A Butterfly Flapping

Tag: Rebekah

  • The Transition of the Promise

    Genesis 25:19-34, 27:1-5

    You might think that I’m just a butterfly, but I’m a special one from a long line of special butterflies. If you’ve read stories about some of my ancestors, you know that we have an assignment from God to be with certain people. Each generation inherits the memories of the previous ancestors, so we know the history of our person from Adam and Eve up to our time.

    My line is with Isaac, who is near the end of his life. He’s blind and bedridden. And to be honest, I feel sorry for him.

    See, he’s almost never been a doer, the one who started something. He’s had some rough times, but not usually something he initiated. He didn’t even always respond to what happened.

    Like, when he was born, he was the second son. Of course, as a child, that meant nothing to him. Not even when Ishmael and his mother were cast out of the camp, cast out into the wilderness with a little meat and a little water. He was only a child at the time.

    What did he know? My ancestor at that time heard him ask once, “Where Ishmael?”

    Sarah simply said, “He’s not here anymore. Neither is Hagar. They’re gone.” Neither she nor Abraham ever mentioned them again.

    And that was it. But he was just a child, just weaned. Too young to remember even that he had an older brother.

    A few years later—I don’t know how many. Butterflies don’t pay attention to months and years. We don’t live long enough for that to matter. We have the stories in our memory banks, but not in a timeline with dates.

    Anyway, he was older, older enough to remember what happened on that mountain in Moriah. Abraham’s butterfly passed that story on to the rest of us.

    Abraham had several conversations with God. This particular one was a real challenge. God told Abraham, and I remember the exact words, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”*

    My ancestor was with Abraham, of course, and he was as shocked as the man. Why would God tell him to do such a thing?!

    Abraham didn’t sleep that night, not because he was gathering up what was needed for the trip, but because he and his butterfly were trying to figure out what and why. As I said before, butterflies have a special relationship with God. But this was not something my ancestor understood. Was this a test? But wasn’t God all-knowing? If God was, then God knew where Abraham’s priorities were, that Abraham would obey.

    But if it wasn’t a test, then what was it? Had Abraham misunderstood? But his butterfly heard the same words, with the same meaning.

    Abraham questioned his butterfly. Could somebody impersonate God?

    Butterflies can’t laugh, but he shook his head so hard and so fast Abraham worried it would fall off. It didn’t.

    Whatever, it’s what God said to do, so Abraham and his butterfly set out the next morning with Isaac, his butterfly, and a couple young servants. The donkey carried the wood for the sacrifice. That was the longest three days in Abraham’s life. My ancestor tried to encourage him, but how do you give hope to someone who has just been told to kill his son and burn him?

    Abraham didn’t sleep well, even though they had walked a long ways. Isaac and the two young men slept well, but they didn’t know what was going to happen.

    As they traveled, the butterfly explored a new idea with the man. “Look, everyone around you does this. That doesn’t make it right.”

    “But God … that was God’s voice, I’m sure.”

    The butterfly tried a different tactic. Your friend Jared. Remember how you felt when he sacrificed his son?

    Abraham stopped. The memory returned. He had tried to argue Jared out of it. Maybe …Then he remembered.

    “But afterward, it rained. That was the point. We desperately needed rain, and the next day … a nice gentle shower that lasted for two days. The grass turned green again. Our flocks …”

    And you had prayed. So which was it, your prayer or Jared’s sacrifice?

    “But I’d been praying for a week. The rain came the same day he …”

    They walked on.

    That evening, sitting at the campfire, the butterfly tried again. So what was the promise God gave you?

    “You know, more offspring than”—he looked up at the stars—”than up there.”

    And how many sons do you have now?

    Abraham swatted at the butterfly. “You know that. Just Isaac. Ishmael is probably dead.”

    So where are those offspring going to come from?

    “You sound like Sarah. You know what I told her, God will just have to provide her with another son.”

    And the chances of that are …?

    “What were the chances the first time?”

