TOLDOT (Generations) + VAYETZEI (And he left)
By Raphael ben Levi
“”Then 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 Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.
“Then 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 Padan Aram, (Haran) to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. “May God Almighty bless you, And make you fruitful and multiply you, That you may be an assembly of peoples;” (Gen.28:1-3)
Last week we caught a glimpse of the drama within Isaac’s family that would have made a good soapy with all the sordid details. And it provides the setting for today’s parasha. I want to begin by considering the parenthood of Isaac and Rebekah in all of this to gain something easily overlooked that is significant.
Rebekah bore twins who were opposites in their physical appearance, personality and character, and spiritually. In Gen.25:27-28, “…The boys grew up. Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, Isaac loved Esau (the most), but Rebekah loved Jacob (the most)”.
Isaac loved Esau more than Jacob but Rebekah loved Jacob more than Esau. Both parents failed to even conceal their favouritism and this was a snare, and yet for Rebekah it came as a result of a word given to her from the Lord: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” (25:23). Since Jacob was the younger, Rebekah cherished the promise that Jacob and his descendants would continue the line of God’s covenant as heirs of His promise instead of Esau.
The fact that God chose Jacob over Esau made things very messy. We may wonder why God didn’t simply choose Jacob be the elder brother instead of Esau? But in Heb.12:16-17 it provides us with some enlightenment by highlighting Esau’s characters as a warning: “See to it that no one is …godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He could find no ground for repentance, though he sought the blessing with tears.” And in Obad.1:10-12 referring to the descendants of Esau:“…Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever.”
Whether Esau had been the elder or the younger brother made no difference in the sense that he would still have remained Esau – someone godless and violent. Not that Jacob was a godly person – at least not in the early stages. But Jacob allowed God to transform his life from a Jacob (deceiver) to an Israel (‘Prince of God’) and in Scripture when a person’s name was changed it signalled the equivalent to being ‘born again.’ Perhaps this is why Lucifer (light Bearer) and Satan (deceiver) are titles of an angelic being who forfeited his name and, therefore, his entire identity when he rebelled against the Almighty.
A puzzling thought is why Isaac chose to entrust his legacy to Esau even though he knew he had despised his birthright for a bowl of soup? (Gen.25:29-34) And if that wasn’t enough, another incident should have raised alarm bells. Gen.26:34-35 states that, “When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah”.
Esau had made himself at home among the Hittites and married two of their women in contravention of God’s strict command. This led Esau’s ancestors to embrace pagan culture, religion, and moral values. Esau disregarded any desire to fulfil his godly responsibility to carry forward the promises and covenants of God.
One would suppose that if Isaac had possessed a greater measure of godly discernment things might have played out differently. Yet, underneath everything lies something else. As a father Isaac possessed an enduring love for Esau despite his unruly character; one who was godless, rebellious and headstrong, because a parent is still a parent, and our children remain our children no matter what. Despite Isaac’s disappointment of the person Esau developed into, his love remained constant because although parental love may sometimes be critical it will always remain unbreakable. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote that, “…IIt is as if Isaac had said: I know what Esau is. He is strong, wild, unpredictable, possibly violent. It is impossible that he should be the person entrusted with the covenant and its spiritual demands. But this is my child. I refuse to sacrifice him, as my father almost sacrificed me. I refuse to send him away, as my parents sent Hagar and Ishmael away. My love for my son is unconditional. I do not ignore who or what he is. But I will love him anyway, even if I do not love everything he does – because that is how God loves us, unconditionally, even if He does not love everything we do. I will bless him. I will hold him close…In this one act of loving Esau, Isaac redeemed the pain of two of the most difficult moments in his father Abraham’s life: the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael and the Binding of Isaac.”
1Cor.13:4-7 defines for us the quality of God’s love for us: “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not brag, it is not puffed up, it does not behave inappropriately, it does not seek its own way, it is not provoked, it keeps no account of wrong, it does not rejoice over injustice but rejoices in the truth; it bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things.”
