And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham begot Isaac.
Genesis moves through a chain of family records, and here the chain turns. Ishmael's line has just closed, and the record starts again with Isaac — whose father's name appears twice in one short line.
Genesis falls into sections, each headed by the word "generations." Commentators mark this verse as the start of one.
The division of Genesis titled "The generations of Isaac" began at Genesis 25:19, and it extends to the end of Genesis 35. Under it has come all these many details about the earlier history of Jacob.
So the heading covers far more than Isaac's own life. The twins, the birthright, the stolen blessing, Jacob's exile and return — eleven chapters sit under Isaac's name, and most of them tell Jacob's story.
This verse comes right after Ishmael's family list. The two lists stand side by side.
After Abraham's death in Genesis 25, we also have two genealogies — verses 12-18 Ishmael's, and verses 19-26 Isaac's — of the flesh, and of promise.
Notice how much space each line gets. Ishmael's is short, and one writer sees a reason for that.
Ishmael represents the rejected line, and his generations come first and very briefly, because the generations of Isaac start at verse 19… Yet eight verses are enough for his story. He is a picture of the first man, who has to be removed so that the Second can come in.
Why name the father twice in one line? Abraham had other sons — Ishmael, and the sons of Keturah. Naming Isaac alone as the son marks out which child carries the line.
In this representative sense, Isaac is called the son of Abraham. Three times God described Isaac as Abraham's "only son" (Genesis 22:2, 12, 16). Ishmael and the children of Keturah are disregarded, since they are in no way representatives of the father in the line of divine promise. Isaac alone was the true seed… Abraham's faith and devout character reappeared in Isaac. So he was Abraham's son in the ideal sense: he shared his father's nature and character in a way that "the son of the slave woman" did not.
Abraham died a few verses earlier, and his sons buried him. This verse hands the story to Isaac.
Then the great holder of all promise passes off the scene, however his promise is fulfilled and unfolded. It closes as to both flesh and spirit — Isaac and Ishmael bury him. And we begin again quite fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, and with the path of faith or unbelief (as it was with Abraham) under that principle. Isaac now takes up the place of blessing and the subject of testimony.
Isaac starts fresh. He walks the same path of faith or unbelief that Abraham walked, and nothing passes down ready-made.
The chapters that open here are more than family history. One writer names the pattern running through them.
To the observant reader it will be clear that a new history opens at Genesis 25:19 — the history of Isaac. It is a history richly patterned with trials that relate to the promises of God. They are most instructive, for we all pass through similar trials in some measure. At every step God would have His people depend on Him alone, so that they must exercise faith… Rebekah, like Sarah, is barren, and so God steps in.
The fresh start also changes what we see.
Genesis 25:19 begins, to some extent, a new scene. We are brought back from the glimpse of heavenly things in Isaac to earthly and Jewish things in Jacob. From the barren woman spring two sons — for everything must be grace and divine power. In them election is brought out: not only in the grace of calling, but in sovereignty, and in contrast with works.
- Division. This verse opens the section headed "the generations of Isaac." It runs to the end of Genesis 35 and carries most of Jacob's early history.
- Order. Ishmael's line comes first and is short. Isaac's follows at length — the flesh, then the promise.
- Son. Naming Abraham twice marks Isaac as the true seed. He shared his father's nature and faith; the other children did not.
- Heir. Abraham is buried, and the story starts fresh. Isaac now holds the place of blessing and testimony.
- Choice. Two sons come from a barren woman. Everything rests on grace and divine power, and election comes into full view.
And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca as wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian.
Genesis 25:20 sits at a seam in the book. Ishmael's short genealogy has just closed, and the line of promise picks up again with a marriage — one sentence giving Isaac's age, his wife's father, her brother, and the far-off district she came from.
The phrase "these are the generations of…" marks off the sections of Genesis, and one such section starts here. The rejected line is dealt with first and quickly:
Another of the divisions of this book begins at verse 12. Ishmael represents the rejected line. Scripture tells his generations first, and very briefly, because the generations of Isaac start with verse 19. He lived 137 years, and his sons became princes of some fame, since some of their names became well known and appear again in Scripture. Yet eight verses are enough for his story, since he is a picture of the first man, who must be removed to make way for the Second.
