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An Exegetical teaching of God's Word
If the Lord told you to work, how would you respond? If the Lord told you to rest, the opposite of work for a time, how would you respond? God has given us our families for a very specific reason. And whatever family you have at this point or lack of fam but the people who are closest to you in your lives, the ones that you live with, the ones that you do daily life with, how will you respond to what god has created, what god has ordered, what god has established? Because he has established love and respect and honor.
Bryce:So now how will we respond? Welcome to an exegetical study of biblical This scripture is God's speech, God's story written through the hands of men by his spirit, and it's all about God's glory. My name is Bryce Ferguson. Join me now as we go into the word. This is Genesis.
Bryce:Our wonderful god has set before us all, each one of us, to have an identity and to be found in this identity and to be changed by this identity for the purposes of glorifying God and, honestly, knowing your identity. Because if you don't know who you are if you don't know who you are and how you are to think and how you are to act and how you are to interact with other people in your life, then you will be aimless or you will be lazy or you will be chasing after some identity, but not the identity. Not the identity that comes from the lord, not the identity how god has created you. Before you were in your mother's womb, the lord knew you. He knew all the hairs on your head.
Bryce:He knew all the characteristics of your body. He knows your mind and the way that your mind works. He knows your personality and the unique aspects of your personality because he is the creator. And this creator, our God, the Lord, is the one who gives us our identity. He reaches down into your life, and he gives you your identity in him.
Bryce:He gives you your identity in your family. He gives you your identity among your friends, But it all comes down to a foundation that the identity is, 1, it's not all about you, but you are uniquely you. It is all about God, and it is about his creative hand, and it is about God choosing and God reaching down and God creating you uniquely you. This is a testimony to the greatness in the creative mind and heart and hands of our creator. So if you are a brother, if you are a son, if you are a father, then you are to do so in a way that glorifies your God.
Bryce:You are to be a loving brother and a respectful respectful brother. You are to be an honest brother. You are to be an encouraging brother who encourages your siblings to god. You are to be an encouraging brother who loves the truth and embraces the truth and immerses himself in only the truth because God is truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Bryce:There is no darkness at all, only light in our god. If you are a father the same, your children look up to you. Your children, even if they are rebellious, they are listening, and they are watching you, and you have a direct impact on them. You have a direct impact on how they see identity, how they view identity in general, how they view their own unique personal identity, and where they go to get that identity. And if you're a son, you have an opportunity to honor and respect your parents.
Bryce:Later, we would read in the 10 Commandments, this is a commandment from the lord to honor thy father and mother. But we can see this all the way from the beginning of scripture. This is god. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His law does not change.
Bryce:His spirit does not change. His attitude on any given topic does not change because he is constant, because he dwells outside of time, because he created time, and our god gives us our identity. Some people have a wrong view of God because someone in some church or they listened to someone speak who did not represent God well, perhaps told lies about god, perhaps only told the judgment about god, like one of my friends that I was speaking with recently who completely is turned off to the church after growing up in the church because she said that god is judgmental, There is a judging aspect, of course, to our god because he is the one judge, and he will judge everyone in the end. But if we preach judgment without love, we are missing the largest part of who our god is. Our god is more loving, gracious, faithful, merciful, forgiving, encouraging than anyone on this earth by a long shot.
Bryce:God's capacity for love is infinite. It's not finite. We dwell here on earth in so much limited scope within walls, within parameters, within guidelines. God is infinite. His love is infinite.
Bryce:It does not have an end. We cannot comprehend that in our mind, but what I'm telling you is God's love is so much greater, so much deeper, so much more merciful, so much more gracious, so much more forgiving than we can even conceive. God's love for you is intense in a very, very, very good way, and he wants to give you your identity in him so you can glorify him, so you can learn from the way that he has loved you, to love those in your family, and love those in your life. And that is a testimony about our god. Let's open in prayer, and then we'll be in Genesis 27 starting at verse 30.
Bryce:Wonderful creator god, your love is intense. Your faithfulness, god, is incredible. Despite our weaknesses, despite our faults, despite our sin, despite our unfaithfulness, Lord, you are ever seeking us. You are ever chasing us. You are ever pursuing us, and you are calling us back to you.
Bryce:Oh god, may we, may I. Listen. May we glorify you. May we find in you our greatest treasure and our greatest love and our greatest pursuit on this earth. May we find so dimly the things of this earth which compete for our allegiance.
Bryce:And may we glorify you, our god, the one who is worthy. We pray this all in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, our savior. Amen. Please open with me at Genesis 27 starting at verse 30. Verse 30 begins, I will say, after the passage we spoke about last week where Jacob father had prepared to give to his son Esau, Jacob's older brother.
