Genesis 28 - 33 (Re-run)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly Come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with my friend and this show's producer, Nate Pifer. [00:00:33] Speaker B: What's up, Nate? [00:00:34] Speaker A: It is great to be back. [00:00:36] Speaker B: It's great to be back again. Again. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Again. Yes. Again, my apologies to everyone. My son had a soccer tournament this weekend down in Las Vegas, and Nate and I got together earlier in the week to try to make sure we had this done and ready for you guys. And I just. Something was missing. It just didn't quite feel right. [00:00:57] Speaker B: So can I. I just want to throw. This is a way that we can actually say thank you, by the way, for listening. And that is we recorded this once. It definitely. We were listening to it going, man, this doesn't have the same, like, meat and potatoes that we try to provide with this podcast. And because we are so appreciative of. Of you giving us an hour of your time each week, we're doing this again because we respect your time and we do appreciate you listening. And it's worth it for us just to try to tighten it up and try to give you more of the meat and potatoes because of how much we appreciate you guys listening. Our numbers have. Have been, like, exponentially growing these past few weeks and continue to do so, which means that you guys are sharing this with your friends and your family, and we cannot thank you enough. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:01:54] Speaker B: And so for those. For those of you that are used to having or seeing our podcast up by this time on Sunday morning, sorry that we're late with it, but we respect your time and want to make sure to give you our best. Our best effort. [00:02:10] Speaker A: A day late, but hopefully not a dollar short. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:15] Speaker B: Okay, first thing we need to do is we just need to talk about a couple of the questions that we had from last week. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Yes, sir. The one that kept popping up the most was why did we choose the translation of thigh instead of hand when the Joseph Smith translation says that Abraham took his servant by his hand rather than placing his hand under his thigh? Great question, and I will try to be pretty quick on how I answer this. Joseph Smith translation actually uses hand and thigh. So in Genesis a little bit later on, when Jacob is making a covenant, it refers to his thigh. And Joseph Smith translation sticks with the thigh. And if you use hand, it's not mutually exclusive to saying that he didn't Take his hand and also place it under his thigh. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Correct? [00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Where it has both references in there. It might still be a fair assumption to assume that this is what's happening. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Why is that, by the way? Culturally. [00:03:18] Speaker A: And the significance is culturally speaking, in the ancient near east, later on in Greek history, Indo European history, and even Latin history, testimony and law and oaths and witnesses were tied to this idea, this concept of your seed, your posterity, your ability to reproduce. [00:03:50] Speaker B: Okay, so in practice, this is not an uncommon thing in practice for covenants to be made on the seed of the other person. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it might seem strange to us today, but it fits very well in context of the time back then. And when we're talking about the seed of Abraham and the covenant of God saying that through your seed a nation is going to happen, everything comes down to his seed, his ability to have children. That is a central part of the story. And it also helps us understand the character of Abraham in putting his own line on the oath and not putting the line of his servant saying, I will. I will be the one that's impacted. I have everything to lose. You don't. [00:04:42] Speaker B: Sweet. [00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:45] Speaker B: So just to put a bow on top of it, the Joseph Smith translation and the King James version translations are not necessarily contradictory to each other. And actually it's quite the opposite. They are very much in line with each other, with ancient tradition and practice. And the reason that we stuck with the King James version is very specifically to talk about why that custom is important to the story. All right, what else we got? [00:05:15] Speaker A: Perfect. And if I could, if I could put one little bow on top of [00:05:21] Speaker B: your bow, you can put a second bow on top of the bow. Just do it quick. [00:05:25] Speaker A: Okay. Super quick. I want to take just from this an idea that a witness is something powerful in court. Someone's life is usually in the balance in how it's either going to be changed based on your testimony, your witness, and it's very important to bear a true witness. But I think having it tied to this idea of propagation or seed is this idea that your witness can potentially provide life to others. And that your witness should be something that is very sacred and special to you, that can be very life giving to other people as we go. That is the last little bow I got. [00:06:07] Speaker B: It's fantastic. Ok, let's keep going. [00:06:09] Speaker A: All right, let's actually dive into this lesson. If you're good with that. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Okay. We're going to be talking about Esau and Jacob again. First off, Jacob is commanded by his mother and father to go back to the land of their parents, their forefathers, to get a wife. And not too far up down the line because it's going to be Rebekah's brother, Laban's daughter. So there's a little bit of difference here between when Abraham sent his servant to get a wife, because there is very ambiguous, go choose a woman that you know is who it is going to. It's up to you. You figure it all out this time. Very specific commandments. You're going to Laban's house, you're getting one of his daughters, and we're not sending a servant, we're sending you with these very specific commandments. And part of it, it kind of gets glossed over right here. But you see it later on in the text. Jacob is also fleeing from Esau. He knows that his days are numbered because of the thing that happened with the blessing. And when Isaac dies, he might not have a place at home anymore. So he does not gather his possessions, his money. He kind of just flees in the night and goes under pressure to fulfill his parents wishes. But Esau noticing how much it was important to his parents that he married appropriately, and I believe I said this wrong last week, so my apologies, when I said that Esau married an Egyptian, it wasn't Egyptian, he had two Hittite wives. But to try to correct that mistake, Esau takes another wife and it's Ishmael's daughter going back to Abraham. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So he's saying, look, I get it, you're not happy about that. Let me try to fix this situation and earn favor from you. And he marries Abraham's granddaughter through Ishmael. Though now we've been talking about taking shortcuts. Jacob's having to take this three day journey back to the land of their fathers, clear across the desert, whatever, where Esau is. Just like, you know what, I've got closer blood over here and I'm going to go and settle here and try to make things happy. But as much as that argument is, let's go back to Jacob and Esau. What happens when his dad is going to give Esau a blessing? Esau is going out to hunt the animal. And think about the effort that goes into hunting the animal and preparing the food. As opposed to having your mom take an animal that is already here that you have been raising and slaughter it and prepare it for you. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:42] Speaker A: So there is a little bit of back and forth. We can't just say that Esau is always taking the shortcut Jacob's doing it the hard way. What we see here is that both of these boys are struggling for the praise of their parents. And they're learning. There's this curve, and they're both going to go through this redemptive arc, hopefully at the end of the story to kind of see where they start and where they end. And I think it's a beautiful story. Let's go to Jacob's journey then. