Genesis 32:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Esau (Malachi 1:3) was out of Canaan. He had left Isaac and the inheritance that he thought he had been cheated out of. He was a proud man: not surprisingly, he was unwilling to live as a subordinate in Isaac’s house. Jacob sent messengers and announced his return. It is immensely diplomatic, and it will be accompanied by a massive homage or present. Why did Jacob send messengers to Esau? He knew that 20 years before, they had parted in anger, and now he wanted to go to his homestead, but why send messengers to Edom? Some exegetes say, ‘This is extraordinary. He gets this tremendous assurance. The angelic host is with him. He has the promise of God in his heart and the vision of angels to set his mind at rest and to show him he's under the certain promise and protection of God, and yet he immediately begins to make earthly provisions.’ They say, ‘He shouldn’t be fawning to Esau. He shouldn’t be about to surrender his birthright and back off from blessing that was his. They say, he shows a lack of faith here.’ But I think it's quite wrong to look at the passage in that way. It is true that Jacob can manifest faith and waywardness at the same time, but not necessarily here. Given the courtesy of the East, nothing untoward takes place in sending messengers even if part of what Esau had was technically Jacob’s. Yet Jacob may still have been carrying guilt for the way he seized the birthright. The point is that now he wanted to be highly obedient to God. God had said to him ‘Return … to thy kindred’; that is, go to your brother and face him on the way. Jacob sends messengers with gifts. The message meant can we be at peace? We cannot be sure that Esau was still angry. Perhaps, but maybe he feared Jacob was come to plunder him. But Jacob had no armed men. He takes every earthly precaution. He's afraid. Is that faithlessness? Not necessarily. Let's not be too hasty. Fear is a natural human reaction to times and events of great danger. Fear comes in; you cannot necessarily help that. It would be a lack of faith if, as a Christian, it didn't put you on your knees and lead you to prayer. But it isn't a lack of faith to be afraid. That's only natural. That is to recognize the threat and its size, its scope. So I don't think it's quite right to fault Jacob at this point. He does two things at once. You depend upon the Lord to bless you and to use these provisions. He isn't, in any sense, rebuked or reproved for doing it. Now, he did deserve rebuke, and he received it over many years for what he had done when he was at home with Isaac, his father, and Rebecca, his mother, in swindling the birthright out of Esau. He knew it was to be his. That had been revealed to Rebecca at his birth. But to take the law into his own hands when he thought it was slipping into the hands of Esau, who had become Isaac's favourite son, and to get it dishonestly: that wasn't making legitimate earthly provision. But now, that's exactly what he is doing. He's acting most reasonably and cleverly. So he speaks very diplomatically.