Erich Neumann: The Biblical Story of Jacob and Esau
Jacob and Esau are the best-known pair of twins in the Bible, sons of Isaac
and Rebekah.1 Abraham’s servant was sent to Aram-Naharaim to find a
wife for his son Isaac. Guided by providence, the servant met Rebekah at the
city well, and the girl was very pretty to look upon, a virgin, and no man had known her” (Gen. 24:16).
She was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother Nahor, and she had gone down to the well to fill her jar of water.
Showing her hospitality and grace to the stranger, Rebekah gave him a drink and drew water for his camels.
Abraham’s servant inquired about her background, so Rebekah brought
him home to her family. He told them about his mission, to find a wife for
Isaac, from his master Abraham’s family of origin.
With the blessing of her family, Rebekah agreed to follow him back to the Negev desert in the land of Canaan, where Isaac was meditating in a field near the well of Lahairoi, where he lived (Gen. 24:62).3 While Rebekah’s age is not mentioned, Isaac was forty years old when they married.
They remained childless for twenty years, until she bore Esau and Jacob.
Rebekah inquired of God why her children struggled with each other in
her womb.
God told her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples
shall be separated from your bowels; and the one people shall be stronger
than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).
Esau, the firstborn, was “ready,” or “done,” which is the literal meaning of
his name, already when born. He came out red and hairy—thus his additional names are Edom (red) and Seir (hairy). Jacob, born second, followed with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel. His name means “the supplanted,” or literally, the one who follows, holding the heel.
The brothers were each favored by one parent; Isaac loved Esau, Rebekah
loved loved Jacob. Esau grew up to be a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a herdsman, a quiet tent dweller, that is, introverted in comparison to his more extraverted hunter brother.
One day when Esau returned famished after hunting, he asked Jacob to
feed him red lentil soup. In exchange for the meal, Jacob demanded and
received Esau’s birthright as the firstborn, with the authority and the
inheritance associated with it.
Esau eventually became estranged from his parents, causing them grief by
marrying wives from the Hittite people.4 When old and approaching death,
Isaac called upon Esau, his beloved son, to go hunting and prepare for him a
dish he loved. He would then bless Esau before he died.
However, in an act of deception orchestrated by Rebekah, she prepared a
dish for Jacob to bring to his father and helped him obscure his identity.
Covering his neck and hands with fleece to appear to his father as if he were
the hairy Esau, Jacob presented the meal, with the intention of receiving his
father’s blessing. Isaac was suspicious, saying, “The voice is Jacob’s voice,
but the hands are the hands of Esau,” but he nevertheless gave Jacob his
blessing (Gen. 27:22).
When Esau returned after the hunt and realized Jacob’s deception, he cried
bitterly and asked his father to bless him as well, pointing out that Jacob had deprived him of both his birthright and his blessing.
Isaac then blessed Esau and told him that while he would live by the sword, he would prosper and eventually gain independence from Jacob.
Betrayed by Jacob, Esau hated his brother and “said in his heart, When the
days of mourning for my father are at hand, then I will slay my brother
Jacob” (Gen. 27:41). Aware that Esau took comfort in murderous thoughts,
Rebekah sent Jacob away to find a wife at the house of Laban, her brother in
Padan-Aram.5
Jacob departed on his journey, and when the sun set he lay down with a
stone as his pillow and dreamed his well-known dream:
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.
The Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, to you will I give it,
and to your seed; And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. I am with you,
and will keep you in all places where you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you, until I have done that about which which I have spoken to you. (Gen. 28:12–15)
When Jacob woke up, he called the place Bet-El, “the House of God,” and
went forth on his journey to the east, until he arrived in the city of Haran,
where his uncle Laban lived. He looked around, and in the field he saw a
well.
At the well, Jacob inquired of the men who had gathered there with
their flocks of sheep if they knew Laban, grandson of Nahor.
As they spoke, Laban’s daughter Rachel came to the well for water for her father’s sheep.
S
eeing her, Jacob approached, telling her he was the son of Rebekah, her
father’s sister. He helped her roll the stone from the well’s mouth.
Thus, in a way, he returned the gesture of affinity that his mother had shown the servant of Abraham.
Jacob fell in love with Rachel, and wanting to take her as his wife, he
served Laban seven years, which “seemed to him but a few days” (Gen.
29:20).
However, after those seven years, Jacob was betrayed by Laban, who
on the wedding night substituted Leah, his firstborn daughter, who had “weak eyes,” for the beautiful Rachel.
Determined to wed Rachel, Jacob agreed to serve Laban another seven years, and then a further six years to receive the cattle as a dowry.
Realizing that Laban was taking advantage of him, Jacob finally fled, returning to Canaan with his wives and children.
When Laban discovered that Jacob had escaped with his family, he and his
kinsmen went after him. After seven days, they caught up with Jacob in the
mountains of Gilead, east of the Jordan River. Having reconciled, they parted in peace. Jacob “went on his way, and the angels of God met him” (Gen. 32:2).
For the second time, Jacob names a place, calling this site Mahanaim
(“two camps”), because “this is God’s host” (Gen. 32:3).
Now desiring reconciliation with Esau, Jacob sent messengers to tell his
brother, who had “settled in the land of Seir, the rugged, semiarid country of Edom to the east and south of the Dead Sea,” about his return.
When told that Esau would meet him with four hundred men, Jacob feared Esau’s revenge. He prepared gifts for his broth er, and before sunset he sent his wives, Leah and Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah, his servants, and eleven sons
across the Jabbok River that they might be safe and away from any conflict.7
R
emaining behind alone, Jacob wrestled that night with a stranger, an angel, “till the breaking of the day” (Gen. 32:25)
. Jacob did not let go of him until he received a blessing from the stranger.
The angel asked Jacob his name, then renamed him Israel, “for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Gen. 32:29).
Jacob named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Gen. 32:31).
After the sun rose, Jacob was limping because of the wound that the angel had inflicted on his thigh in the struggle between them.
The biblical account at this point seems to condense time, possibly
indicating the significance of the connection between the struggle with the
angel and the meeting with Esau.
Upon lifting his eyes, Jacob saw in front of him Esau and his men, and he bowed to his brother. Esau embraced him, and the two brothers kissed and wept in each other’s arms.
Having found grace in his brother’s eyes, Jacob insisted on giving Esau his gifts, for “I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God” (Gen. 33:10).
The hostile brothers parted ways: Esau went to Mount Seir in Edom,
becoming the father of the Edomites, while Jacob returned to his native
Canaan, becoming the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. ~Erich Neumann, Jacob and Esau, Page 8-11
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