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do it. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Okay. This is just as he's beginning. He goes out camping and he lays down and he uses a rock for a pillow. I mean, not our idea of a pillow, but he. [00:09:24] Speaker B: No, I like a firm mattress and a firm pillow, but not a rock. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah, so he's got his rock and he's sleeping there, and he has this experience. And it's commonly known as Jacob's Ladder. And I think everyone's heard of Jacob's Ladder before. Maybe we should ask, what is Jacob's Ladder? So I want to read these scriptures just a few verses out of here, but I want to do it maybe with a slightly different translation. So going into this. This is Genesis, chapter 28, verse 12. And he dreamed and beheld. Now, the word that they use for ladder is Sulam. And Sulam is a hapax legomenon. [00:10:06] Speaker B: My favorite thing in the scriptures, actually, hapax legomenon. [00:10:12] Speaker A: It seems like a crazy word. It is a Greek word. It just means that that word only shows up once in all of the scriptures. So it is not like we are seeing ladders all the time, or this word that is translated as ladders all the time. This is a special occasion. And it doesn't mean. It's not necessarily a common word for ladder. It comes from the verb to exalt. And so they are taking this exalting, lifting up and changing it to a place. So using that, and then also towards the end of it, when it says, the angels of God ascending and descending. So angels. The Hebrew is malach, which means to be sent. So my messenger, Malachi. Malachi is also my angel. So you can say my messenger, my angel. So with that context, let's read this verse again. And he dreamed and beheld a place of exaltation set up on the earth, and the top of it reached into heaven. So in other words, a place where people can be exalted up into heaven. And behold, messengers of God were ascending and descending. So you have messengers of God coming down to man and helping them work their way up to a place where they can be exalted or can rejoin back into the presence of God. That is what Jacob sees. And when he sees it, he describes this very interesting. He says verse 17 and he was afraid and said, how dreadful is this place? Now, if you're seeing something that cool with God and angels and exalting of people, you wouldn't think fear and dread would be the right adjectives in this. I'm going to circle back to that. But he says, this is none other but the house of God. And he finishes off, he says that here he's going to kick off a journey and say, well, let's talk about this house of God and maybe fear and dread for a second. And then let's finish with this journey that he's going to go on and how that ties into this. Okay, why is the house of God scary? And we might look at this idea of fear and say, well, fear is reverence or awe in Hebrew. We don't even have to necessarily go into the Hebrew because honestly, it is the same disconnect, perceived disconnect that we have on our own language, English. Let me give you a few examples. The word awesome, what does that mean? Aw. Some. [00:13:03] Speaker B: I get the awe part of that. I don't know. There's some awe in it. There's a lot of awe. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's full of awe. Right? It makes you. So if something's very awesome, it's like wow, you're. You're inspired or you're aw. Or ah, like wow. And maybe we overuse it to where it loses some of that meaning. But then let me ask you, what does the word awful mean? [00:13:29] Speaker B: It's full of awe. [00:13:30] Speaker A: It's the exact same thing. Awesome and awful both mean that it's full of awe. And you're like, well, okay, and then how about terrible instills terror. It's full of terror. What about terrific? The same. The same thing. We use these words that I don't know. This idea of what is fear and what fear is or should be is a healthy respect for powers that are greater than yourself. I fear maybe a snake. If I know that snake has the power to take away my life. And that fear, it turns into a sense of maybe a reverence for. Because I respect that animal, I am going to keep my distance. [00:14:31] Speaker B: Okay, so put all this together. [00:14:34] Speaker A: All right? So talking about a temple and it being a dreadful place, it is not necessarily that it is dreadful or that he is afraid. It's inspiring awe in him that he's looking at it and it's a place of reverence, of respect, of a feeling maybe that you are quite a bit smaller than what you thought you were okay, finding your place in the universe. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Do you think this could also just have to do a little bit, too, with the. We've already kind of talked a little bit about it, but we'll get more into it. When the children of Israel were. Moses came down and said, hey, God wants you all to come up to the mountain and see him. And they were all like, how about you do that for us, Moses? [00:15:21] Speaker A: You can do the talking. [00:15:22] Speaker B: How about you do the talking for us, Moses? And we'll just kind of kick it down here. Like, could part of it be the commitment that comes with it? I mean, there's. As you go through the temple, you make covenants that are pretty serious, and you promise some pretty heavy things with some pretty heavy consequences. [00:15:40] Speaker A: I like that. [00:15:41] Speaker B: I'm just saying is, like, could there be a little bit of. Could there be a little bit of, you know, not fear, but there's definitely, like a. This is not a casual thing. [00:15:51] Speaker A: There's a healthy respect. Standing on the edge of a cliff, it's something that is daunting. It's something that requires a lot from you, and it's something that requires careful thought about what you're going to do and deliberate movement and how you're going to proceed. [00:16:07] Speaker B: Yep, I like that. [00:16:09] Speaker A: Excellent. All right, let's go on to. [00:16:12] Speaker B: So we're just. Just a quick bow on top of that bow. On top of that bow. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Let's see the bow. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Jacob's ladder is. What he's really seeing is a temple. [00:16:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:16:23] Speaker B: That's. That's. And I love that. And I love the imagery of the messengers kind of coming and going from the place, and that's that. I've always wondered what Jacob's Ladder was, and I appreciate the insight and kind of the unique perspective on that. [00:16:38] Speaker A: And it's doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. Legomenon. [00:16:42] Speaker B: Legomenon. It's funny you said that, dude. Immediately it's funny this time. And we talked about this before, and I was thinking of, like, whatever, but then I'm like, oh, there's a Muppets thing in here somewhere. Legomenon. Okay, let's keep going. [00:16:53] Speaker A: All right. And verse 19. And he called the name of that place Bethel. And you've heard of Bethlehem Beth being house and being bread. Here he's calling it Bethel, which literally means house of God. And this place is going to have a significant role throughout the Bible. It already had A part to play with Abraham and his interaction with God early on that we kind of glossed over. It's significant to Jacob here. And it is significant, as we have been talking about Esau and Jacob being these two nations even from the beginning that were struggling within the womb. And Jacob later on in this reading section is going to say, I have become two nations as he has divided his family up into groups before he comes back to Esau, Israel itself. It is almost predictive of when this unified nation is going to split. And there is going to be a northern kingdom headed by Ephraim and a southern kingdom headed by Judah. The southern we all know about. They have their temple at Jerusalem because they are the ones that lasted past the Assyrians, past the Babylonians, and they come back and restore. We do not hear as much from the northern perspective, the Ephraim perspective, but they also build a temple. We will talk about this later on in the year, but guess where they build it? Right here in Bethel. And when the Assyrians come and destroy it, we know the story of how Jerusalem. And if we don't just hang tight and this year we will talk about it, that Jerusalem is spared from the Assyrians. What we might not realize or recognize is that Bethel was also spared from the Assyrians. So it's not just when you think of Israel, it's not just one holy place, there's another. And again, almost this play between the two nations almost seems similar to what we see with the play between Gentiles and Jews as well as we see. We'll see throughout these years. All right, let's get to the journey in verse 20. And Jacob vowed a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to my Father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and the stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the 10th unto you. So he's setting this up. He actually does a few interesting things. That pillow that he had, that rock. