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Esau's See-Saw:
The Tools of the Trade
Toldot "Generations"
Genesis 25:19-28:9
Malachi 1:1-2:7
Psalm 36
Hebrews
12:14-17
Recognize the location of the graphic above? It's Petra, the headquarters of Nabatean traders. In Toldot, Esau makes some choices that will lead his descendants to this red-rock kingdom of traders. Red, red, red. Esau's trade of his birthright for "red stuff" ties him to both Kain and the trader kingdom of goods that are the "red stuff" of Babylon in the book of Revelation.
Esau
said to Jacob, "Please let me have a swallow of
that
red stuff there, for I am
famished
." Therefore his name was called
Edom
. (Ge 25:30)
וַיֹּאמֶר עֵשָׂו
אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹב
הַלְעִיטֵנִי נָא
מִן־הָאָדֹם הָאָדֹם
הַזֶּה כִּי
עָיֵף
אָנֹכִי עַל־כֵּן
קָרָֽא־שְׁמֹו
אֱדֹֽום
׃
What is often translated "lentils," "stew," or "red stuff" is literally "from the red the red." The color red is intensive. Then Esau says,
"Esau
said, "Behold,
I am about to die
; so of what use then is the birthright to me
?"
וַיֹּאמֶר עֵשָׂו הִנֵּה
אָנֹכִי הֹולֵךְ לָמוּת
וְלָמָּה־זֶּה
לִי בְּכֹרָֽה
׃
Esau literally says, "I am walking to die." Here is
a pattern! The inner river of Eden that most closely circled the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden is described as holekh, or walking. Esau's choice of food is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Like the Israelites who asked Moses to go up the mountain and receive the entirety of the Torah (Ten was just fine, thank you!) because "Why should we die?", and like Lot believed he would die if he went to the "mountains" of righteousness (Ps 36:6), so Esau believes that taking the family priesthood would be too difficult. He believes that the Word of righteousness would be death to him. Don't get too close to the Word of Life, for it will discipline soul-appetites.
Esau represents the soul of man, the nefesh. It is appetites, desires, emotions, and intellect. It is a powerful life-force, and it masquerades as the spirit, but it is not. The color red is symbolic of the nefesh, the human "Esau." Esau was born red and hairy all over, like a beast. It is the nefesh that a human being has in common with a beast, which also has the strong life-force of appetite, desire, emotion, and intellect. It is the spirit of Elohim that set human beings apart from beasts. It is the nefesh that believes it is dying when it encounters the Tree of Life, when in fact, it is the walk of life in the spiritual Word, which is based on "It is written," not "I feel" or "I think."
As proof, on the last great day of Sukkot, Yeshua identifies himself as the source of the Rivers of Eden, which "gave drink" to the whole Garden, and this he spoke of the Spirit. The Word isn't merely physical food; it is both spiritual and physical, which is what makes humans unique in creation. It enables a human walking in the Word to live, not "walking to die."
Esau believes the serpent, the most cunning beast of the field, who assures him, "You will not surely die" if you eat from the mixed tree: "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
Esau was challenged with a dual nature of the wrong tree. For this reason,
Esau is equated with the pig in rabbinic tradition. A pig looks kosher on the outside, and when it lies down, it displays its clean, "kosher" hooves. One has to see inside the pig to realize that it is not a ruminant, and therefore unclean. Here is the salient passage describing Esau's fatal flaw, one that most Christian readers overlook:
Y
ou removed a vine from Egypt
; You
drove out the
nations
and planted it
.
You cleared the ground before
it, and
it took deep root and filled the
land.
The mountains were covered with its
shadow, and the
cedars of God with its
boughs.
It was sending out
its branches to the
sea and
its shoots to the
River
.
Why have You broken down its
hedges, so
that
all who pass that way pick its fruit
?
A boar from the forest
eats it
away and
whatever moves in the field feeds on it
. (
Ps 80:8-13)
This psalm-prophecy describes two stages of Israel. The first "vine" is in the Garden of Eden, which Elohim cleared and planted from among the wild plants. This is why the first king of Israel is Adam in Judaism. "The River" alludes to the Euphrates, or source river of Eden (Ge 2), the Perat.
The vine is also Israel, who was taken out of Egypt. She is the wife and the vine: "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house." (Ps 128:3) Someone who would "feed" on the vine and its fruit is one who takes another's wife. In Eden, the cunning beast of the field seduced Eve into eating the wrong fruit; therefore, she and her "fruit" were removed from the Garden. The iconic beast in the psalmist's example is not the serpent, but the boar. Like the serpent, who looked humanoid, walking and talking, the pig looks kosher, but it is an unclean mixture of good and evil-symbolically, that is; pigs make fine pets and forest creatures if they stay in the forest. When pigs come out of the forest and destroy the vine-wife, they represent Esau.
