Welcome to Episode 9 of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We stand at a pivotal point in our story. We have now transitioned from Abraham to Isaac, so we are so glad you are joining us at this point. But that means that, if this is your first episode, you’ve missed quite a bit and it would benefit you immensely to go back and start from Episode 1 to hear the story of Abraham. You could also pick it up here and then go back, not a big deal. I am confident it will be fruitful and enjoyable for you. My name is Mario, glad to make your acquaintance. If you have comments or questions, feel free to find us on Facebook @MariosMinistries. You can definitely leave us a comment there or visit our website at mariosministries.com. Let’s go. [Bumper] When we left off, Isaac had married Rebekah, after the death of his mother, Abraham’s wife Sarah. And now we start on Genesis chapter 25 with the account that Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah and she bore him 6 children and 10 grandchildren. Then we are told he died at the ripe old age of 175 years. He was buried with Sarah in the tomb he had purchased for her. We are then given the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham and Hagar’s son, and we are told he lived 137 years before he died. It is worth noting for future studies that his descendants settled, we are told in verse 18 of chapter 25, “over against all his kinsmen.” So, some of the conflict we will read about in Scripture later, are born out of this arrangement. Then we get to Isaac, through whom the Abrahamic covenant – the promise God had made—will be carried through. Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah, and we get an interesting parallel right away because we are told that Isaac prayed for Rebekah, his wife, because she was barren—she couldn’t have children. As you will remember, this was the struggle of his parents, early on in their walk with the Lord, when they were given the promise of many descendants, but they were not able to have children, so it is interesting to contrast how the two handled the situation, at least initially. You see Abraham believed God, which was huge, under the circumstances. But both he and Sara, struggled with the infertility issue a bit, to the point that they fell into that fool’s errand of trying to help God keep His promise by making Abraham have a child with Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant. And, as we’ve discussed, much pain ensued from that misguided decision. But here we are told now that Isaac prayed to God and, “the Lord granted his prayer” – verse 21. Note, it was not an instantaneous prayer either. Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah and will be 60 by the time she gives birth. Therefore, we can calculate 19 plus years of praying before Isaac’s prayer for his wife is ultimately answered. I hope that is encouraging to some of you out there. Maybe you who have been praying a long time for something, and you must realize that God’s timing is not human timing. We saw what he did in the life of Abraham, and here too we have in the case of Isaac, God waiting for His timing in answer to Isaac’s prayer. So don’t give up. We know for a fact that God hears our prayers and that He loves us, that He will keep His Words—His promises—so we can trust Him in His timing too. Rebekah gets pregnant then, and we are told the children (plural) struggle within her. So yes, surprise, surprise, there is more than one baby in her womb. But it looks like the kicks and movements within her felt so out of the ordinary, that she inquires of the Lord about it. Let’s not miss that, this is admirable, once again. God will answer her, and it shows us that God cares about everything in our lives. We do well when we inquire of Him, instead of what most of us do, which is complain to God about most things. The Lord tells Rebekah, starting on verse 23, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” The matter is revealed further then. Rebekah indeed, has twins. The older is called Esau. The younger they named Jacob, and even as they came out of the womb, we are told Jacob was holding on to Esau’s heel, further symbolizing the struggle God had explained to Rebekah. This revelation by the Lord then will weigh in in the hearts and minds of, at least Rebekah, though we can safely assume she shared the word with her husband. I think that is a safe assumption for us to make. We are told the boys grow up and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents—which means he was a man of the house, if you will. So, in that sense, we can see how Esau became close with his dad, while Jacob gravitated towards his mother. We are told Isaac loved eating of Esau’s game, which will be important for the next event we read about at the endo of this chapter. It is a ...