The place named in the verse is not incidental — it is where the family had settled after leaving their first home, and it supplied the wives of two generations.
A cultivated district in Mesopotamia. The city of Nahor stood there. Terah and his family moved there from Ur of the Chaldees, and from there came Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, the wives of Isaac and Jacob. It is strictly Paddan-aram, meaning 'table land of Aram.'
Rebekah's descent is spelled out because Abraham had ruled out the women of the land his household lived in.
Then the servant is told that the bride for Isaac is "not to be of the daughters of the Canaanites." Abraham says she is to be of "my kindred." The Canaanites were under the curse and devoted to judgment. There can be no link between Christ in the glory and a world under judgment. Isaac's bride was not to be a stranger but one that already belonged to Abraham's family. So the Church is formed not of unbelievers, nor of a mixture of believers and unbelievers, but wholly of the family of faith.
Notice what the verse does not say: Isaac never travelled to Padan-aram. Others brought the bride to him. One writer contrasts this with Jacob, who later made that journey himself:
Jacob the wanderer had to refuse marriage with the Canaanite just as clearly as Isaac did. But only Isaac was forbidden, in the strictest way, to leave the land (Gen. 24:6, 8), so his bride had to be brought to him there. Jacob, by contrast, goes to look for a wife at the house of his mother's father. So Jacob's earthly place and family ties stand out just as plainly as Isaac's heavenly ones… Isaac's history is a picture of sovereign grace calling a bride to the Heir of all things in heavenly places.
The age matters. Set beside Ishmael's twelve sons just above, it measures how long the man of promise waited with nothing.
God Himself sees to it that faith is tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it. Ishmael can boast of his twelve sons, with names soon known by their villages, if not "towns," and by their camps, if not castles. Isaac mourned for a mother he loved, and had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he remains childless some twenty years.
Another writer sets the two lines side by side and asks what time does to each:
The man of faith waits twenty years (Gen. 25:20, 26) for the first signs that his hopes will be fulfilled. Meanwhile the man of flesh shoots up into a great show of prosperity — a round dozen of princes in the family in little or no time!… When a man is in the right path, time is on his side and he can afford to wait… It makes a great deal of difference whether we work with time or against it. Put a seed into the ground and time will turn it into a forest. Put a sword into the ground and time will turn it into a streak of rust.
Abraham and Sarah had faced childlessness and reached for a human solution. This marriage met the same trial and answered it differently.
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebekah as his wife. For twenty years they were childless — but under this trial they behaved even better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebekah had no child; but they entreated the Lord, and waited for His mercy.
- Line. Scripture records Ishmael's line first, and briefly; verse 19 opens the generations of Isaac, the line God carries forward.
- Distance. Padan-aram, "table land of Aram," was the family's settlement in Mesopotamia — the source of the wives of both Isaac and Jacob.
- Separation. The bride could not come from Canaan, a people under judgment; she had to belong already to Abraham's family.
- Waiting. Forty years before a wife, twenty more before a child — the promise was sure, but the delay tested faith.
- Prayer. Where Abraham and Sarah once took matters into their own hands, Isaac and Rebekah asked the Lord and waited for His mercy.
And Isaac entreated Jehovah for his wife, because she was barren; and Jehovah was entreated of him, and Rebecca his wife conceived.
Isaac married Rebekah at forty, and then the promised line stalled: his wife could not have children. Why did God let twenty years pass before He answered, and what did the waiting do in Isaac?
The promise was sure, yet no child came. One writer sees God's hand in the delay itself, and prayer as its fruit.
It is of God that faith should be tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it. Ishmael can boast of his twelve sons, with names soon known by their villages and their camps. Isaac mourned for a beloved mother, and had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he remains childless some twenty years… It was grace. But grace showed the channel through which the blessing was to flow. This drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work. Isaac therefore entreated Jehovah, and Jehovah was entreated of Isaac. The trial of his faith was far from being so searching as Abraham's. It was suited to each in divine wisdom. Strong faith shone in the father, gracious dependence in the son, to the praise of God in the blessing of both.