Bryce:But while Esau is out of the house, Jacob, along with his mother, devised this deceptive plan to pass himself off as his brother. And last week, we read about Isaac's blessing given to who he thought was Esau was actually Jacob. Starting today in verse 30, As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting. He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father, and he said to his father, let my father arise and eat of his son's game that you might bless me. His father Isaac said to him, who are you?
Bryce:He answered, I am your son, your firstborn Esau. Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I blessed him? Yes. And he shall be blessed. As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, bless me, even me also, oh my father.
Bryce:But Isaac said, your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing. Esau said, is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. Then he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me?
Bryce:Isaac answered and said to Esau, behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for his servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, oh, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.
Bryce:Then Isaac, his father answered and said to him, behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword, you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are approaching, then I will kill my brother Jacob.
Bryce:But the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebecca, so she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said to him, behold, your brother Esau himself about you by planning to kill you. Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban, my brother in Haran, and stay with him a while until your brother's fury turns away until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day?
Bryce:Back to verse 32. Remember Isaac's condition had deteriorated to the point where he had lost his eyesight. And this could also mean that he his discerning ways had grown not as sharp, that his discernment had grown dim to some extent with the way that he had favored Esau in his life. But I'm not sure fully that that's the case because of how intently and intensely he saw giving a blessing to his firstborn son. He took it very seriously.
Bryce:But when his sons came in to visit him both, each respectively, here in verse, in verse 18 first with Jacob and then here with Esau. He asked both his sons whom they were when they entered, even when they had spoken, because his senses had been compromised, at least his eyesight. Verse 33. Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I blessed him? Yes.
Bryce:And he shall be blessed. Isaac was deeply affected by the betrayal of Jacob here. So much that scripture says he trembled very violently. This is extreme agitation. This is emotional turmoil for how Jacob had treated him.
Bryce:Isaac took the giving of the blessing seriously, and he wanted to be sure it was given as he had intended it because there was something God attached here. There was a supernatural element to this blessing that God was doing through this blessing to the firstborn in the family line of the family of God, at least here. Why do I say that? Because Isaac knows. He says, yes, and he shall be blessed.
Bryce:The blessing that he had given was somehow supernatural. It was an act. It was attached with the covenant of God in the family line of God here with the original patriarchs in the faith, Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. We don't see evidences in Jacob's life yet of godliness, of godly character, of godly wisdom, of godly restraint, of godly honor. But it doesn't mean that God did not choose Jacob because he did, and he does.
Bryce:And he's going to carry this out because god chooses those whom God chooses, as imperfect as they are, as broken as they are, as sinful as they are. Because when God chooses, God does something incredible in the life of an individual. When god calls someone to himself, he does so for a love relationship. He does for this love for this personal love relationship to where in the life of this person, god becomes the most important. God becomes the highest priority.
Bryce:God becomes the only god to each person, and that is transformative. And that elevates God to be the only one who is worshiped in the life of each person. Instinctively, Isaac knows. In verse 35, instinctively, he knows it was your brother. Isaac said, your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.
Bryce:This is trademark for who we know Jacob to be. This is on point with Jacob's character at this point, in scripture at this point in their family life together. Jacob is not walking straight and narrow. Jacob is not acting in a way of restraint. He's not acting in a way of respect.
Bryce:He's not acting in a way of even honoring his father and his father's condition. He's not acting like a future patriarch. He's falling short, very short of the mark. Isaac knows it was him. Esau says, is he not rightly named Jacob, whose name means supplanter?
Bryce:For he has cheated me these two times. He has taken away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. Partially true. Actually, while Jacob acted shrewdly and rudely, I would say, to Esau the first time in the conversation about the stew and about him being exhausted, it was Esau who freely vowed away his birthright to Jacob. This was a careless act on the attitude in the attitude of Esau.
Bryce:It really describes how he saw the birthright originally, this story from Genesis 25 starting at verse 29. You can go back and reference that. It's a relatively short glimpse of how Esau saw the birthright originally because of how he acted once Jacob proposed to him giving your birthright. But Jacob was shrewd, and this was true to his character. Now here in chapter 27, yes, indeed, Jacob cheated Esau out of the blessing without Esau's knowledge and behind his back.
Bryce:Jacob also deceived his father, Isaac, and lied multiple times when he went to Isaac pretending to be Esau. And when Isaac suspected Jacob was lying, Jacob doubled down on the lies. Is he not rightly named Jacob? Esau was right about that. Esau said, have you not reserved a blessing for me?
Bryce:Isaac answered and said to Esau, behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants. That means he's given him the authority. He's given him the title of patriarch in the family. He is going to be the one at the head for the family when Isaac is gone. And with grain and wine, I have sustained them.
Bryce:What then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, have you but one blessing my father blessed me, even me also my father? You would think that there would be some good blessing that Isaac could give to Esau, that it wasn't fully exhausted in the words that he spoke unto Jacob. But I guess something of the supernatural connection for what this blessing is to the first, to to the son. It was not his firstborn.