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:46] Speaker A: He takes it and he pours oil on it, and he sets it for a pillar that he's going to build to consecrate this place to God as this holy place. And it's interesting that this is the pillow used for his head. And he's anointing it like you would anoint a head. So there's some Interesting imagery there. But he's also setting this up, saying, I am going on a journey away from my father and I'm going to learn and experience all sorts of things. And if the Lord helps me and guides me, I will be able to return back to my father's house and God will become my God. And this journey therefore becomes this type, if you will, of his mortal journey, this idea that he is leaving God, who is up in the heavens, down on earth, with this idea and expectation that he will be able to return back to his God at the end. So let's see this mortal journey played out in the story of Jacob taking his wives. All right, he journeys to the house, the land of Laban. He gets connected with Rachel and he has this moment where he yells and gives her a kiss and all excited to see her and stays with Laban for a month. And Laban's like, look, your family, if you're going to be with me, let's figure out wages. I've got to pay you. Now, something that's significant. Jacob is going to be acting like a shepherd of sorts and taking care of Laban's flocks. That's the work he's going to be doing to earn his keep. The role of shepherd, and I believe we've talked about this before, is the role that falls on the youngest son. It's always the, the non coveted work, if you will. So the fact that Rachel is the one doing the shepherding and bringing the flocks to the watering hole when Jacob comes tells us a few things about Laban's family. One, it tells us that Rachel is the youngest, which we kind of get that sense or idea. But it also tells us that Laban does not have any boys old enough or any boys period, to be able to tend the flocks at this time. The other thing, when we look at Jacob and Esau, Jacob is the shepherd in that case, back at home, and he has this experience that is going to help him with this role. Esau was not, he was the hunter. So up until the point, because up until the point where Jacob gets the birthright and he's old enough to kind of trick him with that bowl of lentil, whatever. Jacob is playing the role of shepherd. He is playing the younger son's role in his own family dynamics. So Esau did preside as firstborn for a good amount of time, at least until this, this incident where they separate. All right, so Jacob going to be marrying into the family and he's going to be putting himself kind of in the position of the younger son, that is going to take the responsibilities of the younger son taking care of the flocks. But where he is not family, he is going to be doing it for a wage. Jacob says, name your wages, what do you want? He says, I am going to be working seven years in exchange for Rachel. Because remember, Jacob's fleeing his brother. He doesn't have money with him. He can't, like Abraham's servant, just negotiate the wedding price and pay for it right then and there. So he thinks about seven years worth of work is a fair price for his bride. Jacob agrees. He works for seven years to pay off this debt. And now he is going to get his wife. And this is where things get a little interesting. Jacob is not taking his wife back to his father's house. He is still trying to avoid Esau. So Laban is going to be taking the role of father in law and father in this sense. Laban is the one that he has the wedding chamber prepared for at the father's house. And when Jacob goes into the wedding chamber to fulfill this time. So we talked about this marriage custom. Maybe just real quickly, I will hit it. For anyone that doesn't remember or hasn't listened to the previous episode, this idea that you go to the father's house, you negotiate the terms, the father of the bride negotiate the terms, you come back to your father's house, you prepare a special room that's going to be used to consummate the marriage. Then when it's ready, you go to your father's house to prepare it. The father has to approve of it. And when the father says it is enough, you go back and pick up the bride, you have the guests along the way that kind of join with the party and you come in and then you go to celebrate. Everyone who is there celebrates and has this big feast, except for the bride and the groom who go into the wedding chamber and consummate the marriage. And they stay the night together. And then they come out with proof showing that they are now married. And that is the ceremony. That is what it entails. When Jacob gets in the morning, gets up in the morning to show the proof and bring his bride and say we are married, he finds out that he has sealed the deal with the wrong sister. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Karma baby, right? [00:25:23] Speaker A: And I find it interesting when they're describing Leah and Rachel and they describe Leah as weak eyed, tender eyed, and this idea that Isaac, who was weak of his eyesight, and I know it's kind of a play on words, it's not the same thing. Isaac was weak in that he couldn't see very well, where her appearance maybe was a little bit weak on the eyes. But I think it's still a little bit of a play here. He's taking. He's into this room in the dark where he can't see now, and this one of weak of eyes is brought to him, and he's tricked into this relationship. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Karma, baby, karma. [00:26:09] Speaker A: It's coming back to haunt him. [00:26:11] Speaker B: It seems like it's a part of the atonement for this guy a little bit, though, right? For Jacob, it's part of his atonement process. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Is it makes sense that there's something to be said, in my opinion, for maybe him getting the chance to realize like, oh, yeah, maybe doing this the deceptive way is not always or ever the right thing to do. And to me, it's just like, where we get to see the character arc of Jacob. This only seems a fitting. Part of it is to have him also put in a bunch of labor only to be tricked. [00:26:48] Speaker A: And to add to what you're saying, Jacob is the younger one, right? By a minute, I'll give it. But he's still the younger one. But what was he always after the whole time he was there? It was to be the firstborn to have that. Well, now he's got his choice here. There's two daughters, and he's not going after the older one. He's going after the younger one. And God says, hey, you always wanted to be the firstborn, right? Here's the firstborn. [00:27:16] Speaker B: I love it. God's sense of humor. Here you go. You want the firstborn, right? Here's the firstborn. He's like, no, not that firstborn. