Toldot - Passing on the Promise

Toldot - Genesis 25:19-28:9

Passing on the Promise

This week's portion that transitions us from Abram's to Isaac's story to the beginning of the life of Jacob was written by guest writer Matthew Littlefield. Matt is the pastor of New Beith Baptist Church in Brisbane and someone with a high view of scripture. More than that, he's a good mate of mine and it's for these reasons I've asked him to share his insight into this section of the Word.

Moses was an incredibly flawed individual, heck when he was around 40 years old he murdered someone. To be fair he was trying to protect the life of one of his fellow people, but still he killed the guy straight out. So, he was a flawed guy. Now when he put together the law of Moses he did nothing to hide the flawed nature of the ‘he’s’ mentioned in the line of Cain and Seth.

The book of Genesis wants us to ask of each individual male born in the line of Seth: is this the ‘he’ who will crush the serpents head? But just as Cain failed to say no to sin, so did all of them. Jacob was no different. In fact Jacob was particularly flawed. He was called a deceiver from birth, and boy did he live up to his name, in fact this aspect of his character never seemed to really change. He conned his brother out of his birthright. Although Esau didn’t really put up much resistance. Still Jacob took advantage of him when he was hungry and scored an inheritance for the price of one stew, and lentil stew at that? It wasn’t even a decent meal, it was a vegetarian one. But Jacob still go one up on his brother. Later on in his life Jacob cons his brother’s blessing out of his own father, Isaac, by dressing up like him and making him the food that he loved to eat. Jacob earned his name thoroughly.

But it’s not like he learned this behaviour on his own. His father Isaac lied about his true relationship with Rebekah to save his own skin. A lie that turns out to be unnecessary because the king Isaac was afraid of was a decent guy anyway. So Moses is honest enough with his readers to show them the true nature of the patriarchs of the Israelite people: they were dishonest men, weak men, who had a degree of cowardice about them, at least in some situations. So he highlights their flaws to us in and honest way, but this isn’t his main point. We also see that Isaac was keen to do as God told him, so when God says move he moves, just like Abraham did. As flawed as both Isaac and Jacob were they show one very wise character trait: they both were keen to receive God’s blessing. Isaac moves, and lies about who his wife is, and Jacob cons his brother and father, but this is because they both want to be in the place of blessing that God promised to Abraham and his descendants. This isn’t how we would expect a story about God’s faithful men to go, but that’s because the truth is God is the only one who is truly faithful. Even the patriarchs were flawed, because they were merely men. Isaac does prosper, just as God said he would. In fact to such an extent that Abimelech is afraid to cross him, and wants to sign a pact of peace with him. And Jacob does become the greater of the two brothers just as God said would happen. This is Moses point. Even though man is not faithful God is. Neither Isaac or Jacob earned their blessings, the gracious God bestowed them on him. God is faithful to fulfil his promises.  

God promised Isaac this: 

“I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Genesis 26:4-5). 

God fulfilled this promise with the ultimate culmination being in the coming of his son, and the sacrifice he made on the cross, in which all nations are blessed, through the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God fulfils his promises, he is still fulfilling his promises. Therefore our application is that we can trust him fully; He does what he says he will do. The interesting thing is that the church is still blessing people’s lives, just as people’s lives were blessed by the presence of Jacob. Let’s not forget how faithful our God is and why we keeps us on this earth: so we can be a blessing. The ultimate blessing is to lead people to him. The God who promises to save those who trust in him, and who fulfils his promises.      




Matt has a YouTube channel 'Matt's Musings' where he uploads various vlogs that seek to answer various biblical and theological questions. Be sure to check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyyqwhzFX68VbE7ZuDvWYgw