Jacob and Esau fought each other before they were born; at the time of their birth, Esau grabbed their way out, and Jacob grabbed his heel to get out;

Jacob tricked Esau into being the first-born son of Esau by using a bowl of bean soup through Jacob's deceit;

Jacob also tricked his mother into giving him the blessing of heaven through a joint effort of deceit;

Jacob used a trick to gain Esau's forgiveness at the Jabbok Crossing.

This is the general understanding of Jacob and Esau. From this series of events, we usually see Jacob as more deceitful, while Esau is relatively more forgiving, and we can't see that he had any faults except for selling the title of the firstborn son because of that bowl of red bean soup, and yet God did not love him. Jacob, on the other hand, had many obvious faults, and God loved him, how is that?

Look at the problem from God's point of view. God said, "Jacob is the one I love, and Esau is the one I hate, and here their attributes and end have been determined. Jacob is God's favorite, so it is right that Jacob should be blessed, but Esau is cursed and bloodthirsty, and will not be blessed. Isaac's blessing was the fulfillment of God's statement that in the future the greater will serve the lesser (May you be the Lord of your brother, and your mother's son bow down to you.).

Moreover, all Scripture has a spiritual meaning, and spiritual things are to be interpreted in spiritual words. Isaac was a foreshadowing of Christ, and he had two sons, and there are those who are converted today who are natural and those who are spiritual, and the end of the two kinds of people is different. He who relies on the law will therefore live, but he will not be able to bear the promised blessings of heaven. Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see; here he represents the law, and he loved Esau; Rebekah was a handsome woman, and spiritual, and she understood God's will;

Genesis 27

Before reading the Scriptures, first of all, we must understand God's purpose in choosing men; God said of Jacob and Esau, Romans 9:11 (The twins were not yet born, nor was good or evil done; but the Lord made it clear that God chooses men; for the Lord is the Lord of the world. that the will of God in choosing men might be made manifest, not in the works of men, but in Him who calls). 12 Then God said to Rebekah, "In the future the greater will serve the lesser." 13 As it is written, "Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated."

Matt 1:2 The LORD says, "I have loved you." But you say, "In what have you loved us?" And the LORD said, "Wasn't Esau Jacob's brother? But I loved Jacob,3 and did evil to Esau, and made his mountains desolate, and gave his land to the wild dogs of the wilderness."

Moses wrote Genesis hundreds of years later, he had no genealogy, he was not raised in an Israelite family, he wrote this entirely by the silence of God, and wrote this story so that we in these last days might understand the will of God. It does not matter what man does, but only the Lord who calls him. We should stand on God's point of view today and see what God wants us to know.

What happened to Isaac's family is a prophecy of the state of the church today. Esau and Jacob may seem like two people, but they are actually referring to a person in our Lord today.

Here we must first recognize Isaac, who represents three identities, 1. He is a prefigurement of Christ, who represents God; 2. The husband in the former covenant was a prefigurement of the law, and here Isaac represents the law, and those who belong to him cannot bear spiritual blessings; 3. The law is not efficacious in salvation today, and so Isaac also refers to the fleshly ones, who are the heads of the churches of today and are the pastor and elders, and who only have eyes for fleshly ones. focusing on appearances.

Rebecca is the wife, the representative of the church, a woman of good looks, spiritual.

Esau was the firstborn and was natural. There is a law in the Bible that whoever is the greater is of the blood, for the greater will serve the lesser.

Esau: 1. And the first-born had a reddish body, and was covered with hair like a coat of leather: and they called his name Esau, and he was seen of men.

2. Esau was a good hunter, and was always in the field.

From these two points it is clear that Esau was of the blood.

Jacob: 1. His body was smooth; 2. Jacob was a quiet man, and dwelt in tents.

The tabernacle refers to our physical body; Jacob is the younger brother and is spiritual, meaning the spirit within us. The two are one, and that is who we are today.

Looking at the Bible on this basis reveals the essence of the meaning.

Esau went to hunt game, which means to go out and evangelize. The pastor-elders of the church are looking at the behavior of the people.

When Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see, he called his eldest son Esau, and said, "My son." And Esau said, "Here I am."

Isaac prefigured Christ, who first called us the greater (1 Cor. 15:46), that is, we fleshly men of blood, and he turned away his face from our transgressions, and called us unto him, and cried, My son, and we said, Here I am. Thus our fleshly man came first to God.

2And he said, "Now I am old, and I know not what day I shall die.3 Take now thy instruments, which are the bag of arrows, and the bow, and go forth into the field, and hunt for me.4 Make me a savor of that which I love, and bring it unto me to eat, that I may bless thee before I die."

