Bird's-eye view
This passage deals with the immediate, toxic fallout of Jacob and Rebekah's successful deception. The central theme here is the outworking of God's sovereign decree through the sinful and tangled mess of human relationships. Esau, having been bested, reacts not with repentance for despising his birthright, but with a simmering, murderous hatred for his brother. Rebekah, the architect of the deception, now must become the architect of a rescue, and her solution is classic human pragmatism. She seeks to manage the consequences of her sin through more manipulation and planning, a plan that will prove to be tragically shortsighted. The entire affair is a knot of favoritism, deceit, carnal fury, and frantic damage control. And yet, through it all, God's stated purpose moves forward inexorably. Jacob, the chosen one, must be preserved, and so he is sent away. This exile is both a consequence of his sin and the divinely appointed path to his destiny as the father of the twelve tribes. God writes straight with crooked lines, and this family provides Him with some very crooked lines indeed.
We see here the principle that sin, even sin that aligns with God's revealed will, is never without bitter consequences. Rebekah wanted God's will done, but she did not trust God to do it His way. The result is a shattered family: a son nursing a murderous grudge, another son sent into a long and difficult exile, a mother who will never see her favorite son again, and a father left to ponder his own foolishness. This is not a story that commends deception; it is a story that magnifies the grace of God, who can take such a disaster and still bring about His promised salvation.
Outline
- 1. The Fruit of Deception (Gen 27:41-45)
- a. Esau's Murderous Heart (Gen 27:41)
- b. Rebekah's Counter-Plot (Gen 27:42-43)
- c. The Shortsighted Plan (Gen 27:44-45)
- i. A Temporary Solution (Gen 27:44)
- ii. A Mother's Tragic Miscalculation (Gen 27:45)
Context In Genesis
This passage is the direct consequence of the preceding narrative in Genesis 27, where Jacob, at Rebekah's urging, deceived his blind father Isaac to steal the blessing intended for Esau. This event itself is a culmination of a lifelong rivalry that began in the womb (Gen 25:22-23), where God first declared that "the older shall serve the younger." This divine oracle has hung over the entire story. The rivalry was exacerbated by parental favoritism (Gen 25:28) and Esau's own profane contempt for his birthright (Gen 25:29-34). Now that the blessing has been irrevocably given to Jacob, the conflict moves from manipulation and trickery to open hostility and the threat of bloodshed. Jacob's subsequent flight to Haran sets the stage for the next major section of his life, where he will meet his match in his uncle Laban and be disciplined by God through twenty years of hard service and his own experience of being deceived. The brokenness of this family is the crucible in which the nation of Israel will be formed.
Key Issues
- God's Sovereignty and Human Sin
- The Consequences of Deception
- The Nature of Carnal Anger vs. Righteous Indignation
- Parental Responsibility and Failure
- The Role of Exile in God's Plan
The Tangled Web
When men decide to help God out with His sovereign decrees, the results are never clean. Rebekah knew the prophecy from before the boys were born. She knew Jacob was the chosen son. But instead of trusting God to bring His own word to pass, she took matters into her own hands. The result is what we have here: a family imploding. Esau is not angry because a great injustice has been done to the covenant. He is angry because his soup was stolen, because his personal ambition was thwarted. His rage is entirely carnal. Rebekah, in turn, doesn't lead the family in repentance. She continues to scheme. Her solution to the problem created by her deception is more maneuvering.
This is a master class in how God's providence operates. He does not simply overrule sin from a distance; He weaves the sinful choices of men into the very fabric of His plan. The sin is real, and the consequences are bitter and painful for all involved. Jacob's deception leads directly to his exile. Rebekah's scheming leads to the loss of her son. Esau's murderous rage leads to the further hardening of his heart. No one gets away with anything. And yet, Jacob is preserved. The covenant line is protected. God's plan moves forward, not in spite of this mess, but right through the middle of it. This should be a profound comfort to us, not because it excuses our sin, but because it shows us that our failures are never ultimate. God's grace is ultimate.