    The third day, Abraham saw the mountain ahead of them. He told the servants to wait with the donkey. Those words were hard for him to say and hard for my ancestor to hear. “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”* He almost choked on those last words. Isaac’s butterfly flew ahead, out of range to share his thoughts. He knew what was going to happen, but he couldn’t let Isaac know.

    The father took the wood from the donkey and tied it onto the son’s back. My ancestor tried to object. “You’re going to make him carry the very wood that will burn him?”

    Abraham swatted my ancestor, almost knocking him to the ground. After that, they kept some distance between them until they reached the mountain.

    As father and son walked on, Isaac asked a logical question. “The fire and wood are here.”*

    Abraham was carrying the spark of fire cradled in a small pot. His knife, the one he had spent the night sharpening, hung from his belt.

    “But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”* Isaac continued.

    What could the man say? My ancestor saw a tear in his eye, a tear he quickly wiped away. Abraham and his butterfly had the same thought at the same time, a thought and a prayer. “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” He quickened his pace, and Isaac trotted alongside him.

    I can almost hear my ancestor telling the next part. They reached the top of the mountain and together, father and son, they piled stones to make an altar. As they worked, man and butterfly repeated over and over, “God will provide the lamb. God will provide the lamb.”

    My ancestor saw Isaac’s eyes open wide as his father bound him and lifted him onto the altar. “Father! NO! What are you doing?” The boy struggled, to no avail. My ancestor screamed at Abraham to stop, but the man was sure this was what God said to do.

    The father pulled out his knife and slowly raised it above his son, his only son, the one he loved. Two butterflies flew under the knife, but Abraham swatted them away. More gently this time, because he understood.

    And then a voice. “Abraham! Abraham!”*

    The hand did not move.

    “Here I am.”*

    Nobody breathed, not Abraham, not Isaac, neither butterfly.

    “Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”*

    Abraham dropped his head and sheathed his knife. His knees buckled, but he stood to untie his son, limp from fear. The father wrapped his arms around his son, hugging him tightly.

    “God did provide.” The thought ran between all four at the altar.

    My ancestor noticed a ram caught by its horns in the bushes behind Abraham. “Look behind you,” he thought-yelled.

    The ram became the sacrifice, and as the fire burned, Abraham held onto his son, their tears mingling.

    But the angel was not finished. “I swear by myself that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”*

    For some time, nobody moved. When Abraham spoke again, he named this place, “The Lord Will Provide.”

    Together they watched the ashes cool, all four of them: man, boy, and butterflies. Isaac’s thoughts of fear mingled with Abraham’s gratitude and relief.

    Then Abraham picked up the empty fire pot, and they ran back to where the donkey and servants were. The trip that had taken three days was whittled to two. Sarah would be waiting anxiously for word of her son’s safety.

    Isaac had been a happy-go-lucky boy, but after that, he was never the same. That may be why he spent so much time off by himself. Even as an adult, he only did what was necessary.

    Like when it was time for him to marry. Most young men would have gone into town and checked out the eligible young women. He didn’t. When he and his butterfly discussed it, Isaac just shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care.”

    “But you should. You need to find a wife. You have to carry on the Promise God made to Abraham about having more offspring than the stars in the sky.”

    The little butterfly didn’t think Isaac was serious when he said, “If God wants me to have children, God can find me a wife.” But Isaac didn’t go looking.

    Instead, Abraham sent his most trusted servant back to the town of Nahor to find Isaac a wife among his own people rather than from the Canaanites. Isaac and Rebekah had twins, but that’s a completely different story.

    Except it’s not because it’s the last important event in Isaac’s life, and again, it was what happened to him, not what he did.

    I told you that Isaac and Rebekah had twins. Esau was born first. He came out all hairy, like a goat kid. His size, making his birth more difficult, earned him the name Esau because of his red body. Jacob earned his name by hanging onto Esau’s heel as the two came out connected, like the Hebrew idiom, “he grasps the heel” meaning “he deceives.”1

    From then on, the newborns’ butterflies knew there would be trouble with Jacob jealous of his older-by-minutes brother. Isaac and Rebekah thought they had solved the problem by each taking one child, with Isaac favoring Esau and Rebekah supporting Jacob. That aligned the older child with his father, the power figure, and the younger with his mother, the schemer.