In these last days, when the world will come to an end. By sending Esau out to hunt game, Isaac is sending us out to preach the gospel.

We come to church and hear the Word of God to have a spiritual life. It is the church that molds us and brings us to God.

Jacob's blessing: May God give you the manna of heaven, the fat of the earth, and much grain and new wine. May many peoples worship you, and many nations bow down to you; may you be the Lord of your brethren, and your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be he that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee."

It is the very blessing of being spiritually in the Lord today.

The blessing of Esau: His father Isaac said, "The fat of the earth shall be for you, and the manna of heaven shall be for you. By the sword thou shalt live, and thou shalt serve thy brother, and in the day of thy strength he shall break his yoke from off thy neck."

Today he who lives by the Law lives for earthly things, seeks earthly things, serves and fights by blood, and when the flesh is strong, it strangles his brother, the Spirit.

Men read the story of Jacob and Esau, and still have no knowledge of themselves, and cannot distinguish between the spirit and the flesh, and have not the slightest benefit to themselves, and have no knowledge of God. People think it was Jacob who was deceitful and deceived Esau; when he was young, he deceived the firstborn with a bowl of red bean soup, and when Isaac was old, he deceived his father's blessing with his mother's help. These people only look at the storyline, but not at God's will. Only seeing God said, "In the future the greater will serve the lesser." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated." And we can't say that God is unreasonable and dictatorial, so we have to talk nonsense. In the beginning, he talked about how Jacob was bad, and then he talked about how God loved Jacob, and then he ended the story hastily, and then he couldn't tell us anything. But he could not tell us that Esau was carnal and Jacob was spiritual.

Esau stood in man's point of view to see that he should bear the estate, Esau came to the world first and was called great, but stood in God's point of view to see that Jacob was great, and the two of them together are what we are now, with a fleshly body, and a spirit within. The union of flesh and spirit is to be one as Christ and the church are inseparable, and as Adam and Christ are one. In human nature Christ was Adam, with a natural body like Esau's; in divine nature he was from above, a manifestation of God through the flesh. Because the flesh is visible to man it is called great, and the Spirit is invisible to man, so small that it is ignored, but the Spirit is from God, and is called great before God, but our own eyes deceive us. Jesus is greater than all men because he has the Spirit in him who is greater than all men. Jacob was chosen by God before he came out of his mother's womb. Concerning Jacob, he symbolizes that we were chosen in Christ before the world was made, so who is greater, Jacob or Esau? Jacob knew that the name of the firstborn was originally his own, and in the womb they contended, they had to contend. "Two kingdoms are in your womb" Two kingdoms: two peoples, two kingdoms, one spiritual, the other spiritual. We too, following Jacob's example, must contend for the Spirit, for it is the Spirit that God blesses. When the flesh fights against the Spirit today, we must let the Spirit be great and triumph. How can Jacob be said to be deceitful when he was great? Isaac was blessed in his old age, and Jacob was wrapped in sheepskins and clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and his blessing was predestined by God, so how can it be said that he was deceitful? We are blessed by the exaltation of Christ in the Spirit, and justified by faith; and the Spirit is truth, and the knowledge of the Holy Ghost, and the things of the flesh must be separated from the things of the Spirit, and divided into two bodies. The greater must serve the lesser, it is our flesh that must serve the Spirit, the flesh must obey the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is in the flesh, and changes the will of man, and the good that we do is not the work of the flesh, but of the Spirit, so that the Spirit may have dominion over the flesh in the service of God. The flesh cannot control the things of the Spirit; the Spirit can change the flesh.

This article is from the Network of the Green Olive Tree, originally published at http://www.qgls.org

No one of all the fathers was so silent as Isaac; and no one lived so recluse and so simple a life as he did: nor do I know whether he showed himself to be a better son, or whether he was a better husband; in the case of the former, he surrendered himself to his father's sword. himself to his father's sword, and mourned for his mother for three years; in the latter case, he made no attempt to cohabit with any of his ambassadresses, but was faithful and patient, and left himself twenty years, and prayed. Rebekah was not allowed to bear children for so long, and his prayers were shown to be of great efficacy, far beyond those of his descendants. Eventually she conceived, not out of her own power, but through her husband's faith, as if she were more than just a daughter-in-law of Sarah who had given her son to her.