Kelly's older wording, "Jehovah was entreated of Isaac," is what the ESV gives as "the LORD granted his prayer."
Isaac was the promised seed, yet his home stayed empty. Another writer traces that emptiness to a lesson God meant him to learn.
So true and faithful are the dealings of our God with His people. Isaac, the promised seed, has no heir. He has none until he is cast on God and taught to look to Him instead of to nature. He must learn that God's blessings, whatever they are, will not yield the results he wants apart from Him. But once he learns this lesson, God can carry out the purpose He settled beforehand, and so He gave children to Isaac.
Another comment puts it in one line, looking back to Sarah, Isaac's own mother.
First, we learn here that Rebekah is as barren as Sarah, apart from the power of God. No principle of truth, no inherent power of grace, is enough for us apart from the direct working of God Himself.
One writer compares this couple with Isaac's own parents, who had faced the same problem years before.
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebecca as his wife. For twenty years they were childless. But under this trial they behaved even better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebecca had no child; but they entreated the Lord, and waited for His mercy. This was a difference. For a moment the last are first, and the first are last. We find such moral variety among the people of God to this day.
The verse says the LORD answered him. One writer finds God's delight in that answer.
The barren condition of Rebekah led Isaac to exercise faith and to cast himself upon the Lord for help. And He answered him. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in answer to prayer.
Another writer sets this answer against what idols can do.
In some countries people pray to idols for a son, but idols cannot answer — the true God can.
Some writers read Isaac's life as a picture of Christ. His prayer for his wife has a place in that picture.
Isaac intercedes for his wife (the church). These are all typical features of more or less interest, but the great course of his life is bound to be unheroic and obscure.
- Barren. Rebekah could no more bear a child than Sarah could — the line of promise had no strength of its own to continue.
- Withheld. God held the heir back until Isaac learned to look to Him, not to nature. His blessings yield nothing apart from Him.
- Waiting. Twenty childless years tried Isaac's faith. The promise was sure, but he had to wait, and patience did its full work.
- Prayer. His parents took a shortcut; Isaac did not. Grace showed him the channel of blessing, and that drew out his prayers.
- Answered. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in reply — idols cannot answer, the true God can.
And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If [it be] so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of Jehovah.
Rebekah waited twenty years to conceive, and then felt a struggle inside her that she could not explain. Her question sent her to the LORD, and His answer reaches far beyond her own household.
Isaac and Rebekah faced the same childlessness as Abraham and Sarah. They handled it differently. One writer sets the two couples side by side:
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebekah as his wife. For twenty years they were childless — but under this trial they behaved better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebekah had no child; but they asked the Lord, and waited for His mercy.
Kelly explains why the wait was there at all:
It is God's way to test faith. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it... It was grace. But grace revealed the channel through which the blessing would flow. That drew out his prayers, while patience did its perfect work.
One writer sees in the fight inside her the clash of two natures — a clash felt long before it can be understood:
But Rebekah conceives, and then she feels a struggle within her. It is once more that inner struggle of contrary natures, felt all through our course here. It begins before it becomes an outward, visible thing, and God must teach us its true meaning.
Mackintosh links this first struggle to what Jacob's whole life displays:
In the person of Jacob we have a most striking display of the power of divine grace. The reason is that we also have in him a striking display of the power of human nature... Before his birth, we read, "the children struggled together within her." At his birth, we read of "his hand holding Esau's heel."
Kelly notes the name of God in this verse — Jehovah, the covenant name, which the ESV renders LORD — and what her one move says about her faith:
There were to be twins. And the children gave an early sign to their mother, as we are told, for her trial, so that she too went to inquire of Jehovah. Who can miss how fitting the name of covenant relationship is here?... There is no ground to imagine that she consulted Melchizedek or journeyed to Moriah. Without either she knew where to find Jehovah and how to inquire of Him. Her faith might be weak, but it was real, and without superstitious dependence on any man or place.
