Isaac’s Family

"Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated". This text occurs in Paul's discussion of predestination in Romans 9.13. The apostle makes it clear that the LORD told their mother that "the older would serve the younger", and that makes Rebekah a prophetess. Sadly, father Isaac appears to have taken no notice of Rebekah in this matter.

Jacob spent his time with his mother about the ancestral home, that is, in the women's tent where Rebekah would do her cooking, and there he learned to make that 'red pottage' or lentil stew, which Esau desperately wanted when he came in from hunting the deer in the hills But where did he learn to cook that 'game' in the way his father loved?

Was Isaac encouraging Esau to go up into those hills and mix with the foreign peoples - where Esau found a wife who had not been brought up to worship the God of Abraham? Was there no family worship after the first meal of the day when the boys could learn to worship the God of their fathers? Happy the home where children learn early to discover the family altar. 'The family that prays together, stays together.'

Perhaps after all Rebekah was not to be blamed for the deception of the blind old father by Jacob, but after all was really trying to fulfil the will of God. Mores and customs change, and modern moral standards may have meant nothing to the folk of those distant times. It is an interesting picture, the patriarchal home. Rebekah was evidently considerably younger than the husband she had travelled so far to wed. She could still practise her culinary skills, while her elderly husband could no longer see clearly to distinguish members of the family, and his sense of touch was not very keen in that he could not easily distinguish between a hairy human arm and the fur of a goat's leg. There were few joys left to him but particular favourite food could still be enjoyed. And even then he could not distinguish between home killed goat and wild deer of the hills. This is the story of 'old age', when we might be reminded of Shakespeare's words on the 'seven ages of man'.

But more especially, 'Go thou in life's fair morning, go in the bloom of youth, and buy for thine adorning the precious pearl of truth'.

DN