January 12 - Genesis 26:34-28:22

Esau -- I wish I knew more about him.  Did he have total disregard for his family and the traditions of his people?  Is that why he sold his birthright?  Out of disregard and/or ignorance?  It couldn't have just been hunger.  Or, at least, literal hunger.  He was empty.  He just didn't care.  But still.  Does that Esau would trade does it make it right for Jacob to steal his blessing along with the birthright?  What Jacob does is wrong.  But God will use it for good.  It's the story of man and God.  In His acknowledgment and use of sin, it almost seems like sin is a necessary part of God's plan.  Or, is it comforting for us to know that God can use our mistakes for His benefit.  I feel for Esau.  I do not want to explain what happens to him away as merely because of sin in his life...because there is certainly sin in Jacob's life, too.  So why is it Jacob is chosen and Esau is not?  Esau will end up forgiving his brother's treachery.  So why?  We can explain it away that we don't know everything because there are so few details recorded here.  But why isn't it recorded?  Wouldn't it be to our benefit to know what God finds acceptable?  He's ok with lying about our wives being our sister.  Hey, you'll even "prosper" from that...and He's not ok with disregard for your birthright, right?  Or can we ever really know God's mind and will and plan?  

At any rate, Esau, out of contempt for his family, marries a Canaanite woman.  This is a sad verse in the Bible for both Isaac and Esau:

Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, "Do not marry a Canaanite woman," and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram.  Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of  Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

- Genesis 28:6-9

Esau, why take it out on Isaac who loved you and who was deceived?  Maybe the key is right here to unsderstanding what God disapproves of -- blind rebellion.