Husband and wife each did the same thing in their own trouble, and that pattern is held up for imitation:
It is good to see both Isaac's entreating the Lord and Rebekah's inquiring of the Lord when problems arose.
Her question drew out a principle that runs through the whole Bible:
Rebekah also had learned to turn to the Lord for an answer to her question. In the reply that the Lord gave her we find another great principle stated. It marks God's purpose and runs all through Scripture. It is that of election... God declares His choice before the children were born, or had had any chance of doing either good or evil, as is so plainly stated in Romans 9:10-12.
Gaebelein guards against pushing this too far:
That this does not refer to any unconditional and eternal condemnation is clear. Notice that the words "Esau have I hated" do not appear in Genesis, but in the last book of the Old Testament. Then the character and defiance of Edom had become fully established. In Genesis the Lord speaks only of having chosen Jacob.
Some Jewish teachers once used this struggle to prove something the verse never says:
Rabbinical teaching carried the matter further. It held that a person could sin while still in the womb. That idea, it is said, rested on Genesis 25:22, where we read that the two children struggled together in Rebekah's womb. God does not send every bodily affliction as chastisement, though at times that may be the reason for it.
- Waited. Twenty childless years drew out prayer, not scheming. Isaac and Rebekah asked the Lord and waited for His mercy.
- Struggled. The struggle inside her pictures the clash of two natures. She felt it long before God taught her what it meant.
- Inquired. Rebekah needed no holy place and no holy man. Weak faith that knows where to take a question is still real faith.
- Answered. Her question drew out God's choice. He declared it before either child had done good or evil — the principle Romans 9 later builds on.
- Guarded. The verse says the children struggled. It does not say they sinned in the womb. Not every affliction is punishment.
And Jehovah said to her, Two nations are in thy womb, And two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; And one people shall be stronger than the other people, And the elder shall serve the younger.
Rebekah's pregnancy was painful, so she asked God what was happening inside her. His answer named two nations, two peoples already dividing, and a reversal of the usual order of birth. It became a key text for one of the Bible's most debated subjects: God's freedom to choose.
Notice first how the answer came. Rebekah did not go to a holy man or a holy place.
The children gave their mother an early sign, as we are told, for her trial, so that she too went to inquire of the Lord... There is no ground to imagine that she consulted Melchizedek or travelled to Moriah. Without either, she knew where to find the Lord and how to inquire of Him. Her faith might be weak, but it was real, and free from any superstitious dependence on a man or a place.
The two boys shared one father, one mother, and one birth. That makes the announcement about them unusually pointed.
God's predestination of their history on earth is clear here. It is all the more striking because the unborn babies had the same mother as well as the same father — twins, in fact... So God's sovereignty was shown to be as free as it is certain to faith. The Jews based their exclusive claim on natural descent, and that claim is disproved... Here flesh is shut out most plainly, and the title rests on the Lord's sovereign pleasure.
Commentators press the timing. A choice made after birth could always be explained away.
The choice of Jacob rather than Esau, even before their birth, asserts the great principle of God's sovereignty... Nothing shows this more fully than the choice of the younger son before either was born. When the younger son is chosen after birth — like Joseph or David — people can say that his actions or natural character earned him the preference, or that the actions and character of the others ruled out their claims. The important principle is that none of them have any claim at all.
Many readers merge this verse with the later line, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Commentators insist the two must be kept apart.
God did not say "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, when the real character and practical ways of each had been fully shown. Before the children were born He said only that "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born.
The choice announced in the womb did not stay untested.
God's election of Jacob, and the passing over of Esau that followed, brought out something else. The wisdom and rightness of God's choice always shows in the later history. His election always justifies itself in its results.
Esau himself supplied the evidence.
He deliberately sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, and so justified God in His selection.
God's word named nations, not only babies. Their story did not run in a straight line.
By the time of the Gospels the Jews were not only under the rule of Rome; a son of Esau ruled over them in the land. This order was not according to the purpose of God announced from the beginning — that, of Jacob and his brother, the older shall serve the younger. But the chosen people were unfaithful, so God's order was reversed for a time. Esau was on top, though he was an enemy of God and His truth.
