage, but there’s a problem. He’s already married—he has two wives actually. Genesis 26:34 “34 When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite,”
If you notice, these women are both Hittites, which means they’re Canaanite women—it’s here that Esau realizes that his parents hates his marriages with Canaanite women and to rectify that, he decides that it would be best to marry another woman.
Of course, we would point out that marrying multiple women itself wasn’t a good thing, but remember, the Law of God hasn’t been given to them yet, so they haven’t yet learned that this is a negative thing.
In an effort to please his parents, Esau decides to take on a third wife, “Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.”
Note that Mahalath is also a cousin just like the person that Jacob is to marry, but Mahalath comes from the other side of the family—the family that exists because of Abraham’s disobedience and sin.
You’ll also notice that the Bible makes it a point to showcase this—that she is the daughter Ishmael—Abraham’s first son, who wasn’t the recipient of the Abrahamic Covenant.
Whereas, the person who Jacob is seeking to marry, will come from the side of the family that received the covenant from God.
Esau is essentially trying to force his way into the good graces of his family—and really the covenant itself, but that’s not how God works.
In trying to make his own way into the covenant, he really falls into more sin and folly.
It’s really a picture of a natural man—a man still in sin, trying to earn his way into God’s favor.
Note also, if you read closely, you’ll see that his parents don’t really notice what Esau has done—they don’t seem to celebrate his new marriage, they don’t seem to give thanks for this new marriage. It’s almost like they don’t even see it happen at all.
Victor Hamilton in The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, “In this last-minute ploy by Esau to redeem himself, to some degree at least, before his father dies, [Esau] fails. The marriage goes unnoticed by Isaac. Esau may now have three wives, but he also has three family members who have succeeded in marginalizing him. Jacob has the birthright in hand, thus voiding Esau’s place as firstborn. Jacob also has his father’s blessing, thanks to Rebekah’s machinations and Isaac’s unretractable blessing. What Esau has is three wives, and a limited blessing from his father that amounts almost to a curse, which one day will be mitigated. While Esau can only stay home and mourn his losses, Jacob, the blessed and the holder of the birthright, is off to Paddan-arm in search of a bride.” (Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18–50. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.), 236.
Really, what we’re seeing in the contrast between Jacob and Esau is Jacob coming into line with what had been promised and Esau trying to make a way for himself apart from God.
Think about it in line with all that had happened—God from before the birth of Jacob and Esau made the statement that the older would serve the younger.
Despite the fact that Isaac loved Esau more, despite the fact that Isaac showed favoritism towards Esau—God chose Jacob.
Likewise, in spite of the fact that Rebekah loved Jacob more, in spite of the fact that she showed Jacob favoritism—God still chose to work in Jacob.
Nevertheless, in both cases, we see Jacob and Esau making decisions that will then effect other people in their lives as well as what’s going to happen next.
Jacob through his deceitfulness (along with his mother’s deceitful), tore apart their family in such a way that he had to move—really run for his life.
Esau through his anger and desire to please his father in any way possible, married yet another woman—and really, didn’t earn the favor of his father any more anyways.
What we see is that Esau doesn’t really understand the Abrahamic Covenant, it’s purity, and it’s meaning; and in his lack of understanding, he thinks that he can fix everything through his own human means.
And that’s where our application for this morning steps in.
Application
Application
We’re going to look at the text in two ways—the first concerning the familial discord produced by Jacob’s deceit and trickery. There is a temporal consequence for his sin in that his extended family splits and he has to run from his own brother. The second concerns Esau’s desire to earn favor through his own means. The idea that I want us to see and understand from Esau is that we don’t come into the covenant by our own means, we come into the covenant by God’s means—we don’t come to Him on our terms, we come to Him on His terms. So, let’s talk this through:
We know from last week that despite Jacob’s deceitfulness, his lying, his trickery, the harm that he does to his brother—that God still uses him, He still chooses him, He still works in Him, but that doesn’t mean that Jacob got away with his sin.
The fact that God still chooses him doesn’t mean that Jacob got away with all the sins that he committed—there’s an element in this account in which he’s dealing with some temporal punishment for his sins.
In this case, it includes having to run from his home, but later in his life—shortly after he arrives at Laban’s home, he finds himself victim to similar events of deceit and trickery. In other words, he will get a little taste of his own medicine.
Now, let me clarify that it isn’t always the case that people will pay for their sins with temporal consequences—David talks about it on occasion in the Psalms when he’s thinking of wicked people who don’t seem to pay for their sins yet.
And yet, we can tell often, that it is the case—that there will be temporal consequences for our sins.
For instance, if you cheat on a paper at school—you’ll fail that paper, you might fail the class, and you might get kicked out of school.
If you embezzle money from your workplace—you’ll get fired, usually be forced to pay restitution, and you might end up in jail.
If you lie, you lose the trust of the people around you—these are all temporal consequences for your sins.
In many cases, we should expect to pay temporal consequences for our sins—note, that that doesn’t mean that we are no longer saved, nor does it mean that Jesus has rejected us or anything like that.
In fact, the author of Hebrews quoting Proverbs 3 says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Or, in other words, part of being God’s children is the truth that He occasionally disciplines us—and that includes temporal consequences for our sins.