God is often good to us, more than we ask. Isaac prayed for a son, and God gave him two at once. Now she suffered no less from the struggle for a child in her womb than she had previously suffered from being childless. We do not know when we will be satisfied: we are often dissatisfied with the fulfillment of our requests; we complain when we are easily satisfied and when we are hungry. Before Rebekah conceived, she was content. Before spiritual regeneration there is peace in the souls of men: as soon as the new man is formed in us, the passions immediately contend with the Holy Spirit. Where there is no turmoil, there is no grace. With Esau alone, there is no contention. Human nature is always at war with itself. Rebekah did not conceive only one Esau, nor was she so happy as to conceive only one Jacob: she must be the mother of both, that she might have both joy and trial. This contention begins early: every true Israelite begins his warfare as soon as he has life. We do not know how many battles there are that have no precursor or meaning!

These two men were fighters of the two kingdoms: the battlefield was in their mother's womb, and what they fought for was the battle for seat and superiority. Esau got the right of flesh, Jacob the right of grace; yet when there was some appearance of equality, lest Esau should outrun his brother into the world at a fast run, Jacob clung to his heels; and thus one of his hands was born before the other's one foot. But because Esau was a few minutes older, the younger, in order that he might better claim what God had already promised, bought that which he could not win. If by contending, or buying, or pleading, we can obtain spiritual blessings, we are satisfied. Had Jacob been first born, he would not have known how much he depended on God for his favor to exaltation.

Besides the forbidden fruit, there is no other soup than that of Jacob, which was purchased at so great a price; and in both cases cursed is the man who gets to eat of it. Every true child of Israel gladly purchases spiritual favor with earthly things; and he who does not prefer death to the name of his firstborn, has too much of Esau's blood in him.

But if Esau, who cared nothing for the name of his firstborn, sold it and was blessed, what did he lose? Or if his brother's game canceled out Jacob's soup, what did Jacob gain? Yet this is what the aged Isaac was set on doing, and Isaac was as blind in his feelings at this time as he was in his old eyes. God had forewarned him that in the future the greater would serve the lesser, yet Isaac would bless Esau.

It was as difficult for Abraham to harmonize the promises of God with the offering of Isaac as it was for Isaac to harmonize the primacy of Jacob with the blessing of Esau; for in the former case God's hand was in it, and in the latter, his own hand alone. God's most precious saints are sometimes overcome by affection. Isaac saw himself favored over Ishmael, though he was his brother. He saw his father obeying God's command to willfully forget flesh and blood, and bind him in order to offer him as a sacrifice. He saw Esau lewdly marrying a foreigner, yet he was to remember nothing, but that Esau was my firstborn. Yet how gracious is God, that when we would sin, he would not let us sin! Let us so order our works that we do not do what we would, but what we should!

As God has ordained the little one to be a ruler, so He has ordained him to be blessed: when His will is wrought, there shall be no lack of means. It is better for a mother to defeat her son and deceive her father, than for a father to cheat his chosen son out of the blessing he deserves. What good was Jacob to Rebekah, that he should triumph over Esau? What mother does not love her firstborn son more? But now God has made the mother's love to favor the younger one against the habits of human nature, because the father loves the older one against the promise. Parental love is divided: in order to bring about the fulfillment of the promise, Rebekah would respond to Isaac's partiality with cunning; Isaac would unfairly turn Esau into Jacob, and Rebekah would actually and cunningly turn Jacob into Esau: her wish was good, her method was unlawful. It is true that God often uses our weakness to accomplish His righteous will; yet this does not justify our weakness, nor does it taint His own works.

Here is no other than forgery; a forged man, a forged name, a forged game, a forged answer, but behold, there is a true blessing; but the blessing is to bless the man, not the means. So immodest were these means, that Jacob himself indeed feared the curse they incurred more than he hoped for their success. Isaac was now both naive and old, and yet if he had really discovered the deception, Jacob could have been more sure of the curse than he could have been that he would not be recognized.

Those who are simple in themselves hate deception in others. Rebekah, recognizing God's holy word and her husband's innocence, boldly bore the danger for Jacob, and gave him counsel to do it, and cooked his food, yea, both food and man by her hand; and now taught him the words of his mouth, and put the food in his hand, and put the garment on his back, and the skin of the goat on the part of his body that was exposed to the eye, and sent him in, and thus set him up for blessing, and no doubt stood at the door to see the success of her how the scheme succeeded. If the aged Isaac by any perception should discern the contrivance, she would at once go in and take the blame, and entreat him earnestly with that known will of God concerning which Jacob was to reign, and Esau was to serve, either by old age or by doting, so that Isaac should forget the will.