Some writers read the two sons as a picture of something every believer knows first-hand.
In these two sons we have a representation of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit... The believer finds a strange contradiction in his own heart — a conflict of two natures. Here it is given to us in type, with the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought into subjection to the spirit, and that the spirit will triumph in the end.
Jacob's scheming did not cancel the promise, but it cost him.
"The older shall serve the younger" was God's word in favour of Jacob before the children were born. But Jacob did not wait in the patience of faith until the Lord in His own time and way made His promise good. So the promise becomes loaded with reservations, difficulties, and burdens. It will certainly be made good in the end; but because of Jacob's way, his unbelief and scheming, the older will give the younger much trouble.
- Ask. Rebekah's distress drove her straight to God. Her faith was weak but real, and it got an answer no man or place could give.
- Chosen. The twins were unborn and untested, so the choice was God's alone. No one has a claim on Him.
- Not hated. Before their birth God said only that the older would serve the younger. The word about hatred came centuries later, once Esau's character had come out in full.
- Proved. God's choice proves itself in the history that follows. Esau sold his birthright and so justified it.
- Enacted. The promise was certain, but Jacob schemed instead of waiting, and that loaded it with trouble. God secures His purpose; the flesh still has to be brought into subjection.
And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
Twenty years of childlessness lie behind this short note about the birth of Rebekah's twins. The verse records an answered prayer. It also opens one of the Bible's clearest test cases: one mother, one father, one birth — and two very different futures already announced by God.
The twins were a long time coming. Isaac married at forty, and the waiting went on from there.
God Himself tests faith. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it… Isaac had no wife until he was forty years old. Even then he remained childless some twenty years… It was grace. But grace showed the channel through which the blessing would flow. That drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work.
The barrenness itself had a purpose in God's hands.
The barren condition of Rebekah led Isaac to exercise faith and to cast himself upon the Lord for help. And He answered him. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in answer to prayer.
The detail that they were twins is not decoration. It rules out every natural explanation for God's choice.
Predestination is clear here — God settled their history on earth beforehand. This is all the more striking because the babies not yet born had the same mother as well as the same father — in fact, they were twins… This shows that God's sovereignty is as free as it is certain to faith. It rules out natural descent, on which the Jews founded their exclusive claim.
So where does the reason lie? Not in the boys, but in God Himself.
Both he and Esau had one mother, and they were born at the same time, for they were twins. By nature Esau had first place, by only a few moments. Again, however, God set aside the first and chose the second, saying, "The older shall serve the younger"… This shows us that God chooses because of what HE IS IN HIMSELF, and not because of what men may be, as shown in their works.
Later Scripture speaks of God loving Jacob and hating Esau. Writers are careful to keep that statement in its own place and time.
You must distinguish between Genesis 25:23 and Malachi 1:2-3. God spoke the first before the children were born. He spoke the second hundreds of years later, after each had fully shown his conduct and character… The apostle is establishing the absolute sovereignty of divine mercy: God's right to do as He wills. He proves to Israel that arguing against divine sovereignty means giving up all their privileges. So how did they get in? Was it by birth? No; for on that ground Ishmael and Esau had the precedence. Was it by works? No; for they made the golden calf. How then? Simply by God's sovereign mercy. Well then, if God is sovereign He can have mercy on whom He will; and blessed be His Name, that opens the door for us poor Gentiles.
Writers also mark what the words about hating Esau do not mean.
This clearly does not mean any unconditional and eternal condemnation… In Genesis the Lord speaks only of having chosen Jacob. And what creature of the dust can challenge His right to do so?
The two sons picture a conflict every believer knows from the inside.
In these two sons we have a representation of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. The natural comes first, and "then the spiritual." The believer finds a strange contradiction in his own heart: the conflict of two natures. That conflict is pictured here for us — with the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought under the spirit, and that the spirit will win in the end.
The birth gave both boys names that would describe their lives.
