Earning God's Contempt - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Genesis 27:36,

"Isn't he rightly named Jacob? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!"

Here is something I wrote about this verse in February, 2020:

Here is Esau's complaint to his father, Isaac, upon learning the blessing he was expecting from him was stolen through trickery. I note that Esau claims Jacob had taken advantage of him a "second time", the first was his birthright and now his blessing from his father (which was quite consequential).

I'm sure Esau felt the way he expressed himself, but here is what really happened when Jacob took Esau's birthright (which was quite consequential as well):

"Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, 'Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!' (That is why he was also called Edom.) Jacob replied, 'First sell me your birthright.' 'Look, I am about to die,' Esau said. 'What good is the birthright to me?' But Jacob said, 'Swear to me first.' So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright." Genesis 25:29-34.

Esau "despised" his birthright by giving it to Jacob for a pot of lentil stew! Now, when he lost his blessing from Isaac (through real trickery where both Jacob, and Esau's own mother, Rebekah, conspired to do so), looking back he claims Jacob "took" it from him by taking advantage of him.

It really is amazing how foolish choices will often tend to be "reinterpreted" after the fact and certainly when repercussions follow. Esau's choices earned God's contempt for him as Paul notes in Romans 9:13 (in a quote from Malachi 1:2-3), "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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