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Well, and maybe this is an eye opener for him in some of the experience that he has. [00:27:33] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying is it's hard to imagine that after this experience of getting tricked. It's kind of like when we read in the New Testament when. When Peter denies Christ knowing Christ three times, and then Christ deliberately asks him three times if he loves him. Almost. Almost. To let Peter make that connection. Right. On the third time, you get the impression that that's probably when Peter was [00:27:57] Speaker A: like, oh, that's excellent insight. [00:28:00] Speaker B: I. I love that. I got it. You know what I mean? It's like, in a weird sort of way, it's like I can almost picture after the morning when he wakes up with the wrong person. He's going, okay, I get it. [00:28:16] Speaker A: And maybe he had to cool down for a minute before he got to that point. And, you know, I'm not trying to justify Laban and what he did. He had an agreement. He made an agreement. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Oh, no, Laban. This is totally a very uncool thing. Laban. [00:28:29] Speaker A: And he's trying to culturally explain, like, look, buddy, the oldest, always. [00:28:33] Speaker B: But that is part of that. Yeah, he's trying to justify him pulling a total uncool move. [00:28:40] Speaker A: It was not cool, but it's not as bad maybe as it seems. When I was growing up, I always thought that he had to work seven years before he got Leah, and then he had to work seven more years [00:28:51] Speaker B: before he got Rachel. Yeah, I totally thought that. I mean, that's what we're. I think, kind of taught. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And when I go back and I read that text, it doesn't say that at all. In fact, it says that they made the agreement. I will give you Rachel now for the seven more years that you will serve me. So Laban's conniving here a second dowry for a bride that Jacob didn't even ask for. He's getting seven more years of labor out of him. And to be honest, to be fair, in Laban's perspective, this is labor that he was going to be getting for free, if you will, from his younger daughter anyways, that Jacob was coming to take away from him. So he's kind of looking at it, saying, you're trying to take my daughters away from me. And they were going to be doing this. You should be compensating me for that. And this is the labor that you should be doing. But he gives Rachel, Rachel then and there to him and says, you can have her now for the seven more years that you'll do. And as soon as Jacob had fulfilled the week with Leah, because that was part of the celebration, you go in this bridal chamber and you stay there for a week, and then the wedding is over. Then he has Rachel. All right, let's. There's. There's, I think, but still does put [00:30:02] Speaker B: in seven more years of hard labor. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Yes. [00:30:04] Speaker B: He still puts in seven more years right away, though. [00:30:07] Speaker A: Yes. And towards the end of the second seven years, Laban either his sons are old enough to start playing the role of shepherds, or he himself has sons and they start to come out. Because there's a little bit of a disagreement between Laban's sons and Jacob as to what is their inheritance. Because Laban muddies the water. Jacob paid the dowry, 14 years labor for these wives. And this idea that for this reason shall A woman cleave unto her husband, this separation. Laban does not want to let it go. He wants to claim all of it as his. And even though he's giving Jacob these wages, their wages that he still claims are Laban himself. Like, these are really mine, technically, because I'm your dad. [00:30:55] Speaker B: Yep. [00:30:56] Speaker A: He's not. Yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker B: So uncool, Laban. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Uncool. Now, let's talk about some of the unique breeding practices that we see here. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Okay. All right. [00:31:10] Speaker A: Because this is a little bit wild, Jacob, it seems like he's going to be pulling one over on Laban because he says, what are the wages? Laban says, you tell me, because we get a little bit of a peek afterwards. Jacob says, you've changed the wages on me 10 times. Right. This is ridiculous. You haven't been fair. But Laban says, tell me what you want and we'll make this fair. And Jacob says, I'll take all the speckled and stripy ones and you take all of the non speckled. They're all yours. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Is this talking about sheep? [00:31:46] Speaker A: Sheep, goats, camels. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Okay, all right. [00:31:49] Speaker A: Anything that's got a blemish, I'll take. You take the ones that are unblemished. And then Jacob sets up these sticks. So he takes a stick, a poplar, or a willow branch, and he takes them and strips the bark off in this stripy pattern. And then he sticks the stick in the water. And then all of a sudden, all of these animals are producing speckled, stripy flocks with blemishes that are Jacob's. And then Laban sees how many of Jacob's flocks are increasing and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not great. And starts wanting to change things again. What is going on? What is with these magic sticks that make speckled animals? And it might seem from a cursory reading of the text that Jacob is up to his old supplanter tricks. Remember his name. Jacob means supplanter. He's not pulling one over on Laban. In fact, this story to me shows that Jacob has learned his lesson and is doing things very differently to how he's done things to this point. This is what I mean. When you go to take an animal and present it to the Lord as a sacrifice, and you look at the law of Moses, it requires an unblemished animal, a perfect animal. Jacob is offering to Laban the offering that he would be offering as if it was God. You take the best of the flocks. Anything that's perfect is yours. I will take the Weaker, the blemished, whatever, is not quite up to snuff. And not only that, but he is also favoring Laban and. And giving him a greater portion of the flocks and taking the smaller portion for himself. In fact, this story reminds me of when they take the soldiers to go fight and Israel is grossly outnumbered and God says, nope, you still have too many people. [00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. I love this story. But, yeah, keep going. Yeah. [00:34:14] Speaker A: Anyone who doesn't want to be here, go home. Okay. And they lose a bunch. Okay, still too many. Anyone that drinks water out of the river just like a dog, go home. As opposed to pulling it up in your hand until they get the small number. He said, okay, that seems about fair. This is what Jacob's doing. He's shorting himself, I was going to [00:34:35] Speaker B: say, when you first told me the story, I'm like, hey, he's picked up some things from his grandpa. Yes, I like it. I like it. He's here. [00:34:42] Speaker A: He demonstrates his inner Abraham. [00:34:43] Speaker B: He's figuring it out. [00:34:45] Speaker A: It is. It's a beautiful thing. And they say, well, some scholars have even explained this, that by putting these stripy sticks, the sticks with the bark stripped off in front of these animals while they're drinking, maybe they're just staring at it and it says, oh, I want to breed with a stripy animal. And it's influencing their decisions on what animal to breed with. That's nonsense. That's not what's going on here. [00:35:11] Speaker B: That's some weird biology that I don't know about. [00:35:13] Speaker A: But staring at sticks with striped bark is not going to make a sheep go choose an imperfect sheep. Like, I mean, if you want to make a scare sheep and, like, try to know, right, what is. [00:35:24] Speaker B: So what's. What is that whole thing then? [00:35:26] Speaker A: And the other thing is these sticks, he's not putting them up in post that they can see. They putting them in their water. And you don't see sheep sticking their eyeballs down into the water trough to look at the stick and see if it's stripy or not. [00:35:37] Speaker B: I got to be honest. I've never seen a sheep drink water ever. So I don't know. They could. For all I know, they could stick their eyeballs fully in water. But I'm going to take your word for it that they don't. They don't. All right, so then what's up with the stick? [00:35:50] Speaker A: And the last point, too, is after they make this agreement, Jacob says, go through and separate all of them out. So in Jacob's small Speckled group. It's not like they have a choice. There are no unblemished for them to choose from versus blemished. All of the unblemished have been separated out. