And Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.
The meeting Jacob had dreaded ends without violence. Esau turns for home the same day, and the brothers part. Commentators read this short verse as the moment when two portions and two kinds of men separate for good.
Esau goes home, but he does not take the promise with him. It stays with Jacob:
Esau now leaves the promise, however, to him, and goes to the place God hates — to his own portion.
Seir is Esau's own country, the land of Edom, and it is no neutral ground:
Esau returned the same day to his own place. It was a land hostile to Israel and hateful to God, and the close family tie only deepened His hatred of it. For vengeance belongs to Jehovah, who will not let guilty men, who have no right to it, take it into their own hands.
Seir suited Esau because it matched his character. One writer sets the two brothers side by side:
The man of God was found in Jacob, the man of the world in Esau; the principle of faith was in the one, the principle of nature in the other... So Esau made the earth the place of his energies, his enjoyments, and his expectations. He was "a man of the field," and "a skillful hunter." He prospered in his own day. He loved the field, and he knew how to use the field. He set his heart on the present life, and he knew how to use what it offered for his own pleasure.
Esau had a grievance and the power to act on it. God held him back — and later held Israel back from Edom:
Esau had a serious grudge against Jacob. Yet God acted directly, and Esau was not allowed to touch a hair of his brother's head. On the other hand, Israel must not meddle with Esau's possessions... So we see that the same God who would not allow Esau to touch Jacob, in Genesis 33, now will not allow Israel to touch Edom, in Numbers 20.
Esau leaves for Seir expecting his brother to follow. Commentators read Jacob's promise as an evasion:
The truth is that he was most anxious to get rid of his brother, and that he had not the smallest intention of going to Seir. He was going to Succoth. Seen in God's light, Jacob was not truthful in what he said to his brother. The evil in the people around him had still not been judged, and he spoke with little conscience but with his usual gift for excuses.
His route gives him away:
Jacob turned down the help Esau offered, and Esau left. Then Jacob again shows the crookedness that seems to have been his natural bent. He had said to Esau, "I come to my lord to Seir," yet he travelled at once to Succoth, which lay in a completely different direction.
Esau's departure left Jacob free to go where God had called him. He stopped short:
After all this display of God's goodness, we find Jacob settling down in Succoth. He builds a house there, as if it were his home. That goes against the spirit and principles of a pilgrim life. Now, Succoth was clearly not the place God had appointed for him. The Lord had not said to him, "I am the God of Succoth." He had said, "I am the God of Bethel." So Bethel, not Succoth, should have been Jacob's great aim. But the heart is always ready to settle for a place and a portion that fall short of what God would graciously give.
Commentators differ on how hard to judge this stop. One takes a gentler view:
God's patience does not leave him until he crosses the outer limits. Succoth is still on God's path, though at its edge. He can still deal in grace.
- Portion. Esau goes home to Seir and takes his own portion — the place God hates — leaving the promise with his brother.
- Appetite. He goes there gladly because his heart is already there. He was a man of the field, and he set his heart on the present life.
- Protection. The peaceful parting was God's doing. He would not let Esau touch a hair of Jacob's head, and later He would not let Israel touch Edom.
- Evasion. Jacob promised to follow to Seir, then went the other way. He bought freedom from Esau with an untruth.
- Shortfall. Free of his brother, Jacob still settled at Succoth instead of Bethel. The danger is always stopping short of what God has appointed.
And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and for his cattle he made booths. Therefore the name of the place was called Succoth.
Jacob has survived the brother he feared, and he is back in the land God promised him. But he stops short of where God sent him, and commentators read the house he builds at Succoth as the first sign that his heart had shifted.
The place takes its name from what Jacob put up there for his animals:
Temporary shelters made from tree branches. They were used especially at the Feast of Tabernacles. Jonah made himself such a shelter. They were also used for cattle. The Hebrew is succoth.
Jacob had told Esau he would follow him to Seir. He went the other way:
Jacob had refused the help offered him, and Esau had gone. Again Jacob shows the crookedness that seems to have been his natural bent. He had said to Esau, "I come to my lord in Seir," and then he went straight to Succoth, which lay in a different direction altogether. And once he arrived there, the record is that he built a house and made booths for his cattle. This shows he had a mind to settle down in the land, rather than keep the character of a stranger, as his grandfather Abraham had done.
The booths were for the animals; the house was for himself. One writer marks where this happened, and refuses to soften that word "house":
Jacob slips away to Succoth, which should be marked east of the Jordan... The serious sign of the patriarch's state was that he built a house for himself. That was a plain departure from the pilgrim practice of his fathers, and indeed his own. Matthew Henry says Jacob "was glad of booths," as if the contrast were with his descendants in houses of stone. That is incorrect. The very point of God's word here is that he "built himself a house," while his fathers lived in tents even in the land of promise. It was marked indifference and decline in this respect; all the more because Jacob was only on his way to the land.
Another writer puts the change in social terms:
Jacob had exchanged the tent for a house, and the pilgrim stranger had become a citizen and a freeholder.
The name God gave Himself points to where Jacob should have gone:
After all this display of God's goodness, we find Jacob settling down in Succoth. Succoth was not the destination God appointed for him. The Lord had not said to him, "I am the God of Succoth"; no, but "I am the God of Bethel." Bethel, then, and not Succoth, should have been Jacob's great object. But the heart is always prone to settle for a position and a portion short of what God would graciously give.
Another writer traces what Jacob did next:
Rather than going on to Bethel (God's house), he built a house for himself. This was only half-way obedience. It did not satisfy his own conscience, for he left all these buildings behind and travelled to Shalem, a city of Shechem.
God's goodness to Jacob was fresh. That is what makes this stop dangerous:
However small, it was a turn away from the path of a pilgrim. It was also a halt on a road he should have followed without stopping until he reached Bethel. And since one shortcoming always leads to another, the next thing we read of him is that he bought a piece of a field from the children of Hamor... God Himself is not the first object of the soul. His gifts, sadly, too often shut out God Himself.
One step aside carried a long cost:
One wrong step away from our true position before the Lord leads to many a sin, scandal and sorrow... His stay at Succoth and Shechem covers some ten years. He had to be unsettled to get him back to his pilgrim place. The way was painful for all, and it brought deep shame, humiliation and fear to the patriarch.
Yet these place names return later, in one of Israel's psalms:
"God has spoken in His holiness: 'With exultation I will divide up Shechem and portion out the Vale of Succoth'" (Psalm 60:6). Shechem and Succoth remind us how Israel's history began with Jacob, their father. These are the first places where he settled when he came back to the land of promise, after his years in a foreign land. One day it will be the same for the remnant of Israel. They will gather around the true David and take back their land as they follow Him.
- Booths — Succoth means the branch-shelters Jacob put up for his animals. The place east of the Jordan took its name from them.
- House — the shelters were temporary; the house was not. Trading the tent for a house turned a pilgrim stranger into a citizen and freeholder.
- Half-way — God called Himself the God of Bethel, not of Succoth. Jacob stopped short and built his own house instead of reaching God's.
- Drift — one small turn aside led to the next step, buying a field. God's gifts can shut out God Himself.
- Hope — Israel's psalm names this same ground as land God will yet divide up, when the people follow the true David.