    As the boys grew older and the butterfly line continued, so did the rivalry. Esau was a hunter, a good one. Jacob preferred tending the sheep.

    One day, when Esau came back in from the hunt with no game, Jacob saw his chance to buy Esau’s birthright.

    Esau’s butterfly advised him against it, but Esau was hungry, and Jacob had stew simmering. “Look,” he said to Jacob, “I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?”* Nothing his current butterfly could communicate to him made him change his mind. Jacob won that contest.

    Later he thought he won the final one, too, stealing Isaac’s blessing, but he didn’t benefit from it. Isaac’s blessing was to pass on to the older son the authority of the father, making him lord over the rest of the family, and giving him property and prosperity.

    The plan came from Rebekah, but it was Jacob who brought in two young goats, wore his brother’s clothes and the goatskins on his arms and neck. The disguise worked for blind old Isaac, but his hearing confused him. “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”* He hesitated. “Are you really my son Esau?”*

    His nose confirmed the clothing of Esau, convincing him to give Jacob the blessing.

    Isaac’s butterfly tried to explain the real situation, but the old man ignored him.

    “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”*

    Jacob left with the blessing shortly before Esau arrived with his game and p prepared it.

    Now no consequences had followed Jacob buying Esau’s birthright, but the blessing was a different story.

    When Esau took his game, prepared just the way Isaac liked it, to his father, the blessing could not be repeated.

    “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”* Esau’s question came from both disappointment and anger.

    The old man shook his head. “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possible do for you, my son?”*

    “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father.”* And the man wept.

    What Isaac offered was more a curse than a blessing.

    “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”*

    Out of respect for his father, Esau did not stomp out of the room, but once outside, his butterfly heard his threat. “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”*

    (to be continued)

    1 Footnote b for Genesis 25:37

  • Jacob’s Butterflies

    Genesis 25:19-34, 26:34-28:5

    Part 1

    While my ancestor was in his cocoon, God called him in and told him about a pair of twins. Which one did he want? When God described the older one , a hunter, my ancestor asked about the second one. God said that he wasn’t, so he said he would take that one. Let me tell you, since leaving the safety of my shell, several of us in his line have wondered about that decision.

    Even before the two were born, they were fighting. Rebekah, feeling them struggling inside her, knew that something was going on. She went to to inquire of the Lord. (They didn’t have a temple yet, but there were holy places where a priest or a prophet would explain God to people.) There she was told that she was going to have two very different sons, and each would be the leader of a nation. In other words, two strong-willed sons, who were at it already.

    But the prophet added something else, that the older would serve the younger. Now that’s not the way it usually was. The older received the birthright, which made him the head of the family, the one who gave the orders. For that order to be reversed, the younger one would have to be given the family blessing.

    Now one thing you need to understand about butterflies is that we have no control over our charges. We can warn our people, give them advice, but if they don’t listen, we can’t force them to change their behavior.

    Esau’s line of butterflies and mine spent a lot of time while our children were in the womb trying to advise them of the dangers of their fighting with each other. They figured that was the best time, before they were born, when they didn’t have anything else to do, to get through to them. They thought there were actually making some progress, but then came the birth time.

    As luck or fate or whatever would have it, Esau was the closest to the birth canal at the time, so he was born first. When Jacob saw what was happening, he reached out and grabbed Esau’s foot, in an attempt to pull him back. But, of course, by then it was too late, so Jacob became the younger son.

    Esau was the doer. He was the first to roll over and the first to crawl. But he struggled in the process. He spent hours twisting his body and waving his arms and legs before he accidentally hit the right position and rolled over. Then he had to go through it again and again until he was able to figure out exactly what to do to move his body.

    In the meantime, Jacob just lay there, watching and thinking. And then, one day, while Esau was wearing himself out trying to roll over again, Jacob simply flipped himself over. It was the same with crawling. Esau struggled, Jacob watched. Esau finally succeeded, but had to struggle to master it. Jacob just lifted up onto his all fours and took off.