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Okay, but then what's up with the stick? [00:36:16] Speaker A: Good question. [00:36:17] Speaker B: Wait, you're not gonna tell us what's up with the stick? [00:36:19] Speaker A: The branch. This is very important. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Good. Okay, thank you. Then don't. Okay. You were making it sound like you weren't ever gonna answer this. [00:36:28] Speaker A: No, this is critical. The branch is actually a name of Christ in the Old Testament. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Okay, I know this. [00:36:38] Speaker A: And this idea of a branch with water is a theme that we will see over. And whether it is Moses rod and water, whether it is here with Jacob. And this idea of taking these branches and putting it in water, when you have Aaron's branch that sprouts and grows, that has to do it with water to show that his is the right lineage of priesthood. When an axe head flies into the lake, and the prophet takes a branch and throws it into the lake, and the axe head floats, and these branches, they throw it into water that is poisoned to make it fresh. It is going to happen over and over and over again. My point with this, not just that it is the name of the Lord in the Old Testament in a few instances, but in the New Testament, when Christ rides into Jerusalem, the people take branches in their hands and. And greet him because he is a branch from the house of David. And when you Talk about Isaiah 53 as a tender root, as a branch grows out of the ground, he is described as this branch. And he is like a branch, the tree of life. And ultimately, when he gets on the cross, you have the cross symbolic of the tree of death, this decision that brought death to mankind, that is killing the man part, if you will, of God. God. But Christ being the tree of life, is fixed to the tree of death to overcome the consequences of death. He is hung from a tree. And you have this Garden of Eden typology, again, this idea that it has come full circle and he has come to restore that which was lost. And it's very symbolic, very powerful. And you want to look at the art of this. It was a branch that was thrust into his side in the form of a spear that causes water to come out. So there's a lot of symbolism in this story of procreation, whether it's through the animals, as we see with Jacob taking these branches that he's putting in the water, or even with his own wives. As Leah is older, she Bears a couple sons and she is no longer able to bear. And so her son goes out and finds the mandrakes again from a tree, a plant, and brings it back. And Rachel, who can't have kids at all, bargains with her sister for those mandrakes. And even though Rachel is the one that ends up with the mandrakes, Lee is blessed that her womb is open and she is able to have children again. And Rachel is blessed that she is able to have Joseph, which, by the way, is a powerful story, that she names him Joseph because Joseph is Hebrew for he will add. She had faith, like Abraham and Sarah, that there was one more coming, that he will add one more to her down the road. She believed that Benjamin would show up anyhow. This idea of branch being what redeems Jacob is that in order for Jacob to be able to return to Esau, he can't do it if he doesn't have all of these flocks that he can send before him as a gift to appease Esau. He can't do it if he doesn't have all of these women and children, that he can try to humble his brother and make peace with him. If it was not for God blessing him in these ways, the atonement, if you will, of Jesus Christ, he cannot return to his Father. And it is very symbolic and it is very interesting that way, but it is also very scientific. In the last decade, so we are not talking very long, maybe the last two decades, there have been several scientific papers written about the poplar branches. When feeding them to sheep in the areas of drought and low food, it increases the amount of babies those sheep have, how often they get pregnant, and the amount of kids they have or offspring they produce throughout their lifetime. So by stripping the bark, he is actually releasing the nutrients in the poplar plant that helps his flock become more fertile. And how did he know to do this? [00:41:34] Speaker B: Jesus. Jesus? Yeah, Jesus. [00:41:37] Speaker A: He saw in a vision the speckled sheep. And the Lord said, I have seen how Jacob has treated you. I have seen what you have. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Jacob has treated you. I'm sorry, Laban. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Thank you. I have seen how Laban has treated you. I have seen what you have gone through, and I will deliver you. And he shows him what he needs to do. And so he sets this up. And I love this combination because you have this scientific side of things. Whether Jacob knows it or not, this idea of stripping the bark to have the nutrients help the Lord prosper him, that God's not just going to do everything, but he's going to say, here are the actions I want you to take, because I know you have the faith to follow these instructions. I know that you will do this, and when you do, I will bless you. So you have this science and faith working hand in hand to bless Jacob and giving him what he needs to be able to redeem himself and return to the presence of God. [00:42:50] Speaker B: Unbelievable stuff, man. Fantastic. See, this wasn't even in our first recording. It's a good thing we're rerecording this because this is the dopest stuff so far of the episode. [00:43:00] Speaker A: The branch. [00:43:01] Speaker B: Branch is so good for any of [00:43:02] Speaker A: you who are curious. If you look up in the constellations and you see the constellation Virgo, do you know what is in her right hand? [00:43:11] Speaker B: I'm going to guess a branch. [00:43:12] Speaker A: The branch. The Virgin is coming with the branch. [00:43:17] Speaker B: I mean, the branch is all over the place. What did the bird fly back with with Noah's Ark? [00:43:21] Speaker A: The branch? [00:43:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's. The branch is all over the place. [00:43:27] Speaker A: It's a very powerful image of God. And we see it. I feel like I can go here because it's not really going into a different section of Old Testament. In the Book of Revelation, when he's taking John on the island of Patmos in a vision, he's going to take a tour of the temple, and he hears a voice that says, I am God. And he turns to look, and who does he see? It's not God. He sees the menorah. [00:43:53] Speaker B: How interesting. The tree. [00:43:54] Speaker A: The tree. The menorah is inside the holy place in the tabernacle, and it represents the tree of life. And then he sees. And then he sees God. Christ as this image. He sees Christ holding this. And I'll take you to one more. In the Book of Mormon, when Nephi wants to see what his father saw in a vision, and his father saw the tree of life. And an angel comes and he says, what desirest thou? And he says, I desire to know the meaning of the tree. And. And instead of saying, oh, let me tell you what this tree means, or, here, let me. Instead, the angel says, look. And he looks and he beholds Mary. And then he sees Mary kind of disappear. And he says, do you understand the condescension of God? No, I don't. I understand the love of God. And then he sees a child being born, and he realizes this is the child of God. And after he sees this child being born, the angel says, now do you know what that tree means? And he says, yes, it's the love of God. It is God. Christ is the tree, and the fruit of the tree is the atonement. That is what he came to do. That is the product of his life here on earth is the ability to save mankind. He is the branch. And there are all sorts of references. The vine that is attached to Christ will prosper. If you are not attached to that, it will wither. It's everywhere. But that's. I probably said too much at this point. [00:45:30] Speaker B: That's great. Let's keep going. All right. [00:45:34] Speaker A: When they're having. Maybe it's worth just a small quick mention when they're having this child war with the wives and the handmaids. And we've seen this in the contracts that are back in this time period, this idea that if you can't bear, then