Esau came first. He was red in appearance and hairy, with red hair. This reminds us of Adam, which means "red earth," for Esau's history would show what man is in the flesh… The second son, Jacob, followed, his hand holding Esau's heel… His name means "he will take by the heel"… That is what Jacob was in the flesh. But God later changed his name to Israel, "a prince with God." God's counsels would stand, and He did a work in Jacob's soul that made a glorious change in the man.
- Before the prayer — Rebekah was barren, so Isaac prayed. Twenty childless years taught him patience.
- Before the birth — God named the order of blessing while the twins were unborn. No act of theirs could explain it.
- Before the works — one father, one mother, one birth. Descent and merit are both ruled out. The choice rests on God Himself.
- Before the verdict — the word about loving Jacob and hating Esau came centuries later, after both men had shown their true character. Do not merge the two statements.
- After the choice — the two brothers picture the conflict of flesh and Spirit in the believer. Jacob's new name shows that God's purpose ends in a changed man, not just a chosen one.
And the first came out red -- all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.
Esau arrives red and hairy, and his look gives him his name. Commentators read that description as a portrait of a man of the earth. It is also the first half of a pattern God repeats all through Scripture.
The name comes straight from what everyone saw at the birth. Reference works then follow it into the man's later choices.
Esau was Isaac and Rebekah's son and Jacob's twin, though he was actually the first-born. He is described as "red, all his body like a hairy cloak," and his name matches this, since it means "hairy." Gen. 25:25. The first thing we read of him is the selling of his birthright to his over-reaching brother Jacob, for a bowl of stew. Because of this the New Testament calls him a profane person, because he did not value what was the gift of God.
Writers tie the newborn's redness to the name Adam, and to the dust the first man came from.
Esau, the first, looked strikingly red, hairy, and his hair red. This reminds us of Adam, which means "red earth." Esau's history was to emphasize what man is in the flesh, just as "the first man was from the earth, a man of dust" (1 Cor. 15:47).
The same link returns later in his life, once his own choices show what he is.
Then it all comes to light. Esau despises his birthright, and so he is profane; Jacob values it, but seeks it in crooked ways. Esau now shows himself openly as Edom — that is, Adam, only a little changed on the outside, and not in heart.
Being "of the earth" does not mean being weak. The picture is raw energy that answers to nobody.
Later these tendencies come into open view and get their names. Esau is red, and all over like a hairy garment — unmistakably of the earth, but full of strong, wild life… Esau is the free rover, held back by nothing but his own will, chasing his own aims — the hunter who can pursue animals or men without caring which.
Esau's arrival first is part of an order that runs through the whole Bible. The one who comes first by nature is not the one God builds on.
God gave special rights to the firstborn son of each family (a double inheritance). Again and again we meet firstborn sons who fail, and their blessing goes to another who has no claim to it. Cain was the firstborn, but Seth took his place. In the same way Isaac replaced Ishmael, Jacob replaced Esau, and Joseph replaced Reuben, and so on. The underlying principle is clear: the firstborn speaks of man in his natural strength — "he is the firstfruits of his strength" (Deut. 21:17). And this is the point: natural man acting in his own strength always ends in failure. For blessing to come, God has to provide the "second." Hebrews 10 states this principle plainly: "He does away with the first in order to establish the second" (v. 9).
The two babies also picture a struggle the believer knows inside.
In these two sons we have a picture of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. The natural comes first, and the spiritual after it. The believer finds a strange contradiction in his own heart: two natures in conflict. We have it here in type. And with it comes the promise, thank God, that the spirit will bring the flesh under and win in the end.
Being born first settled nothing here. Both boys had the same father and mother, and the choice between them came before either was born.
Predestination as to their history on earth is plain here. It is all the more striking because these babies, not yet born, had the same mother as well as the same father. In fact they were twins… So divine sovereignty was shown to be as free as it is certain to faith. The Jews based their exclusive claim on fleshly descent, and that claim is disproved — most clearly in the case of Esau. For here the flesh is shut out completely, and the title comes from the Lord's sovereign pleasure.