Isaac modelled God’s Divine love in many ways but lacked one thing – godly discernment. When he gave the instruction: “Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die” he didn’t request it because he was hungry but because he desired to be filled with the smell and taste he associated with Esau before he blessed him. And here we see that all the wisdom he had gained in his relationship with God throughout his entire life had for that moment fallen by the wayside to cloud his judgement. It was a mistake that caused him much pain and sorrow instead of joy and peace at the very end of his life, and yet when we view things from God’s perspective, it was a mistake, a blindness that He had orchestrated in order to fulfil His Divine purpose. This helps us better understand the words of Paul concerning Israel in Rom.11:25, “25 For I do not want you, brothers and sisters, to be ignorant of this mystery—lest you be wise in your own eyes[a]—that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;”
When Isaac and Esau realised how they had been deceived by Jacob, Isaac “trembled violently” and Esau “burst out with a loud and bitter cry.” The Torah generally speaks little about people’s emotions but here we see an exception.
In contrast, there is not the slightest indication how Abraham or Isaac felt in one of the most alarming episodes in the Bible – the binding of Isaac. The difference is that when we are walking in the centre of God’s will we will be enveloped by His peace that passes all understanding – “In quietness and confidence is our strength” (Isa.30:15) even amid the greatest storms. However, as in Isaac and Esau’s case the consequences of unwise decisions lead to deep regret.
The depth of feeling revealed in the Torah, describing Isaac and Esau at the moment they discovered they had been tricked is something rarely encountered in Scripture. Isaac and Esau had been deceived yet were helpless to do anything about it reflecting momentous consequences.
Isaac never reproached Esau for selling his birth-right to Jacob and Esau never blamed his father for taking insufficient care to avoid blessing Jacob instead of himself. All bitterness was directed towards Jacob. This posed a big problem for a family dysfunctional in so many ways as the drama unfolded. It was a defining moment in each one of the family members’ lives.
Never in all history was something so valuable purchased for so little – to sell-out for “a pot of stew.” In a moment of weakness Scripture describes Esau’s sin of treating common something that was sacred, and for this he forfeited his entire inheritance. The NT compares Esau’s love for the world with carnality: “ Also see to it that there is no immoral or godless person—like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal. For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He found no chance for repentance, though he begged for it with tears.” Heb.12:16-17
And Paul in Rom.11 reminds of something very important. “Yet before the sons were even born and had not done anything good or bad—so that God’s purpose and choice might stand not because of works but because of Him who calls—it was said to (Rebekah), “The older shall serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For to Moses He says, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy!” Although many of the events surrounding this episode surrounding Isaac and his family are to us a conundrum, God nonetheless acted justly: Case closed!
Esau was breathing death threats against Jacob and ended up being sent to Rebekah’s hometown in Haran to live with her brother Laban. Haran was situated a long distance away in northern Syria, near the town of Aleppo.
And so Jacob fled for his life. The hardships he endured throughout this period was all part of God’s Divine plan to transform him from a Jacob to an Israel – trials he had to face alone without any human comfort or support. But it was in this place, with all the creature comforts and securities stripped away, where he experienced his deepest and life-changing encounter. God invaded the darkness at the lowest moment of Jacob’s life. Jacob met God when he least expected it, when his mind was focused chaotically upon his survival.
He spent his first night sleeping rough with only stones for a pillow. The thoughts passing through his mind may well have rested upon the apparent mis-match of his father’s blessings with the reality of his circumstances – fleeing for his life, separated from home and all he was familiar with and a brother vowing to take revenge against him.
God, who knows our deepest needs and innermost thoughts, came to Jacob in a dream that night and it was here that Jacob’s life took a radical turn for the better.
“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (Gen.28:12) Standing at the top of a ladder that reached into the heavens, with angels going up and down, God reiterated His promise to Jacob made to Abraham and Isaac—the land upon which he lay: “And, behold, the LORD [YHVH] stood beside him, and said: ‘I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land upon which you lie, to you will I give it, and to your seed. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen.28:13-15)
Haran was the place where Jacob would live in exile for over 20 years. It was all part of God’s design that would transformed him from Jacob (Lit: “May God be at your heels” meaning, “May God be your rearguard.”) to ‘Israel’ – “Prince of God.”
Jacob committed to memory this definitive life-changing event through a memorial he built at a place called Luz and renamed it “Bethel” (House of God) which many scholars believe was situated in Mt. Moriah, the place where his father Abram had been commanded to sacrifice him and where many centuries later Yeshua was crucified. “This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will give You a tenth.” (Gen.28:22)
Jacob basically told God: “Look, I have no possessions at the moment to give you, but whatever you bless me with, I will give back to you 10%!”
