Genesis 25:19-34; 26:34-27:30
Part 2
Rebekah learns the story of the Promise—the Promise from God to Abraham. With her husband Isaac as the Son of the Promise, she must now have sons for the promise to be fulfilled.
The servant sent by Abraham to her land had prayed for guidance, and she was the one who volunteered to water his camels, all ten of them, a daunting task. She remembers how much water she had to pour to fill them after their journey! When she became Isaac’s wife, that made her the one who needed to have a son.
One evening, as Abraham, Isaac, and Rebekah sat outside the tent, three butterflies perched behind them. Rebekah complained, “But I have been childless now for some twenty years! How can you have more offspring than the stars in the sky if you have no grandchildren? If I have no children?”
Abraham nodded. “We wondered the same. I’ve told you how we tried to have a son through Hagar, but that was not God’s plan. You must wait and be patient. God will respond in God’s own time,” Abraham counseled the frustrated couple. “Pray, wait, and be patient.”
Rebekah’s shoulders dropped. I know, that’s what my butterfly keeps telling me. But what does a butterfly know?
Her butterfly rose from the tent and fluttered in front of her. Not everything, she communicated, but enough to know that we wait on God’s time.
They prayed as they tried to be patient, and God answered their prayers. The Son of the Promise would be a father. The Promise would continue.
The life within Rebekah was two-fold and exceedingly active, much more so than normal.
Her butterfly fluttered over her. Go to the old priest. He will tell you what is happening.
She went, and he told her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The elder shall serve the younger.”*
The twins fought within her. When the time came for them to be born, they jockeyed for position, scrambling for the birth canal. Esau came out first, but Jacob’s hand was on his heel. As she lay panting from the pain, her butterfly explained, This one was trying to pull the first one back. The two of them are not going to get along.
Nor was it any easier once they were born. The first time she tried to nurse them together. Esau pushed Jacob away, but Jacob, even on his first day of life, pushed back.
With her butterfly’s suggestion, Rebekah called her servant. “Miriam, come hold Jacob while I nurse Esau. This won’t work together. They’ll have to take turns.”
If she placed them next to each other on the sleeping blankets, one or the other would always end up on the dirt floor, off the blanket. Usually, but not always, the firstborn dominated, as he was stronger, bigger.
The mother noticed that Esau was the first to roll over, to sit up, to crawl, eventually to walk, but he worked at it. He struggled. He failed many times before he succeeded. On the other hand, Jacob seemed content to watch, to watch and learn. Esau spent several days struggling. Jacob waited. Within seconds of when Esau rolled over for the first time, Jacob followed suit—effortlessly. First, one baby was trying to roll over, and then, to Rebekah’s delight, two babies were on their stomachs.
Rebekah’s butterfly thought a laugh. The newborns’ butterflies (fresh from their cocoons) didn’t understand.
The same happened with sitting up. Esau struggled and fretted and tried, again and again, without success. After his efforts succeeded, his brother sat across the blanket from him, with no apparent effort.
Rebekah wondered if Jacob’s butterfly was better at communicating with him. Or maybe Esau simply ignored his butterfly’s advice.
Once they learned to walk, the camp had no peace. The boys were always together, but never cooperating, always pushing and shoving, always trying to be first, always reaching for the same thing at the same time.
“Isaac, it’s naptime. You take Esau and I’ll take Jacob. That’s the only way they’ll settle down.” In this situation, neither baby paid attention to his butterfly.
That way seemed natural, as Isaac could contain the bigger child more easily than Rebekah. Jacob always collapsed into a lap, whichever was offered.
Soon the pattern was set. Esau ran to his father, Jacob to his mother. Because of the patriarchal nature of their culture, when a decision was necessary, the father made it. As he grew older, Esau realized he had the advantage in any argument, as his father would listen to his view, would support his position.
Jacob continued to watch and learn, listening to his butterfly as long as it did not involve Esau. While Isaac was the decision maker, Rebekah had learned how to guide his decisions quietly, without being obvious. Often following her butterfly’s advice, a comment here, a suggestion there, some information that he might not consider, and usually his decisions were acceptable to both.
Jacob took her techniques one step farther. He learned how to manipulate both of his parents. Sometimes one child would prevail, and sometimes the other, but often the winner was Jacob, the second-born.
At night, Rebekah worried. Jacob never seems to forget that he doesn’t hold the coveted position of firstborn. He has the skills to succeed, but as the second-born, will he have the chance? How will the old priest’s prediction come true?
That was not the way their world functioned. The younger always served the older. The older inherited, the older decided, the older held the power.
Even when the competition was subtle, it was always present. Jacob learned he could not best his brother in physical endeavors, so he never followed Esau out into the wilderness. He never took up the bow for hunting. Instead, he learned the ways of the sheep and the goats they herded. By the age of ten, he knew more about the animals than anyone else in their camp except the old shepherd who tutored him.
“God will work in God’s own time,” her butterfly told Rebekah over and over. Isaac was not concerned. The older would prevail, as was right.
But Rebekah stressed. How could God change the order of things? God had ended her childlessness. God had given her sons. Could God make the younger son follow as the Son of the Promise?
She knew what happened with Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael was the older son, but Isaac was the one to fulfill the promise because Abraham sent Ishmael and his mother off into the wilderness.
No way was Isaac going to deprive his older son of the blessing. Esau might go off into the wilderness, but he always returned, usually with some game for a meal or two or more.
Abraham and Sarah tried to help God with Hagar, but that did not fulfill the promise. Again and again, Rebekah asked herself if she should wait or if God needed human help. Each time her butterfly cautioned her to be patient.
When Isaac grew old and frail, she knew God did not have much time left. She had waited for God to act, but the order of the world had not changed. She ignored her butterfly, as Sarah had ignored hers when she sent Abraham in to Hagar.
The time came when Isaac called his firstborn son. “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death. Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”*
Rebekah overheard the conversation. She couldn’t wait any longer for God to act. When her butterfly objected, she responded, It didn’t work with Hagar, but this time, God needs my help.
She called Jacob. “Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.”*
Jacob objected. “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.”*
Rebekah assured him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”*
Their butterflies sighed, but they called Isaac’s butterfly away from the old man, so he couldn’t tell Isaac what was happening.
Although Isaac recognized the voice of Jacob, he trusted the feel of his hands on Jacob’s goat-hair-covered arms. He ate and drank the prepared meal, then blessed Jacob.
Even as Rebekah breathed a sigh of relief, her butterfly warned her of Esau’s return to receive the blessing he expected. The first part of the plan had succeeded, but fulfillment required more.