Bryce:It was someone pretending to be the first, but in the blessing that Isaac was giving, there was something supernatural in this. So this seems to indicate there was nothing good remaining that could be given as another blessing. So the words then that Isaac is going to speak to Esau is not really a blessing per se. Verse 39. Then Isaac, his father answered him and said to him, behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, away from the dew of heaven on high.
Bryce:By your sword, you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. It's very similar words in the opposite side of the spectrum to what he said unto Jacob. Let's go back and read this. Verse 27, Isaac says to Jacob when Jacob is pretending to be Esau, see, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field of the Lord is blessed. May god give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine.
Bryce:Let peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you. Now he says again to Esau, behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be. You're going to have a difficult life.
Bryce:There's likely gonna be scarcity. There's not gonna be choice food. There's going to be whatever food you can get, and away from the dew of heaven on high. You're gonna have a hard time tilling the soil for fertile soil. By your sword, you shall live.
Bryce:That kind of is self de self descriptive. You're gonna have conflict, and you may have battle, and you shall serve your brother. Jacob is going to be the patriarch. This word from Isaac to Esau is a pronouncement not unlike a curse. It's definitely not not good language.
Bryce:It's not strong language. It's not affirming, uplifting language, but this is tagged with hope. But when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. This behavior of Jacob, the supplanting, deceiving behavior from Jacob, which has brought this conflict into the 2 brothers, into their relationship, into the family's relationship. Jacob has been an instigator, but and he's gonna lead the family, but when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck.
Bryce:Verse 41. Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are approaching, then I will kill my brother Jacob. There is incredible anger, lack of trust, lack of respect, all sorts of discord and turmoil in this family. And this is welling up in Esau's heart. See, our choices have direct consequences, and sometimes they are intense in the lives of the people that we have relationship with.
Bryce:Sometimes they're intense just within our own life because of our choices. It is a lie from Satan to think that our decisions and our words and our actions do not have consequences. They do. They do, and this is an example here, very explicit example here. Lies and deception have consequences.
Bryce:But train those you love has consequences. And a household which does not prohibit these behaviors encourages dissension, grief, harm, hurt, anger, jealousy, and the breaking of the family dynamic. Rebecca and Jacob's decision to plot deception and then carry out deception and, in so doing, bring harm to Isaac and bring harm to Esau caused a deep rift in their family. They did not care about Isaac's status as the patriarch and Isaac as the patriarch then making his decision to give a blessing in his integrity or about how Esau would feel or what Esau would do in reaction. And now they were witness to the fallout.
Bryce:See, let us not forget that god has established the order. God created man, and then god caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. And he took one rib out of Adam, and he formed Eve to be a helper fit for him. And these are male and female. God created them, and they're both made in the image and the likeness of god.
Bryce:God has established the men to be head of the household, and that does not mean in any way that any woman is less than any man. It just means that this is how God has established the order, and, therefore, and this is why I bring this up here, God has put the burden and the responsibility of the decisions of leadership for a family on the backs of the men. So if God was telling Isaac, give a blessing to your son Jacob instead of Esau because I am choosing Jacob, and Isaac was not listening to the voice of the Lord in that, the responsibility would fall on Isaac. However, if god had said something else and then Isaac was answering and following god in obedience for how god was leading Isaac, then Isaac would be obeying God in leadership, in his position of leadership, and this is true of every single family. And some families, many families are single moms, and there is no man as head of household.
Bryce:Then the woman is leading that household in the absence of a husband. But for the families where there is a husband and a wife and then if there are children, the husband is the head of the household in the way, in the order, in the law that God has established. And, again, this is from a position of servant leadership. It is never an exertion of dominance. It is never to exhibit dominance.
Bryce:It is never to have dominance or have control in a controlling aspect. Again, go back to our god's great love, our god's great mercy, our god's great grace, and his faithfulness, and his compassion, and his forgiveness. This is how a man is to lead his family, in love first, in grace, in mercy, in forgiveness, in humility, and in faithfulness. Who wouldn't want to follow a leader like that? And Isaac's family here is now deeply divided.
Bryce:Verse 41, discord and anger. They're all witnesses to the fallout of what Rebecca and Jacob had set out. They're deceiving Isaac when he is weak. They're deceiving Isaac when he cannot see. They're taking advantage of his physical disability, and he is the patriarch of the family.
Bryce:They're not respecting how God established the order. They're not respecting him as the leader of the family. Again, if he had a keen eye to give preferential treatment to Esau when Esau was not worthy and if the Lord had spoken to him thus, and Isaac still sought to do it, then the responsibility of that decision would be on Isaac. And I don't know that that was the case. But we do know ultimately that God chooses Jacob and that God uses men and women despite their sin because God chooses.
