Back to Esau and Jacob.
As I said in my post on the subject a day ago, Jacob is not a particularly attractive figure as he is presented in most commentaries on Genesis and – to the superficial eye – in the text itself.
There are also the great passages in Malachi and Obadiah, written centuries after Esau and Jacob lived, in which we are told that God “hates” Esau and “loves” Jacob.
We are told by apologists that these statements refer to the house of Jacob and to the house of Esau and not to the individuals.
Even if that were so, it doesn’t make the problem go away.
Such eternal “hatred” – from God – stands in flat contradiction to Jesus’ teaching to us to love our enemies, in imitation of God, who is perfect.
Can this be the same God who “hates” Esau?
One problem with the texts about “hating” lies in our anachronistic literalism.
The Bible is filled with hyperbolic, poetic statements that we foolishly take as literal.
Jesus asks us to turn the other cheek.
This doesn’t mean we should let ourselves be beaten black and blue, without running away, resisting, or calling for help. The Sermon on the Mount is not a counsel to masochism or pathological submissiveness, as Jesus’ own behavior with the money-changers shows.
Jesus tells us that it would be good to become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
This doesn’t mean that we should castrate ourselves, as one Church father, Origen, unfortunately did.
Jesus tells us that we are unworthy of him unless we “hate” our fathers and mothers.
Surely, he did not intend for us to break the commandments and loathe our parents, as some of his Pharisaic critics accused him of doing.
Such statement are hyperbole typical of the time and culture. They are poetry. Artistic license. A way of arousing and purifying the emotions, rather than simply presenting faith as an abstraction:
Dr. William Lane Craig at www.reasonablefaith.org:
“[This phrase is] religious hyperbole expressing God’s hatred of evil and the wicked acts people commit. It would be a hermeneutical mistake to press them literally as statements of Christian doctrine.
Drawing hyperbolic, black-and-white dichotomies was a common semitic idiom. For example, “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau” (Malachi 1.2-3; cf. Romans 9.13) is a way of saying that God has chosen Jacob and not Esau. When Jesus says, ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14.26), he means that if one prioritizes even one’s most cherished loved ones above Jesus, one’s discipleship is incomplete—a claim which is radical enough without taking it literally!”
In the Scriptures, Isaac blesses Jacob (who he thought was Esau) and then never offered a blessing to the son who had been tricked out of his blessing?
So why didn’t Isaac bless both sons?
Whenever we are reading a part of the Bible that is more historical remember that it is descriptive rather than prescriptive. For example, letters from Paul to the churches are prescriptive – guidelines for what to do in their context, so we can apply the same principles in our context.
In this historical book, the author is describing what happened not necessarily what should have happened.
Just because Isaac only blessed one son doesn’t mean that is what we should do. Just because Rebekah had a favorite and helped deceive her husband doesn’t mean that’s what we should do. In fact, part of the beauty of the Scriptures is that we can see the consequences of good and bad decision-making.
Rebekah knew that God was going to do something special for her youngest so she made sure it happened. Now, I believe it could have still happened without her manipulating her husband.
Isaac and Rebekah could have blessed both their children. In fact, later Jacob did bless all his sons.”
What is also true is that the Bible tells us that Jacob was cheated by Laban in exactly the same way as he cheated Esau, when Laban presented him with Leah as his bride, although it was Rachel for whom he had contracted.
Thus Jacob was forced to work an additional 7 years for the woman he wanted to marry.
Not only that, Jacob didn’t receive one penny of the the physical wealth that should have gone to him as the recipient of his father’s blessing, because he fled from his home in terror that Esau was going to kill him.
Rather than inheriting the bulk of his father’s wealth or taking on the responsibilities of the priesthood, as might be expected as the recipient of the birthright, Jacob was forced to slave for Laban for 14 years, constantly cheated of his proper wage.
Thus God actually punished him more than he deserved, considering that his deception of Esau, at the instigation of his mother, took place when he was in his teens.