This week we’ll read Genesis 36. Go on and read it; I’ll wait.
What are we to do with this passage? Let’s be honest: if you finished Genesis 35 and skipped right to the beginning of 37, you would never miss the chapter you’d left out. It doesn’t seem to further the plot at all. What’s it even doing here?
Three things: faithfulness, blessing, and hope.
Faithfulness
God is faithful to His promises. He promised Abram that He would make his name great, and that nations would come from him. Part of that promise was fulfilled in Abram’s lifetime. God did indeed make him great, and Abraham got to see the fulfillment of that promise well before he died. But making him the father of nations, as his new name claimed? Isaac, Ishmael, and the sons of Keturah were well launched, but nations? Ishmael maybe — at least a starter nation, but the time Abraham died — but Isaac still had a long way to go.
God had made similar promises to Isaac and Rebekah: “Two nations are in your womb.” As with Isaac, Jacob is greatly blessed, but “nation” is a bit aspirational. With twelve sons, you can see where it could become a nation, at least. Outside the seed line, though, we get to see God delivering on His promises already. Ishmael’s sons were “twelve princes according to their nations” (Gen. 25:12-18). Here in Genesis 36, we again get to see God Delivering on his promises to Abraham and Isaac. Esau’s grandsons become chiefs, and their descendants grow to the point that they have kings well before Israel develops a monarchy.
As readers, we should take this as a downpayment on the promises to Isaac and Jacob. Be patient; the line of promised seed will also become a nation in due time.
Blessing
There’s a kind of Tale of Two Esaus in the story here: the Esau we encounter before Jacob goes up to Laban, and the Esau we encounter when he comes back. Jacob isn’t the only one that has matured some over that 20-year gap. The first Esau is a knucklehead. He’s not weak or soft; he’s not that kind of spoiled rich kid. He’s a man of the field. But all he cares about is being out in the field, hunting. He cares so little about legacy that he gives up his birthright for a bowl of soup.
Older Esau is a different guy entirely. He’s strategically intermarried with the Horites, settled in Seir, and building a kingdom. His grandsons are chieftains, and they in turn spawn kings. This Esau is no longer a hunting-camp bum; he’s a nation-builder. What happened?
There’s a lot we don’t know. The narrative follows Jacob for his 20 years with Laban, and doesn’t tell us much about what happened to Esau during that time. But the last thing we saw before Esau disappeared from the story for a while was Jacob blessing him to be sustained by the land, live by the sword, and become independent of his brother. All these things have happened by the time we meet older Esau.
What we are seeing here is the power of a father’s blessing. We can talk about the ethics of this particular blessing some other time–“blessing” your sons with civil war is maybe not the best idea ever–but the point for our purposes today is that Esau took Isaac’s blessing to heart. He has come to embody everything his father envisioned for him. Fathers, take a lesson from Isaac here: launch your children into the world with a blessing.
Hope
There’s a note inserted in the Septuagint text about the Edomite kings; it tells us that Bela, the first king, is Balaam, and that Jobab, the second king, is Job. We can’t establish either of these identities with absolute certainty, but we can establish that both Job and his friend Eliphaz are Edomites, and it’s likely that Balaam is Edomite as well. This should incline us to hope.
In the biblical Story, the Edomites are not the good guys. They are a thorn in Israel’s side, oppressing them periodically through the Old Testament and on into the New–Herod the Great, the man who had the infants of Bethlehem slaughtered, was an Idumean (Edomite). So when we find that even among the bad guys, there are people like Job, that should incline us to hope. God is at work even among the bad guys. And while, taking one thing with another, we have no right to be surprised that the bad guys act like bad guys, we shouldn’t be too surprised to find among them the occasional stinker who nonetheless knows God (Balaam), the occasional godly man who’s making an honest misjudgment (Eliphaz), and even the occasional righteous man where even God says “there is none like him in all the earth.” (How many Israelites did God ever say that about?)
It isn’t fair. Job’s not a member of the club. And anyway, if he’s so good, what’s he doing with them?
He’s where God put him. And don’t they need the witness more than you do? Just be thankful he’s there.
Application
Coming out of this chapter, be encouraged that God makes good on His promises–always has, always will, no matter what. Remember that “life and death are in the power of the tongue” and use your voice for blessing, especially with your kids. Look for people who know God in unexpected places, even among the bad guys. You may be surprised what you find.
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