    As they grew up, Esau loved to spend his time observing the wild animals. He wasn’t very old when he killed his first rabbit. Isaac showed him how to prepare it, and the whole family dined on Esau’s rabbit. (Fortunately, they had other things to eat as well.)

    Jacob, on the other hand, spent his time with the sheep. Esau would be gone for days at a time, sleeping out in the open. Jacob always brought the flock back to the fold at night. The sheep were safer in the fold, because bears and lions1 and wild dogs were a threat to the sheep out in the open. And Jacob got to sleep in the tent.

    It didn’t help at all that each parent favored one of the twins. It’s probably better, if there is to be favoritism, that each twin was favored by a parent, but it would have helped them learn to work together if their parents could have loved them both. But Esau was Isaac’s favorite. The boy loved to hunt, and Isaac encouraged him.

    Rebekah and Jacob were dreamers and schemers. They often sat and pondered what it meant that the older would serve the younger. Would Isaac actually bless Jacob instead of Esau? But the way he felt about the “older” son, the twin who was born first, that didn’t seem likely.

    One day, when they were in their middle teens, Jacob saw his chance to at least lay a claim to the birthright. Jacob was cooking a stew for supper, when he saw Esau coming back. Esau had been out hunting for several days, without any success. That wasn’t normal. His butterfly communicated he had several near misses, and only once was he nearly attacked by a bear. Fortunately, the butterfly was able to encourage a deer to run in between them, and the bear went after the deer instead.

    As soon as Jacob saw Esau, his then butterfly knew what he was thinking. Like I said before, our job is not to make people behave, but to encourage them to do the right thing. And to my then ancestor, it looked doing the right thing meant staying out of trouble with Esau. But, as usual, Jacob ignored his suggestion that sharing and being brotherly would be better than bargaining for the birthright. His butterfly tried to make him see that God is capable of working out the details. But Jacob, like a lot of human beings, had his own plan.

    So when Esau saw the boiling pot, he came over and asked for something to eat. “Just give it to him,” the butterfly thought/whispered. “Share with him! There’s enough for both of you!” Of course, Jacob never paid attention. It seemed that their communication system was broken.

    But Jacob sat there stirring the pot. He looked up at Esau and replied, “First, sell me your birthright.”

    Now remember that Esau hadn’t had anything to eat for except for a few berries he was picking when the bear showed up. He was hungry. Besides, the birthright wasn’t his to sell. He knew his father. Isaac wouldn’t bless Jacob over him. So what did it matter if Jacob thought he could “buy” the birthright?

    So Esau agreed. He even swore to Jacob that he was trading his birthright for a pot of boiled meat. Then Jacob gave him some bread and the stew. When Esau finished, he just got up and left. No conversation, he just rose and went his way.

    And my ancestor thought to Jacob, “OK, now what? This little trade won’t mean anything if Isaac blesses Esau before he dies, and Esau will just be all the madder at you for trying to cheat him.”

    Then he nearly forgot to flap his wings to stay in the air, because he heard Jacob say to himself, “OK, now what? This little trade won’t mean anything if Father blesses Esau before he dies, and Esau will just be all the madder at me for trying to cheat him.” My ancestor couldn’t believe it! Esau actually heard him! It may have been the first time!!!

    Now you need to understand what this power struggle looks like. On the one hand, they had Isaac, the head of the family, the ruler, so to speak, and Esau, the older son, who would be the head of the family, kind of like the crown prince. They make the decisions, how many sheep to sell, when to pack up the camp and move on to other pastures. On the other hand, they had Rebekah, a woman, with very little authority. She could make some decisions about the household, but they were always subject to Isaac. And Jacob, the younger son, who had the responsibility, but not the authority. He was the one who carried out the decisions, who sorted out the sheep, who folded up the tents and loaded the camels.

    And to complicate the struggle, they had the prophecy Rebekah was given before the twins were born. She was told that she had two babies in her, each would be the leader of a nation. It started right; she had twin boys. But she was also told that the older would serve the younger. How could that happen, unless the younger received the birthright and the blessing by Isaac? And they knew that Isaac would never give the blessing to Jacob.

