Read with Me
Genesis 25:19-26 (HCSB)
This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Isaac.
Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean.
Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD.
The LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”
When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
Listen with Me
Now that the line of Ishmael had been recorded, Moses moved back to Abraham’s lineage through Isaac, the son of the promise. Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebecca, but the couple remained childless for twenty more years.
It is noteworthy that Isaac had apparently learned the lesson from Abraham’s misstep with Hagar. He had seen the bitterness and strife that had resulted from taking a substitute wife for the sake of producing an heir. Abraham was still living at this point, and wouldn’t die until Isaac was seventy-five years old, even though his death at 175 years old had already been written into the record in Genesis 25:7.
So, instead of seeking an additional wife or concubine, Isaac turned to God in prayer. And He answered by enabling Rebekah to conceive. But it wasn’t long before she felt troubling signs. It is normal to feel “quickening”, movement of the baby, four or five months into a pregnancy. But rather than a few subtle movements, Rebekah felt what felt more like a violent struggle going on, to the point that she wondered if everything was OK, or whether she was going to lose the baby.
Rebekah turned to God for the answer. In response, she found that she was pregnant with twins! And not only that, but the twins were already struggling with each other, striving for superiority, even before they were born. In addition, the prophecy indicated that that struggle was going to continue even after the boys were born, and that, in the end, the younger of the two would prove superior.
The birth of Esau and Jacob proved the prophecy correct. And though they were twins, the two boys couldn’t have been more different. The first-born was covered with fine red hair, so they called him Esau, a word containing some of the same sounds as the Hebrew word meaning “hairy”. The younger of the two emerged holding tightly to his brother’s heel, leading his parents to call him “Jacob”, meaning something like “grasping the heel”, a name later given a negative connotation by his brother in Genesis 27:36.
Abraham would live to see these boys grow to be teenagers, and he was doubtlessly thrilled to see them born and grow to be healthy and strong. There would now be a new generation to which the promise could be passed.
Pray with Me
Father, Isaac had had a far different life than Abraham had had in his first 60 years. While Abraham had been a pagan until You called him to go to the new land at age seventy-five, Isaac had literally grown up with You as the primary factor in his life. That led him to a far different, far better solution to his wife’s sterility: prayer and waiting on Your will. Abraham had passed the promise of vast generations coming through him, so he always knew that he would have children. And he knew that Rebecca was the wife You had chosen for him. So, all he had to do was pray and patiently wait, secure in the knowledge that You had always been faithful to his father, and that You would be faithful to him. Lord, helped me to always live with that same calm assurance in Your promises to me. Amen.
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