you are actually legally obligated to provide a handmaid to produce offspring to your husband as part of this marriage contract. Anyhow, as this race of kids is going back and forth, I find it fascinating that Leah, she has Levi, by the way. We give Rachel a lot of credit for Joseph, but there are some good things coming from Leah and all these wives. But when she has Levi, she's had a couple of sons now, and she says, now that the Lord has blessed me with these sons, this is going to join me to my husband. And so I am going to name him Levi. To me, that is hilarious, because Levi is the Hebrew word for divide. But the Lord is going to join me, so I am going to name him Divide. But that is the thing. It is this division between Rachel and Jacob that is causing her to be joined to Jacob. So again, this idea of cleaving, separating in order to join. And ultimately, if we look at God as the groom and the church as the bride, we join ourselves to God as we separate ourselves from a lot of different actions or unclean thoughts or things that would make us profane. And that is part of that joining process that seals us to our husband. [00:47:21] Speaker B: Love it. [00:47:22] Speaker A: All right, moving on. Jacob is warned in a vision that he. Oh, I didn't even say this when we were talking about how Jacob is showing signs of Abraham here by saying, I'll take the blemished flock. It's not just that the blemished flock. But if any of Laban's flocks were to produce speckled Laban was under no obligation to provide those to Jacob, he could keep them. However, if any of Jacob's flocks produced pure flocks, he was required to supply those to Laban. So his smaller pile even diminished Even more, if they reproduced any that looked like Laban's, he would have to pull them out and thin his herd even further. But he was obviously blessed. He's warned in a vision that he's got to leave. He takes his wives, who, by the way, are pretty upset about this because Laban is supposed to provide his wives with their dowry, and Laban keeps everything that is their wives as his own. And so Jacob takes off, and Laban becomes upset, chases him down, and they're going to establish a covenant between them and a peace treaty. But part of what Laban is so upset about is that Rachel stole Laban's gods. And so Laban saying, what are you doing? These are mine and they're not. It's legally, contractually, Laban is in the wrong. And God warns Laban in a dream, saying, don't say anything. But Laban not great at following God's instructions and dreams. Apparently, he goes in full head esteem anyways, and so he is searching every one of the tents to try to find these gods. Kind of a weird story here, but Rachel puts the gods inside of the pack bags on the camels, and she's sitting on them, and she says, I can't get off of them because it's that time of month for me. And this idea that the gods could be made unclean, ritually unclean, by being underneath a woman who was unclean at that time of month, I think the writers are including that story in there, as weird as it sounds. Just as another, kind of like Abraham, who was saying, these gods aren't gods. If you made them, you're their God. This idea that humans can defile the gods, how could they be gods over the humans then? So that's what that story's in there, for what it's worth. [00:50:04] Speaker B: Cool. It's interesting. Some good Hebrew law. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Now let's get to the reunification. Jacob and Esau. Yeah. [00:50:13] Speaker B: Okay. I love this story. It's my favorite one. [00:50:16] Speaker A: It's a good. [00:50:17] Speaker B: It's a great story, at least of this section. [00:50:19] Speaker A: So Jacob sends messengers to Esau to tell him he's on his way. And when Esau finds out he's on his way, he rounds up 400 men to go with them to meet his brother. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Okay. [00:50:32] Speaker A: And this is where it gets kind of interesting, because the story, if we were to skip the end of the chapter and start reading the next chapter, it would read smooth, as if we didn't miss anything at all. [00:50:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:50:47] Speaker A: Jacob gets word that his brother is coming, and he says, okay. Here's what we are going to do. I am going to arrange all of these gifts of flocks and whatever that the Lord has blessed me to be able to redeem myself as presents to him, to try to soften his heart. And then I am going to be careful and divide my family up into two groups. And that is where we mentioned before this idea that two nations. And when it all comes down to it, in the end, Jacob passes over all of his family, puts himself right up at the front, and Esau runs to him. And as you pointed out last week so beautifully, Nate embraces him and weeps and kisses him. And it is such a tender moment. And the words that he uses. Let's come back to what Jacob says and talk about this little story that interrupted the time that the messengers are going out. And he arrays himself to the time he goes and meets him in between. Jacob is setting all of this up and he pushes everyone on the other side of the river but himself. He stands alone. It's nighttime sometimes, and God appears to Jacob. And you are thinking, wow, I mean, Abraham walked with God, Noah walked with God, Enoch walked with God. Here comes Jacob's moment. He's not at the very beginning, Remember, he's at the top of the tower up in heaven. He's not down on earth with him. [00:52:20] Speaker B: He's seeing that vision. [00:52:21] Speaker A: Yeah, he's seeing that vision. But now God has descended to the earth with him. Here is this moment where he is like Adam and Eve, walking in the garden, cool of day. He's made it, he's reached it, right? And you think about how glorious this moment, how loving it was. God is not embracing him like Esau and weeping on his neck. He wrestles him. [00:52:49] Speaker B: Let's go. [00:52:51] Speaker A: And by the way, this is another Hapax Legomenon, the word they use for wrestle here. God fights with him. [00:52:59] Speaker B: Why? [00:53:00] Speaker A: Great question. And it lasts all the way until the sun comes up and God says, hey, look, it's been a fun wrestling match and all, but I've got to go. And Jacob says no and holds on to God's leg. And so Jacob as he's desperately holding on. In fact, I love the words that Hosea uses in chapter 12, verses 4. Describe this. He says that Jacob is weeping and supplicating God. So this is taking a lot out of him. And he is crying and praying to God because it is physically draining him, spiritually draining him. God touches him on the leg and dislocates his thigh. Cheap move. Pulls the God card. And brutal. Yeah, and still Jacob won't let go. And so God asks, what do you want? And Jacob says, I'm not letting go until you give me a blessing. One of the most powerful, amazing stories. Here he is asking for a blessing from God. And in life, I think I look at this story so many times. We think of Satan as the adversary. Satan is the devil that is always trying to tempt us or ruin our life or do whatever. But Jacob's adversary was God. And oftentimes we find that it is what God asks us to do that causes us to strain or to want to buckle or to let go. Oftentimes, it's what God is saying or doing that tests our faith and makes us feel like we need to let go. Or it feels like God isn't treating us fair when he reaches down and dislocates the thigh at the end of a brutal wrestling match. But at the end of the day, he holds on. And that's, to me, the most amazing imagery story. Powerful. And so God blesses him and changes his name from Jacob, which means supplanter. He's no longer the supplanter here. He is the one Yesar, to prevail, to fight with, to go to war with and to win with God. El God prevail to prevail with God because he has prevailed with man in his dealings with Jacob, or, excuse me, his dealings with Laban and his dealings with Esau. And now he has prevailed with God in having to go on this journey and having proven himself and through the power of the atonement of Christ, of the branch, been able to build himself up to where he can come back home and redeem himself. And all put into this moment of a fight with God, he prevails. And we. It's the coolest thing that we call ourselves Israel today, that we have that