Bryce:And sometimes God chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. Rebecca speaks again, verse 42. But the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebecca. So she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said to him, behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. She is testifying to the deep rift in this family from his decision and her premeditating it and carrying it out as well to deceive Isaac and to take a blessing that Isaac had intended for Esau.
Bryce:Now, therefore, my son, this sounds familiar, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban, my brother in Haran, and stay with him a while until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. That would take a long time, I would think. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day?
Bryce:She sees that Esau's anger is isolating him away from the family. She sees that he wants to kill Jacob, and then Jacob's life would be over. This time, when Rebecca instructs Jacob to listen to her voice, it may have saved Jacob's life, but it's also gonna cause him significant harm in the future because of who Laban is and what is in Laban's heart. And we'll talk about that more in future weeks. This may also be the last time that Rebecca and Jacob see each other.
Bryce:She intends he is gonna go for a little while and then return, but we do not read in scripture again about them meeting again. Now they may have later, much later, and it's not recorded in scripture. We don't know. So Rebecca, who plotted the whole deception against her husband, now has a son who hates his brother. She obviously has then a strained relationship with Esau, whom she probably was not close with before that.
Bryce:Her husband, Isaac, is not well and is now deeply agitated by the deception which she brought to pass, and Jacob is now to be sent off and away from her. Our thoughts and our actions have consequences for good or for evil, and we choose. God determines our steps, and god can control all the dynamics in our lives, but we too have a large amount of autonomy in choosing what we think about. And once we have a thought in our head, what do we do with that thought? If it's an ungodly thought, do we put it to death and not think of it anymore, or do we dwell on it?
Bryce:Do we linger on it? Do we feed the thought until it grows, and it grows into an ungodly action and ungodly words? It builds into an ungodly character in our life and involves other people in this ungodliness. This autonomy that we have as humans is a precious gift from God. We're not robots.
Bryce:We are far more developed than any other creation on this earth. We move and we breathe. We think critically and we analyze. We create things. We develop ideas.
Bryce:We decipher. We have this deep personal interpersonal relationships or emotional interpersonal relationships. Our minds are very sophisticated, and they're capable of such great things. They're capable of holy things. They're capable of developing our lives into godliness, but so too with great freedom of autonomy and a sophisticated mind, we are also capable for the opposite.
Bryce:We're capable of following evil, of following sin, of choosing sin. And in this evil, it is only the mercy and the goodness of our holy God who chooses to have mercy on whom he will have mercy, that any of us are saved from our own proclivity to choose darkness. God is light, and he wants us to choose light because there's no darkness. There's no sin. It is God's sovereign choosing that saves us.
Bryce:It's in the choice of Christ who chose the cross that saves us. It is the forgiveness which we do not deserve, but God in his abundant grace gives to those who repent and trust in him, which changes us. We see the numerous sinful actions of Rebecca and Jacob and even Esau before and even Isaac, which led to this broken family. Heartache, pain does not exist without causation. Suffering doesn't linger and linger and linger without a source.
Bryce:Division and conflict and jealousy and hatred, they all have a trigger, And that is one big reason why our thoughts and our actions ought to be holy and taken captive so that we glorify God, so that we surrender our thoughts to the holy one. So we wait before we speak. James says that everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Look at the order there. Quick to listen.
Bryce:Do that fast. Do that quickly. Slow to speak. Slow to become angry. But the story of this family of Isaac does not end here, because god came to Abraham to make a covenant.
Bryce:And god reaffirmed to Isaac in Genesis 264, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your spring all these lands. And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. This wonderful covenant that god made with Abraham with similar language here to what he said to Isaac in Genesis 264. Then he affirms it to Isaac. Later, he's going to affirm it to Jacob.
Bryce:The same covenant is for the people of god today. This family line going back 1000 of years to when god called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is still seeking us today. And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, my laws. How do we see obeying god's voice?
Bryce:When god says to work, how do we respond? When god says to rest, how do we respond? When god says that we are to love the lord your god with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second greatest commandment is like it to love your neighbor as yourself, self. That also means your family, by the way. How do we respond?
Bryce:Because god wants us to obey his voice and keep his charge, his commandments, his statutes, his laws. He says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. So how do we see that? How do we see God calling us to obey him, and how do we respond? Let's pray.
Bryce:Almighty god, the ruler of heaven and earth, the one who stands in majesty and reigns in majesty, the one who is light, the one who propels the lights into all known creation. You are worthy to the god who chooses because your choosing is sovereign, because your choosing is right, because your choosing is always good. And in your choosing, there is also forgiveness. For none stand before you worthy, we are not worthy. But thank God that you choose.
Bryce:Thank god that you rescue. Help us, god. Change our minds, change our hearts by the way of the holy spirit so that we use our choosing to glorify you, to love you, to honor you, and to love and to honor others. We pray this all in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bryce:Join me next time as we continue in Genesis 27.