Verse by Verse Commentary
41 So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
The first result of the stolen blessing is not humility or introspection, but a deep, settled hatred in Esau's heart. The text says he "bore a grudge," which in the Hebrew carries the idea of active animosity, of nursing a grievance. This is not a fleeting flash of anger; it is a settled policy. Notice the source of his grudge: "because of the blessing." He is furious that Jacob got the goods. This is the anger of the flesh, the rage of envy. And it immediately turns murderous. He doesn't just fume; he makes a concrete plan. "I will kill my brother Jacob." His only restraint is a modicum of respect for his father. He will wait until Isaac dies and the formal mourning period is over, and then he will settle the score with fratricide. This reveals the heart of the profane man. When he doesn't get what he wants, his solution is violence. He is a true son of Cain, whose countenance fell because his brother's offering was accepted and his was not.
42 Then the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Behold, your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you.
Sin has a way of leaking out. Esau said this "in his heart," but such thoughts rarely stay contained. He must have muttered it to someone, and the news travels quickly in a large household. The report comes to Rebekah, the prime mover of the whole debacle. She immediately grasps the seriousness of the situation. Her description of Esau's state is psychologically astute: he is "consoling himself" with the thought of murdering Jacob. He is finding comfort, a perverse kind of peace, in the anticipation of revenge. This is how the unregenerate heart works. It finds solace in the prospect of evil. Rebekah, having set the pieces in motion, now sees the board turning against her. The fire she started is about to burn down her house.
43 So now, my son, listen to my voice, and arise, flee to Haran, to my brother Laban!
Rebekah's response is immediate and pragmatic. She doesn't call for a family meeting to confess her sin. She doesn't tell Jacob to go repent to his brother. She doesn't gather everyone to pray. No, her response is to manage the crisis. "Listen to my voice," she says, which is precisely what got Jacob into this trouble in the first place. Her solution is not repentance, but relocation. Jacob must run. He is to flee to her family, back in Haran, to her brother Laban. She is trying to solve a spiritual problem with a geographical solution. It is a very human thing to do. When our sin creates a mess, our first instinct is often not to clean it up before God, but to try to outrun the consequences.
44 Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s wrath subsides,
Here we see the tragic shortsightedness of her plan. In her mind, this is a temporary fix. Jacob just needs to lie low for a little while, a "few days." She assumes that Esau's rage is like a summer thunderstorm, intense but quick to pass. She fundamentally misjudges the depth of his bitterness. She thinks time will heal this wound. But some wounds, when they are rooted in envy and a profane heart, do not heal with time. They fester. This "few days" will turn into twenty years. Her quick fix will result in a long and painful separation. She is operating entirely on the level of human wisdom, and her calculations are disastrously wrong.
45 until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?”
She elaborates on her hopeful timeline. She expects Esau's anger to cool, and for him to simply "forget" the whole affair. This is a profound misunderstanding of both sin and memory. Deep betrayals are not easily forgotten. Her final question reveals her own self-interest and fear. "Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?" If Esau kills Jacob, the blood avenger, according to the law of the land, would then have to kill Esau. She would lose both her sons. Her motivation is, at its root, self-preservation. She is trying to avoid the full, bitter harvest of what she has sown. But she will not avoid it. In her attempt to save both sons for herself, she sends her favorite away, never to see him again. The plan to keep her family together is the very thing that tears it apart permanently.
Application
The first and most obvious application is that we must not do evil that good may come. Rebekah knew God's will, but her methods were carnal, and the result was a catastrophe for her family. We are called to trust God not only with the ends, but also with the means. When we know what God wants, our task is to pursue it in God's way, which is the way of faith, prayer, and integrity, not the way of deception and manipulation.
Second, we see the poison of an unforgiving spirit. Esau's grudge turned into a murderous plot. He consoled himself with thoughts of violence. This is a solemn warning to us. When we are wronged, we have a choice. We can turn the matter over to God, who judges justly, or we can nurse the grievance in our hearts. To nurse a grievance is to drink a little bit of poison every day, hoping the other person will die. The gospel requires us to forgive as we have been forgiven. To refuse to do so is to show that we have not understood the grace that has been shown to us.
Finally, this story is a tremendous comfort. It shows us a God who is so sovereign that He can accomplish His purposes even through the most dysfunctional of families. Our sins and stupidities do not have the final word. God does. Jacob was a deceiver, Rebekah was a manipulator, and Esau was a profane man. And out of this mess, God brought the twelve tribes of Israel, and ultimately, the Messiah. This does not make their sin any less sinful. But it makes God's grace appear far more glorious. He did not choose Jacob because he was worthy. He chose Jacob, and then spent the next twenty years hammering him into a man who was worthy of the name Israel. Our God is a God of redemption, and He specializes in taking our tangled messes and weaving them into a tapestry of His grace.