When the Lord called Abram to come out of the great city of Ur of the Chaldees and dwell in a land that He would show him, God actively began to lay the foundations of a plan which would overcome the Adamic catastrophe, so enabling Him to fulfil His purpose. A summary of the unconditional promises that God made with this great man from the time that he set out for Canaan until he demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac if God so required is presented in Table 1.

Table 1

GOD’S UNCONDITIONAL PROMISES TO ABRAHAM

                    1. make of you a great nation,

                    2. bless you,

                    3. make your name Great

                    4. make you a blessing

5. bless them that bless you,

                    6. curse them that curse you,

7. give the land from the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates to your descendants forever,

8. the number of your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth, the stars, of heaven, and the sand on the seashore,

9. make you the father of many nations,

                    10. cause kings to descend from you,

11. make an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your seed after you, to wit:

I will be God unto you and your descendants after you,

12. establish My Everlasting Covenant with your son Isaac, and with his seed after him,

13. Bless all nations through thy seed,

14. make your descendants possess the gates of their enemies.

15. I shall recognise the descendants of Isaac as your seed.

Just as Abraham and Sarah had great difficulty in having a child (Isaac was born twenty-five years after God first promised that his father would be the forebear of a great nation) so too did Isaac and Rebekah. Following Isaac’s appeal to the Lord Rebekah did conceive twenty years after their wedding day.

Because of the extreme violence within her womb, she sought the Lord about its cause and was told that:

1. she was bearing the progenitors of two nations;

2. these peoples would be different from each other;

3. one would be the stronger; and

4. the descendants of the older would serve those of the younger.

The first to be born was Esau closely followed by Jacob grasping his brother’s heel. Esau was a very striking-looking child in that he was red all over, thereby having the appearance of being dressed in a hairy garment of that colour.

2nd identification of Esau

In the fullness of time these very un-identical twin boys grew up to be very different adults. Esau became an outdoor type, a renowned hunter, self-centred, impulsive and irresponsible, whereas Jacob was very much involved in the day-to-day business of maintaining his father’s settlement. The apparently simple English phrase describing the latter as a "plain man" has in fact a much deeper significance in the original tongue, i.e. the Hebrew word tam, rendered here as "plain", also includes in its meaning: "perfect, undefiled, upright and simple (straightforward)". Jacob apparently was a thoughtful man and fully aware of the significance of the Abrahamic promises that Esau would inherit as the birthright of the first born. It would also appear that he coveted these promises greatly for himself and his descendants.

The opportunity to gain possession of his brother’s inheritance arose and Jacob seized it with both hands. Esau, it appears, having had a bad day in the country, came in tired, hungry and disgruntled just as Jacob was preparing an appetizing meal. Overcome by hunger pangs, Esau entreated his brother for the food and the wily Jacob, sensing an opportunity, offered it in exchange for the birthright. It was then that the irresponsible Esau displayed the materialistic attitude

that was to be the hallmark of his progeny down to the present day; he agreed to the bargain, swapped his birthright for a meal of "red pottage" thereby demonstrating that gratification of his immediate material needs was to him of a higher priority than God’s blessing upon him and his descendants. Thus, Esau despised his birthright (Genesis 25:34). As a consequence of this episode, Esau also became known as Edom, i.e. "red".

This seemingly simple bartering of God’s birthright blessing for a meal provides a basis for understanding the real reasons for the major political and military confrontations that have occurred among the so-called "Western nations" during the current millennium.

Even though Esau had demonstrated his unworthiness, the aged Isaac determined to declare that God’s blessings would abide upon him and his seed. Again food enters into the story in that Isaac asked Esau to prepare him his favourite  dish, a savoury meal of venison, after which the blessing would be given. However, this was not to be. Rebekah, overhearing her husband’s instructions, devised a scheme whereby the blind old man might be hoodwinked into blessing his younger son instead. God’s unconditional blessings that Isaac unwittingly laid upon Jacob, and consequently on his descendants, are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2

ISAAC BLESSES JACOB

GOD will give you

                    1. the dew of heaven,

                    2. the fatness of the earth,

3. plenty of corn and

                    4. plenty of wine.

                    5. People will serve you,

                    6. nations will bow down to you,

                    7. you will be Lord over your brethren,

                    8. your mother’s sons will bow down to you,

                    9. cursed be everyone that curses you and

                    10. blessed be he that blesses you.

Great was the consternation when Esau, having returned from the hunt, found that Jacob had already fed his father and obtained his blessing. Isaac too was perturbed, but recognised that the blessing, once given, could not be revoked. Esau was unable to recover his lost position in God’s plan, for as the Bible says: "... Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears (Hebrews 12:16-17)." After considerable pressure, Isaac blessed Esau, and these are listed in Table 3.

Table 3.

ISAAC BLESSES ESAU

                    1. of the fatness of the earth and

                    2. of the dew of heaven.

                    3. you shall live by the sword

                    4. serve your brother (Jacob/Israel),

                    5. eventually have dominion

                    6. and finally shake off Jacob’s yoke.

5th identification of Esau

A comparison of the blessings listed in Tables 2 and 3 clearly shows that, whereas Jacob’s blessing was God-centred, Esau’s was entirely materialistic, nowhere in his blessing was God’s name invoked,

The fullness of God’s salvation plan for the fallen race of Adam was to come through the descendants of Jacob alone.

As a result of his relegation to second place, Esau came to hate his brother and planned to kill him as soon as Isaac died. This attitude towards his brother became totally malevolent in Esau’s descendants and this mindless enmity towards Jacob’s progeny remains undiminished until this very day.