Torah Portion: Genesis 25:19-28:9
Toldot (‘The generations [of Isaac]’)
This week’s Torah portion contains two important lessons from the lives of Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau.
Seek Living Water
The first lesson concerns our need to trust the Lord to provide us with pure, living water. Water is essential in the dry desert of the Negev. Isaac planted his crops faithfully, trusting in the Lord’s promises to bless both his bread and his water (Gen 26:12, Ex 23:25). In the same year, he reaped a hundred times what he had sown.
Isaac’s prosperity brought envy from the Philistines who, in strife and hostility, filled in Abraham’s wells. When they came to make a truce, Isaac asked them, “Why have you come?” They replied, “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you” (Gen 26:28).
Can we learn from this to rejoice in the success of others and not be envious or resentful? Can we share with others the wealth that the Lord gives us, so that they see in our giving that the Lord is with us?
Jacob acknowledged God as the ‘Fear of Isaac’, his father (Gen 31:42). Do we reverence the Lord’s Name, as Isaac did? Remember, it is He who gives us the ability to produce wealth (Deut 8:18). Everything we have is the Lord’s gift anyway – and He Himself is our Bread and Living Water.
The Lord’s Purpose Prevails
The second lesson concerns the struggles between twins, even in their mother’s womb - the brothers Esau and Jacob, later to be two divided peoples (Gen 25:23). One became a strong wilful man, ruled by his passions, and the other was slow to anger and self-controlled, yet a devious and scheming twister.
Jacob and his mother Rebekah used Isaac’s blindness in old age to deceive him so that Jacob, whom she favoured, received both the birth-right and the paternal blessing of the elder son. Esau, in anger, sought to kill Jacob for this deception and later became the forefather of the Edomites, a race that hated Israel.
Yet Jacob himself was deceived four times - twice by his uncle Laban and twice by his own sons – although God was working in this to save. Jacob met the Lord, with Whom he wrestled until he was blessed, changed and anointed as Isra-El, Prince of God.
Neither Esau’s resentment nor Jacob’s scheming could stop God’s Word from being fulfilled: man may plan his ways, but God determines the outcome (in this case, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated…”, see Malachi 1:2, Romans 9:13, Proverbs 19:21). Both Isaac and Jacob were children of the promise, children of faith, despite their personal failures. Are we, likewise, children of faith? Do we trust that the Lord’s sovereign Word will not fail – even when things do not turn out the way we expect?
Author: Greg Stevenson