- Born red — his colour and hairy covering give him his name. Writers link that redness to Adam and to the dust the first man came from.
- Named Esau — the name means "hairy." Later he is called Edom — Adam, one writer says, only a little changed on the outside.
- Strong but earthbound — his energy is real: a free rover, held back by nothing but his own will.
- First, then second — the firstborn stands for man in his natural strength. That strength always fails, so God's blessing runs through the second.
- Settled beforehand — the twins had the same parents. Only God's sovereign choice explains the outcome, and it shuts the flesh out completely.
And after that came his brother out; and his hand took hold of Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.
Twenty years of waiting ended with twins, and the second baby came out gripping his brother's heel. That grip gave him his name, Jacob, and it marked the man he would be.
Isaac married at forty, and twenty more years passed before these twins arrived. One writer sees purpose in that delay.
It is God's way that faith should be tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it... Isaac had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he stayed childless for some twenty years... It was grace; but grace revealed the channel through which the blessing was to flow, and this drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work.
The name Jacob comes straight from what his hand was doing. Esau threw that name back at him years later.
The second son, Jacob, followed closely, his hand holding the heel of Esau. This detail shows what would be true of Jacob all his life. His name means "he will take by the heel." Esau referred to this later when Jacob had deceived his father in taking Esau's place. Esau's words then were "Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times" [older translations: "he has supplanted me," which matches the name]... His hand grasped at the blessing Esau was going to receive. This tells us what Jacob was in the flesh. But later his name was changed to Israel, "a prince with God." God's counsels would stand, and He did a work in Jacob's soul that made a glorious change in the man.
The grip was not a one-off. It belongs to a pattern that ran from the womb to the turning point of Jacob's life.
In him we see human nature at its most crooked, and so we see grace in all its moral beauty and power. His remarkable history suggests this: before his birth, at his birth, and after his birth, nature showed its extraordinary energy. Before his birth, we read, "the children struggled together within her." At his birth, we read of "his hand holding Esau's heel." And after his birth — right up to the turning point of his history, in Genesis 32, without a single exception — his course shows nothing but the least attractive traits of nature. But all this only works like a drab background, throwing into relief the grace of Him who stoops to call Himself by that touching name, "the God of Jacob" — a name that speaks so sweetly of free grace.
Commentators read the two boys as a picture. Esau looks earthy and wild; Jacob's whole character shows in that grip on the heel.
Esau is red, and all over like a hairy garment — unmistakably of the earth, but full of strong, wild life. Jacob shows himself in this: his hand lays hold of Esau's heel. From that he gets his name, "heel-catcher" — "supplanter." Here we see the spirit that tries to set aside the flesh by the effort of the flesh. So the power of the flesh is felt, while the power of God is not — or is felt as opposition.
The same picture reaches into the believer's own heart.
In these two sons we have a picture of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit... The strange contradiction the believer finds in his own heart — the conflict of two natures — is pictured for us here. And with it comes the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought under the spirit, and that the spirit will win in the end.
Centuries later the prophet Hosea set this grip beside Jacob's night of wrestling.
"In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God" [older translations: "by his strength he had power with God"]. From the first Jacob did what showed he would supplant his brother, and this was long before anyone could put it down to a character he had grown into. But God also recalls what grace did when it gave him strength beyond his own in his weakness. When the sinew of his thigh had been shrunk, God strengthened him to prevail with the angel. So he gained the name that pledges the blessing of grace and complete victory to the seed of Abraham.
- Waited for. Isaac married at forty and was sixty here. The promise was sure, but God tried his faith while he prayed.
- Named for. The hand on the heel gave the boy his name — "heel-catcher," supplanter — and Esau later said the name fitted.
- Grasping. Struggling before birth, grabbing at birth, scheming afterwards: the grip was the first sign of a nature that ran through his whole life.
- Pictured. Commentators read the twins as flesh and Spirit. Esau is earthy; Jacob fights the flesh with the flesh. Believers know that conflict from the inside.
- Changed. Hosea sets the heel-grip beside the wrestling. God gave the supplanter strength he did not have, and he became Israel, a prince with God.