The tradition is that although Isaac was chaste the first forty years of his life [until he married
Rivkah
], Esau was a habitual fornicator, sleeping with married women for forty years before he marries. He would even rape them.
However, when Esau turns forty, he takes two wives, imitating his father's marriage at forty. Esau does not internalize the things of the spirit, he can only lamely imitate them. This is the symbol of the pig.
Esau is like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He treats his parents well to their faces, even restraining himself from killing Jacob until after his parents die, but he lives exactly like he wants to away from his parents:
When
Esau was forty years old he
married
Judith the daughter of
Beeri
the Hittite, and
Basemath
the daughter of Elon the Hittite;
and
they brought
grief to Isaac and Rebekah
. (Ge 26:34-35)
The letter to the Hebrews affirms the Jewish tradition of Esau's life of fornication and his scorn of the sanctification in the Word that accompanies family priesthood:
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
See
to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of
bitterness
springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
that
there be no
immoral [pornos-fornicator]
or godless person
like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal
.
For
you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears
. (He 12:14-17)
Genesis 36:2 gives another name of Esau's wife, Adah. The name Adah was the name of Lamech the Killer's wife:
"
Lamech
took to himself two wives: the name of the one was
Adah
, and the name of the other,
Zillah
." (Ge 4:19) Now here's the incredible link between the descendant of Kain, the first killer, and Lamech the Killer's offspring, Tubal-kain:
Adah gave birth to
Jabal
(river, stream);
he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.
His
brother's name was
Jubal
(river, stream);
he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.
As
for Zillah, she also gave birth to
Tubal-kain
(acquisition)
the forger of all
(sharp, cutting) implements of bronze
and
iron... (Ge 4:20-22)
Rivers give life; sharp instruments take them. One of the Lamech's wives had offspring like Jacob, who would "dwell in tents," be shepherds, and praise the Holy One. Jacob's offspring would compose spiritual songs for service in the priesthood. Both of Adah's sons had a form of yaval, which is a river or stream, recalling the rivers of Eden, freedom, and the spiritual release of the shofar, also called the yovel. Father, father, but then, a bronze forger.
The other wife's offspring forged bronze instruments for killing people. Like his archetype Lamech, Esau's wives demonstrate his see-saw between good and evil by the type of fruit they produce. Kain means "acquisition." He measures his life by what he can acquire, even at the expense of others. Because obedience to the Spirit "kills" Kain and Esau, they cannot obtain the spiritual favor of the Father. The nefesh desperately tries to produce feelings of close relationship and favor by offering lesser things in trade. Revelation 18 describes the final judgment and exposure of the soul-trade, exposing it as ways to enslave human souls:
"Alas! Alas! You great city,
you mighty city, Babylon!
For in a single hour your judgment has come."
And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore,
cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble,
cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.
"The fruit for which your soul longed
has gone from you,
and all your delicacies and your splendors
are lost to you,
never to be found again!" (Re 18:10-14)
What Esau's descendants could not take by force, they took by trade. Esau's descendants settled in the red mountains of Paran, and the area became known as Seir, or Edom. This is the area where Esau's father-in-law Ishmael learned to be an archer. When Esau's pig-nature realized that his parents were so offended by his spiritual rebellion in choosing idolatrous Hittite wives, he tries to make it right by marrying Ishmael's daughter. Ishmael established a trading business with Egypt, where his mother and his own wife were born. Esau's hunting weapons marry the trader.
What was abundant in Edom was copper, a necessary mineral for making bronze weapons of war. The close relationship between Ishmael and Egypt was continued by Edom and Egypt. Egypt supplied mining and smelting technology, and Edom managed the copper mines. The descendants of Edom mined copper for bronze weapons, and they came out against the "vine" Israel with weapons of war in the wilderness.
The
Horites were
cave-dwellers who inhabited the red-rock mountains where Esau settled.
The
Edomites
eventually drove out or intermarried with the
Horites
and took over their cave dwellings
. The carved buildings of Petra are influenced by Roman architecture and gods, but the earliest inhabitants carved out rock dwellings much earlier.
