16...An Inheritance for a Bowl of Stew 

 Based on GN CHs. 24-37...Read more there.

It’s been said of AB’s son Isaac whom we met last episode that he is an ‘ordinary’ person. He’s also been described as a 'marking time’ person. This isn’t to put Isaac down, simply to note that others become more the focus of the continuing story of the Hebrews. Isaac is in a way the ‘bread’ sandwiching a 'giant' - his father, AB,  & his own younger son, Jacob. Jacob starts out, as we’ll hear, rather unpromisingly. A slippery customer. But YHWH singles him out & helps him redeem himself, re-naming him ‘Israel’, the father-to-be of the Twelve Tribes to come. AB sends the manager of his household back to the family's old homelands in Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac. Having entered into a covenant with YHWH, the One True God, AB doesn't want Isaac marrying into the surrounding Canaanite families with their idols & other goings on! After journeying back into the old family territory the manager is led by God to a young woman named Rebekah, who turns out to be family! When the match is approved by her family & Rebekah herself, the manager leads her & her servants back to Isaac & she becomes his wife. Before AB dies at a great age [GN 25:5-11] he makes provision for all his children, but it is Isaac who is the main beneficiary. Despite their history, Isaac & Ishmael join forces to bury AB in the same grave as his wife Sarah, near Mamre where God had in a mystical way  appeared to AB & Sarah long before. [GN 18..See 14: Starry Starry Night.]

The story of Isaac & Rebekah continues from this point but soon focuses on the twin sons born to them. Before their birth Rebekah tells God they are 'struggling in the womb'. YHWH tells her she has two struggling nations in her womb, [GN 25:23] an omen of the bitterness that will develop between the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, & Esau's descendants, the Edomites. (See 13: Babel). In due course, Esau is the first-born twin, but it is his younger twin, Jacob, who comes to the fore & usurps him. Jacob turns out to be Rebekah's favourite, & appears to become YHWH's too! Which raises questions like, 'Why does God seemingly choose A but not B, C but not D, etc., over & over again?'. When they are older, one day Esau returns hungry from hunting & begs Jacob for some of the stew he's been making. Jacob deviously demands Esau give up his birth-right of eventually inheriting a greater share of their father's property as first born before agreeing to give him the stew he asks for.

Years later, when Isaac is old, blind, & dying [GN 27] he summons Esau & asks him to go out & catch some game & make stew for him to eat. But while Esau is away hunting, Rebekah puts Jacob up to bringing her two kids from their flock. She prepares a savoury stew from them for Jacob to take to his old father before Esau can return with game. The plot thickens, like the stew, with Rebekah insisting on Jacob putting on Esau's best clothes, so he will smell like Esau, & wrapping his arms with the kids' skins, so he will feel like him! Esau is a hairy man, Jacob a smooth one - in more ways than one! The point of all this is to trick the dying Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing intended for his elder brother. Despite obvious suspicion on Isaac's part, Jacob successfully usurps the blessing due to Esau - & his right as elder son to inherit the greater share of the family property. When Esau arrives later with his stew, Isaac realizes he's been tricked, but can't undo what he's been tricked into doing. All he can do is give Esau a lesser blessing. There & then Esau pledges to kill Jacob as soon as their father dies! Rebekah doesn't seem to have thought of this possibility, & sends Jacob fleeing to her brother Laban in Haran till Esau calms down! At this point, a new story-teller interjects to tell us Isaac actually blesses Jacob on his way, even giving him instructions to find a wife from among Laban's family as he himself has done years before! And that’s another story…Jacob’s Ladder

Question: What's the most important thing you've inherited?