But don’t confuse God’s discipline of us for condemnation—as Romans 8:1 says, “1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
With that said what we learn from Jacob in this instance is that though God has forgiven us and chosen us to be His—He still allows temporal consequences for our sinful behaviors to catch up to us.
The key is whether or not—when we face those temporal consequences—if we choose to repent from our sins and keep following Jesus or if we choose to keep doubling down into our sinful actions.
The key is whether or not—when we face these temporal consequences—we actually learn from the discipline of the Lord and choose to make the appropriate changes in our life to straighten things out.
So, just considering those examples that I gave earlier:
If you cheat on a paper at school and get caught—you’ll fail, you might fail the class, you might get kicked out of school—you could get wildly upset and perhaps angry about it. Or, you could just admit that you sinned, repent, and try the class again.
If you embezzle money from your workplace—you’ll get fired, usually be forced to pay restitution, and you might end up in jail. You could get wildly upset and perhaps angry about it. Or, you could just admit that you sinned, repent, and try to rebuild your life.
If you lie and you get found out and you lose the trust of the people around you—you could get wildly upset, you could get discouraged, and perhaps angry. Or, you could just admit that you sinned, repent, and learn from your error.
Consider other areas of your life—when you face temporal consequences for your sin, when you face discipline for your sin.
The key to handling those consequences well is to actually repent from the sinful actions which led to the consequences and learn from it.
Very likely, you will face temporal consequences for your sins—this is part of God’s love for His children, to discipline us.
Allow the consequences for your sins to draw you to repentance, have hope that though you face some temporal consequences, you won’t face eternal consequences, and then seek Jesus—get back up and keep following Him.
Now, concerning Esau. We could argue from a purely human perspective that it seems like Esau gets the short end of the stick, but I think to do so neglects the fact that even while it seems like he gets the short end of the stick, he’s culpable for his own sinful behavior.
When he despised his birthright—he wasn’t just despising the material aspects of the birthright. When he lost the blessing, it wasn’t just the material aspects of the blessing that he lost.
By despising his birthright, he rejected the spiritual calling of leading his family rightly.
Not only that, but we can see in his multiple marriages to people that were not of his own—that he didn’t really have a concern about righteous behavior until he realized that he no longer had the material blessings.
That a lot of his decision-making was based in unrighteous anger rather than the righteousness of God.
With that said, really, what we see with Esau is a person who didn’t care for spiritual things until he realized he had lost the things he really cared for—and as he made that realization, he chose to do whatever he wanted to to get at least a little bit of what he wanted.
Or, in other words, instead of doing the right things the first time around, he thought he could force his way into the favored position of his father, into the good graces of his parents, but that’s really not how it works.
He wanted to force his way into the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant, but that’s not how it works.
Likewise, think this through from our perspective—we also live under a covenant as Christians—we live under the New Covenant.
We can’t force our way into the covenant, we can’t will ourselves into the covenant—that’s not how it works.
The only way that we can enter into the covenant is by the way that the covenant maker insists, which we know from Romans 10 exactly what that means.
If we want to be in the New Covenant with God—the only way to be in it is to be in it through Jesus. And the only way to be in Jesus is through salvation.
And the only way to be saved is to “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead . . . For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
God has determined the only way to be in the covenant with Him and it is through Jesus—we can’t force ourselves into the covenant, if we want salvation, it’s by His terms, not ours.
In addition to this, we can apply similar mindsets to other areas of the Christian life. Probably one of the big ones is church worship itself. There are two philosophies that churches use to determine what their corporate worship services look like. We have two words for it and they dictate how local churches decide what to do (even if they don’t know it)—normative and regulative.
A church utilizing a normative principle of worship would say that just as long as the Bible doesn’t outrightly say not to do something—you can do it in the corporate worship setting. They would then utilize this principle to justify having sermon series based on movies rather than God’s Word, non-Christian music in place of worship songs, and a plethora of other things.
A church utilizing a regulative principle of worship would say that unless the Bible says that we should do something, we don’t. These churches then tend to be really simple—sermon series tend to be expositional—working through the text verse-by-verse, they only utilize Christian music, and a plethora of other things.
Why are churches who use the regulative principle of worship the way that they are? It’s because they believe God dictates what corporate worship should look like, not us. It’s by His terms, not ours.
We can’t force our own ideology into Scripture—we need to use Scripture alone.
Or consider just everyday life as a Christian.
How often do we fall into sin and try to justify it? Or we talk ourselves into sin with the excuse that Jesus has already forgiven us?
Have you considered that when you justify your own sin—when you give yourselves excuses, you’re essentially making the statement that you can do what you want and God just has to forgive you anyways? You’re living your life by your own terms, not His.
But consider Galatians 6:7 “7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
What we learn from Esau is that we come to God on God’s terms; we worship God on His terms; we follow God on HIs terms.
With that said, our application is simple—Christians, you will be disciplined by God because He loves you. Part of that discipline concerns paying the temporal consequences for your sins. Allow those consequences to push you to repentance and learn from those consequences.
For everyone, remember, we come to God on His terms not our own. Thus, if you don’t know Him yet, the way to know Him is found in Romans 10—repent and believe, then you’ll be saved. If you do know Him, you need to worship Him on His terms; you need to follow Him on His terms—all of which are found in His Word. Stay rooted and grounded in it.
Pastoral Prayer
