Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:
1. You wrote: “God's predetermine will that the ‘elder will serve the
younger’."
W-h-y is that such a major theme in the Patriarchal narratives? That was
not the view of the Hebrews or Jews in the 1st millennium BCE. Why does the
firstborn son get the shaft, and properly so, in every generation in the
Patriarchal narratives? Haran, Ishmael, Esau and Reuben. 4 for 4.
And why is it that both Ishmael and Esau are archers, who hunt with a bow?
Esau is compared unfavorably with Jacob at Genesis 25: 27, but we need to
try to isolate the precise reason for that.
2. You wrote: “Both of Jacob's and Esau's characters cast in negative
lights.
a. Esau's despising of his rights as Firstborn and the Blessing.
b. Jacob's conniving.”
That’s not how the Hebrew author views Jacob. Immediately before the
selling of the birthright story, we are explicitly told that Jacob is TM, that
is, “upright” and “proper” and “well-rounded” and “complete” and “a man of
the community”.
Esau apparently thinks that the reason why Isaac favors Esau over Jacob has
little or nothing to do with birth order, but rather has everything to do
with, in Esau’s opinion, the fact that Esau is allegedly much more
meritorious than Jacob. In fact, Jacob has more merit than Esau: the twins
are
equally aggressive, but Jacob is smarter than Esau.
Note that Isaac and Rebekah do not decide which twin son will be chosen to
be the leader of the next generation of early monotheists based on “Esau's
despising of his rights as Firstborn and the Blessing”, or on “Jacob's
conniving” on that occasion. The point of that story, rather, is to show that
Jacob, unlike Esau, shrewdly discerned that the basis for Isaac’s favoritism
of Esau was not based on the true respective merits of the boys, but rather
was based on the non-meritorious fact of birth order. We slowly start to see
what the Hebrew author is trying to tell us.
3. You wrote: “Isaac's and Rebekkah's favoritism toward Esau and Jacob,
respectively.”
As the Hebrew author presents it, Rebekah is not portrayed as showing
improper favoritism toward Jacob. Rather, Rebekah, who is the smartest woman
in
the Hebrew Bible, is portrayed as having correctly discerned the divine
Will. Rebekah’s dream about the elder serving, or being served by, the younger
was ambiguous on its face in the Hebrew language. But Rebekah discerned
that it unambiguously put a focus on birth order. Brilliant Rebekah was able
to follow up on that key clue and see that the first two Patriarchs were
younger sons, not firstborn sons. On that basis, Rebekah correctly deduced
that
the divine Will was that a younger son must be chosen to be the leader of
the next generation of early monotheists. That was not “favoritism”, nor
was it “undue”. Rather, that was divine inspiration.
Isaac favored Esau, based on improper favoritism for the firstborn, until
the 11th hour, but not beyond then. Isaac knows it’s Jacob impersonating
Esau: “21Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Please come near, that I may feel you, my
son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’ 22So Jacob went
near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s
voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’" Genesis 27: 21-22. Isaac knew
Rebekah had put Jacob up to this. Isaac was a man who loved his own wife, and
knew that she was incredibly smart. Isaac finally decided, at the 11th
hour, that his wife Rebekah had correctly discerned the divine Will, and that
Isaac should not try to thwart that. So Isaac does the right thing by
following his beloved wife’s advice and selecting Jacob over Esau. Sarah had
insisted that Abraham choose Isaac over Ishmael, and YHWH had explicitly told
Abraham to follow what Sarah said: “But God said to Abraham, ‘…Whatever Sarah
says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be
named.’” Genesis 21: 12. And though it’s not nearly as obvious, Jacob in
turn will end up honoring Leah’s dying wish that the leader of the next
generation of early monotheists must be, like each previous successor
Patriarch,
a son of the previous Patriarch’s original main wife #1, which knocks out
Jacob’s favorite sons Joseph and Benjamin.
The divine Will remains the same throughout the Patriarchal narratives.
The winning son is always a younger son, who initially is not his father’s
favorite son, and whose mother is his father’s original main wife #1. The
Hebrew author views Rebekah positively for brilliantly discerning the divine
Will. Please note how YHWH reacts to Rebekah’s choice of Jacob, in the
super-famous Jacob’s Ladder sequence: "‘I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your
father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you [Jacob] lie I will give to
you and to your offspring. 14Your offspring shall be like 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 your offspring shall all the families of
the earth be blessed. 15Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever
you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I
have done what I have promised you.’" Genesis 28: 13-15. YHWH does not
view either Jacob or Rebekah as having done any improper conniving. Rather,
YHWH knows that their audacious actions have served to implement the divine
Will.
4. You wrote: “Esau's continual unbelief versus Jacob's growing belief in
the God of Abraham and Isaac.”
Although that sounds logical to us today, in fact that theme never appears
in the Patriarchal narratives. YHWH does not appear to Esau. Esau is given
no opportunity to either embrace or reject YHWH. “Unbelief” or lack of
proper religious belief is not a factor in the Patriarchal narratives. Esau
properly gets the shaft because he is the firstborn son, not because he was
given the chance to embrace YHWH but failed to do so. Rebekah’s dream when
she was pregnant was n-o-t that one son would embrace YHWH and the other
would not. No, her divinely-inspired dream was about birth order.
5. You wrote: “True, Esau was the hunter and Jacob was the shepherd, the
text does not say any more than that.”
As teenagers, indeed “Esau was the hunter and Jacob was the shepherd”.
But the text does in fact say more than that. Genesis 36: 6-7 tells us that
Esau in due course became a shepherd, and lived the same lifestyle as Jacob.
Moreover, hunting per se is not bad. Rather, it’s the type of hunting that
Esau is doing, and the reason why Esau is doing that hunting, that reflect
badly on Esau at Genesis 25: 27. This can be seen from an examination of
Late Bronze Age burials in southern Canaan, as I will plan to discuss in a
future post on this thread. We need to approach Genesis 25: 27 from an
historical perspective, and not impose our own modern view on what the Hebrew
author is trying to tell us.
6. You wrote: “Both Esau and Jacob were extremely selfish to the point of
despising (Esau) and deception (Jacob).”
That’s not how the Hebrew author views these matters. Esau’s fatal flaw
is that he is the firstborn son. You yourself said that quite nicely at the
beginning of your post: “God's predetermine will that the ‘elder will serve
the younger’."
Jacob does not engage in deception in the selling of the birthright
sequence. True, Jacob does engage in deception in the sequence that convinces
Isaac to make the right decision by choosing Jacob over Esau. But that was
based on Rebekah brilliantly discerning the divine Will. YHWH never criticizes
Jacob, even obliquely, for Jacob’s actions regarding obtaining the blessing
from Isaac. On the contrary, YHWH blesses Jacob unequivocally.
7. You wrote: “It appears that eisegesis is raising its head again.”
That’s what you do in decrying Jacob’s “deception” and Rebekah’s “
favoritism” of Jacob. The Hebrew author is making a very different point:
Esau
gets the shaft, and properly so, just like Haran, Ishmael and Reuben, on the
basis of being the firstborn son. That peculiar, unrelenting theme makes no
sense in a 1st millennium BCE context, and you yourself may not like it.
But it fits the historical time period of the Patriarchal narratives
perfectly.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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