30 - JACOB AND ESAU by James White

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 6, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 39.

30 — JACOB AND ESAU

By James White

I can not understand why God should love Jacob better than Esau, for Jacob and his mother were deceitful, and told a lie. Why should God bless him more than Esau?

We do not know how many lies Esau told. The Lord does not tell us that. Somehow or other, He has told us about all the sins that His people committed which hindered. It has been Satan's special object to get God's people to commit sin. This has ever been true; and so the devil must have planned preeminently to destroy Jacob, the one through whom the promised Seed should come.

But it is worth while to know that in the great choice which the two brothers made — an eternal choice, a choice involving eternal character — unconverted though Jacob was, he stood for God's plan. The birthright was everything. Esau was willing to sell it for a mess of pottage. Jacob longed for it above everything else, and being unconverted, he was willing to use any worldly means he could to secure it. We find, however, his humble and heartfelt repentance following. As he returns from Syria and meets Esau, he could tell the Lord that he was unworthy of the least of all His mercies. In his wrestling with the angel at the ford Jabbok, the heart of Jacob is emptied and yielded to God forever; and as a result, we find the change of his name, indicative of the change of character. No longer should his name be called Jacob, the supplanter, but Israel, the prevailer with God. See Gen. 32: 22-30.

It is character, then, to which God refers in saying, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." The passage is found in Mal. 1: 2, 3. But you can readily see, by reading the context, that it is not Jacob as an individual, but Jacob as a people, and Esau as a people. The reason why God loved the one was because the one sought Him and followed Him. The other not only turned away from God, but turned their hands against every man.

Neither does it mean, by "hate," that God cherished evil feelings against Esau. It is the Lord's own prophet, Isaiah, through whom He pleads. "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." And Esau is included among those whom the Lord would save.

It is well for us to remember that these persons who stand out in the Old Testament are frequently taken for types of character, as for instance, Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Ishmael and Isaac, Jezebel and Elijah. To remember this will help us to understand some of the references made to them in later scriptures.