Later, the Nabateans lived there, a clan of Ishmaelite-
Edomites
, and they established thriving trade routes between India, Arabia, and Egypt alongside their brothers in Edom who worked the copper mines to smelt it for bronze:
Esau took his wives...
also
Basemath
, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of
Nebaioth
.
(Ge 36:1-3)
From Ishmael's son
Nevayot
arose the trader Nabateans, who were the primary
inhabitors
and builders of Petra, or
Botzrah
.
A pig,
chazir
, has the same root as
chazor
, return, which is necessary for repentance. Esau tried, but "
he found no place [room, space] for repentance, though he sought for it with
tears." His dual nature wanted his father's righteousness, but with such a long history of wrong choices, his appetites had crowded out his ability to sincerely do so. In spite of Isaac's preference for Esau, Esau could never obtain the spiritual favor he craved from his father.
To the cargoes of the Nabateans and Babylon, let us add whatever soul-pleasing products to which our souls are attached and addicted. Do they really satisfy the thirst of the soul for the Father's spiritual favor? They can't. Once one shiny thing is acquired, the satisfaction will soon be replaced by craving for something new.
The spicy, pleasant, shiny things of this earth are here simply to be devoted to making a way back to the spiritual inheritance of the Garden. It is so easy to give up our birthright for good things now, but they will never be enough to fill our bellies, which hunger for Bread of Heaven and thirst for spiritual water of the Word.
The Torah, the Word of Life, will not kill us if we walk in it. Anyone who says it will is simply disregarding the work of Yeshua on our behalf. His gift of the Holy Spirit generates new power daily to walk in life. When we fall short, we will have plenty of room for repentance. Plenty. The moral of the story is to see what Jacob saw, not to be an Esau See-Saw.
Spotlight on Israel
Interested in celebrating Passover 2020 in Israel?
We are celebrating Passover in Israel again. It is
not a tour, but everybody meeting at Tamar Park for the seder. Room and board is priced at a daily rate of $70 per person, and we all pitch in to make a schedule for cooking meals and kitchen cleanup. The price does include the seder. Alan and I plan to go into Jerusalem for at least a day. The dates we'd stay in Israel are April 6-16.
You'd be free to do whatever you wanted to do: relax, hike, volunteer, or day tour, and choose the number of days you spend at Tamar. I might do some teaching o
n the Sabbaths.
It's for fairly confident travelers who are not afraid to drive a rental car or ride a public bus (we can supply precise instructions to take bus or train).
If you want to take day tours, we'll connect you with a private guide, and those who go can price-share. We can also show you wonderful things in the Aravah near the park. I'll be continuing Biblical, historical, and archaeological research on King David's and Solomon's activities in that area for a book, so will be happy to discuss the "latest" over an ice cream in the sukkah at night.
If you're interested in this trip,
there will be a registration page available very soon, and we'll share it with you. Again, this is not an organized tour. We'll send you travel tips and our itinerary info, and you'll network with others who want to do similar things, but there is no set schedule or "leader" other than the seder, which Alan and I would sponsor.
If you're interested in a FULL-SERVICE tour, then please consider going at Sukkot 2020. We will have registration and information available for that soon.
REVIVE TV Studio Recording Complete!
This week I recorded video programs to accompany the newest BEKY Book, 50,000 Degrees and Cloudy, a Better Resurrection. If you already have your copy, could you take a few moments to leave a review on Amazon? It helps potential rapture-readers to find a book based in Torah truth, not disconnected theories ignoring the foundation of the resurrection. A better resurrection. We'll let you know when the series is ready for viewing on REVIVE.TV.
If you've ever thought no one wants to hear about the Torah, here's your chance to make a difference. Someone searching these terms on Amazon IS looking for answers and OPEN to the Word. You don't have to purchase the book on Amazon to leave a review.
Click Cloudy to order the paperback version of the new BEKY Book. The resurrection is explained where it begins: the Torah portions! The second section addresses the question, "What happens when we die?" Finally, a simple Biblical correction to the modern "rapture" theory that anyone can understand.
LaMalah Children's Centre
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Thanks to your generosity, the congregations of Kenya and the children of LaMalah were able to enjoy Sukkot. We plan to disburse the 1st Quarter 2020 funds in mid-December, so if you'd like to make a special year-end donation, it would help so much.
If you would like to donate to the Children's Centre or other Torah-based orphanages through The Creation Gospel, click on the Donate link below. It will say The Olive Branch Messianic Congregation on your receipt. Our local congregation is the non-profit covering for our ministry. Checks or money orders may be sent to:
The Creation Gospel
PO Box 846
East Bernstadt, KY 40729
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