Genesis 28:1 ¶
And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto
him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. 2 Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of
Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters
of Laban thy mother’s brother. 3 And God
Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou
mayest be a multitude of people; 4 And
give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that
thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto
Abraham. 5 And Isaac sent away Jacob:
and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of
Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.
Amazingly,
to us anyway, Isaac, knowing now of Jacob’s deception blesses him again.
Perhaps he was relieved that Jacob would be going away. But, he commands Jacob
to go to his Uncle Laban’s house and take a wife from his own people. Genetic
deterioration would not have been significant in those early days of man’s
history as it is now in our degenerated state. Marrying a cousin would not
necessarily have been unhealthy but, even if it was, it was a practice not
uncommon.
Isaac
blesses Jacob in that he may be multiplied and a great many people will come
from him. Remember the blessing Rebekah received?
Genesis
24:60 And they blessed Rebekah, and said
unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and
let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
Isaac
passed on the blessing given by God to Abraham regarding the land grant, and to
his posterity. Clearly, Jacob did not physically receive this inheritance but
it is for his posterity. Many prophecies in the Bible are for a future time,
not the time in which they are given.
Hebrews
11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise,
as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the
heirs with him of the same promise: 10
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker
is God. 11 Through faith also Sara
herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when
she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him
as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand
which is by the sea shore innumerable. 13
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Always
keep in mind how God’s plan of reconciling mankind to Himself is playing out in
this history.
Genesis
28:6 ¶ When Esau saw that Isaac had
blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence;
and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a
wife of the daughters of Canaan; 7 And
that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; 8 And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan
pleased not Isaac his father; 9 Then
went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the
daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.
Esau,
like other men in this culture, gathered to himself several wives as the phrase
took unto the wives he had indicates.
Is Esau here, though, defying his parents or is he trying to please them by
marrying a distant relative? Ishmael is his uncle (Isaac and Ishmael had the
same father but not the same mother) so Mahalath is his cousin.
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