Genesis 26 through 28

The world is full of people who only think of themselves, of people who are so selfishness that they never once consider how their choices or their own actions will effect others around them. There are people in the Bible who are no different. Let me tell you the story of Jacob and Esau. They were the sons of Issac and Rebeka. Esau was the oldest and was given his name because he was born with an intense amount of hair covering his body and the youngest clearly, was Jacob, given this name because he was clutching tightly to his brothers heel. Both parents had their favorite son, if that's how you want to look at it. Isaac loved Esau because he loved his game (being a hunter and the outdoorsy type) but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Later on in life when Issac had aged and was nearly blind he called to his oldest son, Esau and told him that he was very sick and was going to die soon. He told him to go hunting and bring him a hearty meal and that he would give him his personal blessing before he died. Rebekah heard Issac tell Esau this, but she had another idea. She told Jacob that his father was going to give Esau his personal blessing and that he should pretend to be his brother, getting the blessing first. So, Jacob went out and killed two young goats in order to make his father a hearty meal...then Rebekah dressed Jacob up in Esau's dress-up clothes, and covered the rest of him with the goat skin, so when his father, Issac touched him he would believe he was Esau and bless Jacob instead.

When Jacob went to his father he lied saying that he was indeed Esau and his father gave him the blessing he intended for Esau. When Esau came to him soon after, both Esau and Issac realized that Jacob had fooled their father and stolen Esau's blessing. This made Esau very angry and he swore that he was going to kill his brother. Rebekah heard of this and she warned Jacob, telling him he must go away in order to escape his brother's vengeance.

I'd been thinking about this story all day. There are so many errors in this story, so many broken hearts. First, Issac and Rebekah both have their favorite son. They both love one son, not both, which is not how it should be. Parent's should not love one child more than the other, but both equally. But they don't and I think, maybe it's the social worker in me, that of course this was going to cause issues. It seemed to cause the house to be divided - both parents wanting what's best for the one they loved best, which maybe caused confrontation and tension between these brothers. Maybe it also caused the brothers to be selfish, which is my next thought. I can't really say who is more selfish than the other in this story because both Esau and Jacob are selfish, just like all humans. Esau was only thinking about himself and the blessing his father was going to give him. He didn't seem to think about how Jacob to might want the blessing, but then again Jacob clearly didn't think about how stealing Esau's blessing was very selfish as well. Neither of them thought about how their choices would affect the other. They made their choices simply for themselves.

This of course made me think about my selfishness. It left me asking myself how often do I make choices based on what I want? How often do I think about others before I think about myself? What would I give up for others? What would I be willing to lose. I try not to be selfish... I try to think of others before myself, but most of the time my emotions, my wants get in the way. I know that this is wrong. My past choices in life have proven that being selfish can get you nowhere but in a huge tangled mess, hurting later on down the road. My selfish choices have also hurt others greatly, much like what will happen later in the story of Esau and Jacob.

Stay tuned for more about them soon.