    You see, we butterflies don’t have any power over our people. In that, we’re kind of like Jacob himself, we can advise, but we don’t control. Jacob’s line of butterflies had been trying to advise Jacob all his life, but any time it involved Esau, Jacob always took the path of most resistance. If it would anger Esau or Isaac, he did it. Cooperation was not a word he understood. So now my ancestor counseled patience, letting God work out the blessing. He had made a little progress, but he wanted more.

    Jacob went running to Rebekah and told her what he had done. At first, she was horrified! Trading food for the birthright? But a birthright is not a thing, an object, to be bought or sold! The birthright goes along with the blessing, given by the father to the son. Esau didn’t own it, so he couldn’t sell it.

    But then the two began to look at the possibilities. Rebekah’s butterfly and Jacob’s just sat in the corner, shaking their heads. Now and again, while mother and son were discussing their options, one of the butterflies would suggest, “You know, God can figure this out. Why don’t you just let God work on this?” But they didn’t expect to be heard.

    For obvious reasons, nobody said anything about the birthright exchange to Isaac. Time passed.By the time I came along, Isaac was blind and bedridden. One day, when Isaac was feeling particularly old, he asked Esau to go hunting and fix him some venison. Off Esau went, with his then butterfly following close behind. And I had the feeling that my winged partner had the easier job, only worrying about lions and bears!

    To be fair to Rebekah, she didn’t feel that she had much choice. The prophecy was the older serving the younger, meaning Jacob had to receive the blessing. With Isaac about to bless Esau instead, God wasn’t moving fast enough for her.

    She sent Jacob out to kill a couple of kids. She would fix the meat the way Isaac liked it, and Jacob would take it to him. Jacob raised a very practical objection—his skin was smooth, not hairy like Esau’s. You may wonder just how hairy Esau was, that the skin of a baby goat made a good substitute, but it did work! I have to admit, I didn’t think it would, either. It helped that Jacob wore Esau’s clothes, that smelled of open meadows rather than of sheep.

    The other problem came when Jacob spoke. He tried to talk in a deep voice and to pronounce words the way Esau did. He started with just two words.

    “My father.”*

    Isaac turned his head to acknowledge the speaker. “Yes, my son. Who is it?”*

    Trying to disguise his voice, the younger son answered, “I am Esau, your first born.”* Was that enough? Or should he explain why he had come? “I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”*

    Probably his little speech was too long. He couldn’t keep his voice low enough.

    “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”*

    “The Lord your God gave me success.”* Would Esau have answered that way?

    “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”*

    Jacob leaned over his father, holding his breath as the old man reached for his hands.

    “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”*

    The younger son breathed softly, trying not to give himself away.

    “Are you really my son Esau?”*

    “I am.”*

    At this point, I knew there was nothing I could do. He had committed himself to this fraud and would carry it through. Isaac ate the meat and bread, and then he blessed Jacob, the younger son.

    Well, as you would expect, Esau arrived shortly thereafter, and he was more than a little angry to discover that he had not only sold his birthright, but he had lost his father’s only blessing. What Isaac offered him was closer to a curse.

    As he left his father, his butterfly told me his thought. “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

    We butterflies do work together in emergencies. This was one, so the word quickly made it back to Rebekah.

    She didn’t have the authority to send Jacob away, so she went to Isaac and reminded him about Esau’s Canaanite wives. “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.”*

    Now I’ll give Isaac credit, once he had given Jacob the blessing, he didn’t get angry at being tricked. Instead, he called Jacob back in and repeated the blessing. He passed on to Jacob the blessing that God had given to Abraham and that Abraham had passed on to him, the blessing that promised him possession of the land given to Abraham, where their descendants would become uncountable.

    As Rebekah filled a bag with food and handed Jacob a skin of water, I thought about Ishmael and Hagar being sent off into the wilderness. We had some wilderness ahead of us, but we had a destination with relatives, Rebekah’s family, beyond it.

    (to be continued)

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    1 Bears and lions did exist in Israel in biblical times (1 Samuel 17:34-35). Also https://armstronginstitute.org/156-the-animals-of-the-bible, referenced 2/23/2026.