At this stage he still did not understand the principle of giving his entire life to God but his action was a quantum leap in what would be a long journey with many hard lessons ahead of him. It was a painful process with deceptions he had sown in his life with consequences that would dog him at different stages in the future:
- Laban would deceive him into marrying Leah after he had worked, as had been agreed, for seven years for the love of his life, Rachel. (Gen. 29:21-23 21)
- His wife, Rachel, would deceive him by carrying the pagan gods of her father with her when they left Laban’ s house to return to Canaan.
- His ten sons would deceive him into believing that some wild animal had killed his son Joseph.
Until this point there was nothing especially meritorious about Jacob. And yet, although he was unlike Noah: righteous and perfect in his generations who walked with God. And although he was unlike Abraham, who left his land and birthplace in obedience to God’s call and was known as the “Friend of God”; and unlike his father, Isaac, he never offered himself up as a sacrifice. Yet, God chose this greatly flawed person for something none of the other Patriarchs achieved. Through Jacob, the Jewish people became defined for all time as Jacob’s descendants, not Abraham’s or Isaacs, who became known and established as the children of Israel.
Maybe, you want to do something great for God but feel unworthy or unqualified because you compare yourself to others. But, here we are presented with a lesson. God is not so much concerned about the raw material as to whether we allow Him to transform our messy lives into an instrument meet for His purpose.
God ‘trapped’ Jacob who became a refugee, fleeing to an unknown destination with a future filled with unknown dangers. And it was at his lowest point which God appeared to him in a dream that began a process, step by step, that would eventually lead to a changed life. Sometimes, our deepest spiritual experiences come when we least expect them and occur at a point of maximum vulnerability. He is a God who lifts us when we fall, forgives us when we fail, heals our wounds and weeps with us as we finally realise that we have nothing else to hold on to beside Him. Though others may lose faith in us, and though we may even sometimes lose faith in ourselves, nothing can ever shake God’s confidence in us.
In closing, let’s take a moment briefly to consider an unlikely link between the calling of Nathaniel and the story of Jacob in Jn.1:47-51:
“45 Philip found Natan’el and told him, “We’ve found the one that Moshe wrote about in the Torah, also the Prophets — it’s Yeshua Ben-Yosef from Natzeret!” 46 Natan’el answered him, “Natzeret? Can anything good come from there?” “Come and see,” Philip said to him.47 Yeshua saw Natan’el coming toward him and remarked about him, “Here’s a true son of Isra’el — nothing false in him!” 48 Natan’el said to him, “How do you know me?” Yeshua answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Natan’el said, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Isra’el!” 50 Yeshua answered him, “you believe all this just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than that!” 51 Then he said to him, “Yes indeed! I tell you that you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!”
Yeshua made a stunning declaration to Nathaniel speaking into his heart through a word of knowledge which changed his life irrevocably. Nathaniel (also known as Bartholomew) was a Galilean who made a derogatory statement about Nazareth the hometown of Yeshua. Nazareth was a cross-roads and trade route for travellers, where Jew and Gentile intermingled, actions unthinkable for the Judeans. In addition, Nazareth was a focal point and feeding ground for radicals.
Yeshua claimed to know Nathaniel even though He had never met him before: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” (v.47)
Yeshua was here making a direct reference to the patriarch Jacob describing Nathanael as an honest “Israel” in contrast to a deceitful Jacob. Nathaniel responded with shock, “How do you know me?” Yeshua replied, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathaniel immediately responded: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Isra’el!”
What happened? After the Babylonian Exile the fig tree became a messianic symbol everyone was familiar with. Yeshua spoke a word of knowledge to Nathanael that he was reflecting upon the coming Messiah at the moment when Yeshua called him to be His disciple. When this fact was revealed to him by Yeshua it was all the confirmation Nathaniel needed. His declared in reverential awe, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Isra’el!”
Sometimes God chooses to transform our lives as He did with Nathaniel with a rhema word that pierces us through like a sword. Yeshua told Nathaniel, “…You believe all this just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than that!” Then he said to him, “Yes indeed! I tell you that you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!”
Yeshua made a direct reference to Jacob’s ladder and the angels who were descending and ascending, implying that He himself was the ladder by which all future generations could be transformed from a Jacob to an Israel.
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