opportunity to earn that name. When we prevail, when it feels like God is asking too much from us, or when God is putting things that don't seem like they're fair or they don't seem like it's quite right, and he's proving us and testing us, and when we can hold on, we earn that title that we call ourselves today. [00:56:34] Speaker B: I love that. Can I add one tiny little thought? [00:56:37] Speaker A: Please do. [00:56:38] Speaker B: I know we've kind of talked about this before, but I think that another kind of awesome lesson in this story too. And again, we've talked a little bit about it how again, I used to work for really, really great people. And as I was leaving my job, the Owner of the company said, you know, I know that you're going to succeed as long as you're living the best you possibly can. And he said, if you're doing everything you possibly can to not blow it, basically you have the right to call and insist that God blesses you and carries you through when things get gnarly. He said, that's your right to do. If you can, you know, look yourself in the mirror and go before God and with, you know, sincerity be like, hey, I'm doing my best, and that's what you've asked me to do, and here's what I need in return, and that we should feel confidence in doing that and faith and power in doing that. And this story is kind of an interesting thing too, where when Jacob was born, he was basically not letting go of his brother, but which. Which again, early in his life, it's like, you look at what that kind of symbolizes almost, right? Like he's. He's trying to. He's basically trying to maybe a surf his brother or whatever it is, but it's basically like he's holding on to Esau. Early on and kind of throughout their early lives, it was very much about, hey, I want to get gain, but I want to do it through tricking my dad, or I want to do it through kind of sneaking around and getting my brother, finding my brother vulnerable, and to kind of get it from him in a place of vulnerability, right? And to kind of do that. And it's interesting because later on, as his story kind of matures, and instead of. Instead of being able to deceive his father into a blessing, he's now with God, basically saying, I'm not letting go, even if it means that I'm going to have to go through extreme pain, even if this means that it's going to be physically exhausting, emotionally exhausting, I don't care. I've been trying to do everything I can to live right and to atone for the things that I've done that are wrong. No matter what, I'm not letting go until you bless me. And just his approach in those two different situations shows his maturity, I feel like through that process. And. And look at what he was blessed with because of that, right? And. And look at the almost kind of the fulfillment or. Or kind of the. The redemption of his story kind of all culminates in this. And then when he goes and meets with Esau, right? And I think that this is just another chance to maybe take a look at this and apply it to our daily lives, to our relationship. And I, I firmly believe that even blowing it, if we can at least be doing everything we can to just try our best and to fix and progress, we truly can have confidence, even if it is a wrestle with God. And sometimes we are not getting maybe the answers we want right away or even necessarily the exact blessings we want right away. We can with confidence hang on and say, I am not letting go until you bless me too. [01:00:20] Speaker A: You put such a great bow on that. [01:00:23] Speaker B: Thanks, buddy. [01:00:24] Speaker A: No, thank you. That was great going. Maybe a teeny bow. [01:00:31] Speaker B: Yeah, put a bow on top of this bow. Dude, I am just throwing. I'm just trying to loft you softballs, baby. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Just going right back, I think to what the original purpose of the story of Adam and Eve was. When they tried to do it with a fig leaf and tried to cover it or try to find a quick, easy way to hide what they had done. When God says, here, let me show you the right way, when he comes and they are accountable and says, yes, I did, let's find out how we can make this right. And now we are going make coats of skin, which involves animal sacrifice, which involves the messy and a longer process that more fully covers them to where it is a harder road. At times it might seem it does require a little bit more grit or a little more dirt or hanging in there a little bit messier. But at the end of the day, it's so much more fulfilling and it covers you so much better. This idea of atonement, it and what it can do for you. And the weird thing is, I guess maybe the magic of it all and how it actually becomes really the shortcut, the easy way. When Christ says in the New Testament, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Somehow when we try to do it ourselves in this clumsy way of hiding it or trying to be a supplanter or trick or do whatever, we end up having to go down a longer road of hard knocks before we figure it out. Or we. I mean, you can't get to it down that way. [01:02:01] Speaker B: It always ends up being more painful and longer. [01:02:04] Speaker A: It does. [01:02:06] Speaker B: I mean, it's a universal law. I swear. It's the karma, right? Because if you try to do it the shortcut way, if you try to hurry and run across your backyard with the lawnmower as fast as you can, your dad's gonna come out looking at me like, this is terrible. Do it again. And then you're going to run across it again with the mower. And he's going to say, it looks worse, slow down and do it again. And now you don't get to go do the activities that you had planned. Had you just done it right the first time, you would have been done way sooner. It's a universal principle, right? [01:02:40] Speaker A: It absolutely is. If you want to be like me, says God, then truly there's a transformation that has to happen in order for you to. [01:02:50] Speaker B: It's a process. You have to go through the process. [01:02:53] Speaker A: And you see him, you see Jacob become just like Isaac, just like Rebekah, just like Abraham. And it's a proud moment. And I love the words that he says. This is Genesis, chapter 33, verse 10. And Jacob, let me just skip down. For therefore I have seen thy face. He's talking to Esau as though I had seen the face of God and thou wast pleased with me. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Wow. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Could you imagine seeing the face of God and seeing that that face is pleased with you? [01:03:32] Speaker B: And when he's saying it to Esau too, I think that again, there's such a beautiful moment of redemption there for both of them, kind of like we've talked about. But in this case, if you see the face of God and he's pleased with you, what do you think that means? Right? Specifically, what does that mean? Because I think it's important to this story, right? Because he had just got done seeing God's face. And I'm assuming by the end of it, when God realized, hey, this dude is going to prevail. He is what I knew he was. I can imagine he probably saw the face of God pleased. Yes, because he saw the redemption, right? Like he, he. He had fulfilled. [01:04:21] Speaker A: He had passed his test. [01:04:23] Speaker B: That's right. He passed the test. And again, when you. And, and then so in this relative to Esau, you know, consider what, Consider the anxiety and the emotion and maybe the fear and whatever it was that he was probably expecting to see from his brother who brought. Got an army with him, right? And when he saw, for whatever reason, through. Through, you know, Esau's redemption and atonement, whatever that looks like, when he sees him and realizes, oh, he's not here to kill me, right? Oh, he's not here to do. In fact, he's. He's calling me brother when I'm calling him master. And he's like, no, no, no, don't do that, brother. We're brothers. Hold me. And they wept. I imagine it probably was a lot of the same emotions of like, relief and fulfillment, you know, all of those things. And, and man, it's a pretty powerful image. [01:05:28] Speaker A: And. And compare how he's going to feel in this moment right now when things are right with his brother, as opposed as if he had seen the face of God, that he was pleased with him, as opposed to when he had