Now she wished that she could just as well borrow Esau's clothes as his tongue, so that she might securely deceive him in all his perceptions, which he had made himself the more dangerously subject to the deceptions of his feelings. But this is too much for her to settle: her son must speak of himself as Esau in Jacob's voice. It is hard not only to behave ourselves, but to keep our tongues from revealing what we are. It was enough to cause Isaac to be skeptical, to raise questions, but not to disbelieve. It is hard for one who is good himself to trust in the evil of others, and would rather disbelieve his own senses than the faithfulness of those in whom he trusts. Isaac used all his senses to examine, and none but his ears adhered to the judgment made: to deceive Isaac's ears, Jacob had to support his pretense with three lies in one breath: I am Esau; - as thou hast commanded me; - my game. The one sin of being received, draws in the other; and if compelled to dwell alone, he neither departs nor perishes. I love Jacob's blessings, but I hate his lies. What Jacob was weak to do in order to be blessed, I will not willfully do. The God who pardoned his weakness shall curse my stubbornness.　　

Good Isaac stretched out his hand to test whether what his ear told him was right; he touched the hand of the man whose voice he doubted: the heart of an honest man would not think of falsifying his skin, which is much easier than falsifying his lungs. Evil has not made it prudent to satisfy men with small satisfactions. Isaac believed and blessed the younger son who wore the clothes of the older son. If our heavenly Father smells the fragrance of our elder brother's clothes on our backs, we cannot go away from Him without receiving a blessing.

Jacob had just departed, filled with the joy of his blessing, when Esau came in, full of expectation of the blessing; and now he regrets that he betrayed that blessing for the sake of that soup between the hungers, and wished he could have bought it back again with the game, but it was too late. The hopes of the wicked will fail them in the hour of their greatest eagerness, and the children of God find a comfort in the midst of their distresses which they dare not think of.

Now he comes in, panting and sweating for his reward, and gets nothing but rejection. When the wicked think they have earned God's reward and proudly come to ask for favor, they get no answer but "Who are you? The Father and the Son marveled at each other, the one with fear, the other with grief. Isaac trembled, Esau wept bitterly; the one on account of conscience, the other of envy. Isaac's heart now told him that he should not plan to send out the blessing as he had intended, and that the blessing was due to the one to whom it had been given, and not to the one to whom he had intended it. So he dares not reverse what he had already done except according to his own will, or according to God's will: for now he sees that he had done righteousness unintentionally. God will find time and means to get back that which is his own, to prevent them from sinning, and to show and correct their wrongs. Who would have expected Esau to shed tears? Or who would have dared to believe the tears when they saw them coming from such unethical eyes?

"Bless me also, O my Father," is well said. Every wicked man can ask for favor for himself, and if asking for a blessing were enough, then no one would be miserable. Why did he not weep over the soup to his brethren, but ask Isaac for a blessing? If he had not betrayed, he need not beg now. God is just in not giving us the favor which we neglect to keep, and which we disregard in our enjoyment. Esau's tears did not make Isaac sorry, but Isaac was sorry for one thing, that Jacob had done what he ought to have done, but he had done it by trickery.

No motive can make a good man repent of what he has done well. How blessed it is to know the day of grace, and not to neglect it! What despair to know it and neglect it! These tears are both too late and false; they are tears of rage, envy, and carnal desires. Worldly sorrow is a call to death. Though Esau thus howled for a blessing, I heard him cry for his father's reserve, "Hast thou left no blessing that may be wished for me?" Weeping for his brother's cunning, "Is it not right that his name is Jacob?" I do not hear him blame his own faults. He could not see that in spite of his father's deception and his brother's cunning, God was righteous, and that he himself was disqualified. He knew that he coveted the world, and yet he made a claim to be blessed.

Those who do not care to please God, but are concerned about obtaining His external favor, are quick to complain if they do not receive it; as if He owes them something, and they are free to do as they please. Yet God is so full of mercy that he has a second blessing to give to those who do not love him, and to give them all that they care for. That same blessing of special love was given to none but Israel; but those universal graces were given to those who betrayed the name of their firstborn. This blessing was far more than Esau deserved, and yet he was like the second Cain, who was determined to kill his brother, because he was more pleasing to God. I know not whether he was a worse son, or a worse brother; he wished his father dead, and planned the death of his brother, and swore that he would shed human blood, and not tears. But the wicked cannot do what they will: the mighty wrestler with whom Jacob wrestled over him overpowered Esau, and turned the wounds he had added into kisses. A company of men came with Esau, and a company of angels met Jacob. Esau threatened and Jacob prayed; his prayers and gifts melted Esau's heart into love. Now Jacob saw in Esau's face not the grim, serious face of the executioner, but the face of God. Men and demons were foiled; the proudest hearts could not resist God. He who can wrestle earnestly with God is safe from the injuries of men. Those whose hearts are filled with anger and malice, and whom tears cannot turn back, are subdued by love: if what a man does pleases God, he also reconciles his enemies to him.