stolen the birthright earlier on. Still is not the right word. Right. When he had done whatever he had done to win the birthright, if you will, how was that victory of winning it earlier on, when he sees how distraught his brother is in his sadness, when he sees the anguish and he hears him and he's fearing for his life and he can't celebrate in the moment, he can't own it, even though he's earned it, if you will. [01:06:09] Speaker B: I mean, in a weird sort of way, what you just said is in a weird sort of way, he overcame death again, Right. Like in that relationship with God, it's like that's. That. It's the relief of overcoming death. I mean, he looked his brother in the face and realized, oh, this isn't the end. But I mean, if you look at that, again with the relationship with God, right. Like, how amazing is that? That God. That God. That God sacrificed and overcame death so that. So that we don't have to be forever buried in the dirt. Right? [01:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:47] Speaker B: I mean, it's actually a pretty incredible symbol there too. It's just he's looking in the face of the person he thought was coming to kill him. I did not. [01:06:58] Speaker A: And it was his salvation. [01:06:59] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [01:07:02] Speaker A: And this idea of fearing God, I mean, we talked about what it means to fear God, but it's a powerful story. And it comes full circle for Jacob when he's able to go back to his father, when he's able to go back to Esau. And we'll see it here. We saw it when he saw God face to face, but he's actually in the next little bit, going to return to Bethel, where he saw God standing at the top of the ladder. And now this time, God is going to be at the bottom of the ladder, walking with him in the cool of the day, if you will. Just like Adam and Eve. I mean, it's restoration. And real quick, you said this. I think it's very important. It was a great point. When he comes there, he is saying, I am your servant. And he is calling him Lord. [01:07:54] Speaker B: Jacob's saying this to Esau. [01:07:56] Speaker A: Jacob's saying this to Esau. He is saying, my Lord, here is this. And your servant is providing you with this. [01:08:04] Speaker B: I mean, he is begging for his mercy. [01:08:06] Speaker A: He is. And Esau Is like, no, you don't need to. And I've got a whole list of letters from people in the near east, different kingdoms that are writing to the Egyptian pharaohs, because the pharaohs were. Egypt was much more powerful and massive. And you've also got other ones when they wrote them to the Hittites. But the point is, in these kingdoms, when they would write, they would use these familiar relationships to describe the relationship between the kingdoms. They would write to the pharaohs and say, father, I need you to send an army to come beat down my brother. And so any kingdom that was on par with them on size, on might, they would refer to as brother. And if it was a kingdom that was lower, them, they would call him their child, their son, or their daughter. And if it is a kingdom that is greater, they would refer to him as their father. So like you said, as Jacob was here supplicating for his life and saying, I am your servant, Esau, he reaches out to him and says, I have enough, my brother. And it's not just because they are blood brothers. It is that his saying, you don't need to be my servant. We are equal. And so Esau kind of comes through his own transformation on this other side of things, too. When we did this last time, Nate, you asked, what do you think was that transformation for him? And I think that's a powerful moment. I don't know if he goes through that full transformation until he sees the humility of Jacob. Because he came with 400 men. [01:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he came maybe with some ill intentions. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, though. [01:09:53] Speaker A: And it's hard to say. But that humility and love from his brother to come and treat him in such a different way softens his heart and helps him go through a transformation as well. And the story doesn't focus on Esau. Unfortunately, we don't have much. His view of this whole story is not as well developed. But I still think that Ark is there. [01:10:17] Speaker B: Love it. [01:10:18] Speaker A: Okay. And if I were to say one last thing, it's verse 11, chapter 33. And maybe he doesn't mean it this way, but I can't help but see it this way. This is Jacob talking to Esau, and he says, take, I pray thee my blessing. And I go back to that blessing that Jacob took when Esau was so sad and says, is there no blessing for me? And. And he comes back and says, take my blessing. [01:10:56] Speaker B: There's something so, again, redemptive about that in. In. In understanding, maybe Jacob's part of the Full repentance process is making right what he knew he had wronged his brother. And by the way, I think it's also important to note Isaac wasn't wrong in his blessings for both of his sons, too. And. And it's kind of as we're talking about. He. He promised, or in the blessing that he gave Esau, he said, your brother isn't going to rule over you. Which came to be true. And how did he say that he was going to basically be free of his brother's rule? [01:11:42] Speaker A: By the sword. [01:11:42] Speaker B: By the sword. And it's interesting when you look at this story, if you look at that blessing at the time, face value. I mean, even my kids came home from Sunday school a couple weeks ago and said, oh, yeah, the blessing was that Esau got permission to go kill his brother. You're like, I mean, that is kind of how the blessing reads. That's how it sounds when you read the blessing. But it is interesting. Esau does show up with an army and in that process does get his blessing back. [01:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:16] Speaker B: Isaac's prophecy was absolutely still fulfilled, luckily, in this really beautiful, glorious, redemptive way and not necessarily in the bloodshed that we kind of assumed, or you could have maybe assumed from the blessing that he was given. [01:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, he wasn't bamboozled. Can I just use that word? [01:12:35] Speaker B: That was a fantastic word. Actually. That's a perfect word to use in this circumstance. [01:12:39] Speaker A: As much as it makes Isaac seem like this feeble, weak guy that kind of has his wife or his kid play this trick on him, like he was in tune with the Spirit. And in the end of the day, God is always right, and he was a man that was sensitive to that spirit. [01:12:55] Speaker B: Love it. [01:12:57] Speaker A: And I love how these three patriarchs work together in such a powerful example to all of us. To me, I mean, Abraham is God, Isaac is this Christ image, but Jacob is us. This Israel, this journey through mortality, this figuring it out and finding out that sometimes, like Christ says to be the biggest or the best or whatever really it means to be the servant. [01:13:27] Speaker B: It's. It's cool. It's cool where both Jacob and Esau started and. And where they end up. And it's inspiring and. And it's a beautiful story. And. And again, as always, Jason, you did a fantastic job, and thank you, as always, for being so well prepared with this stuff. And. And I love doing this podcast because I love learning, learning a lot of this stuff from you, too. So thank you, you know, for putting in the work again this week. [01:13:52] Speaker A: Oh, thanks for producing it. Nate. Glad to be here. [01:13:55] Speaker B: Okay. So anything else we need to talk about this week? [01:13:58] Speaker A: I don't think so. I think we covered it. [01:14:00] Speaker B: I think we did, too, my man. Do you want to talk about what we're talking about next week or next. [01:14:05] Speaker A: Next week we get into some real sketchy material. Yes. [01:14:09] Speaker B: Finally. [01:14:09] Speaker A: Jake Jacob had 12 sons, but he also had one daughter. Oh. And. [01:14:16] Speaker B: Okay. [01:14:17] Speaker A: And. [01:14:17] Speaker B: And. [01:14:18] Speaker A: And she runs into a little bit of problems in her brothers. [01:14:21] Speaker B: Oh, yes, baby. Now I know what we're talking about. Okay, we'll leave that as the tease for next week and until next week. [01:14:29] Speaker A: See ya.