Jacob and Esau, January 10–11, 2013

Jacob and Esau are twin brothers, sons of Isaac, grandsons of Abraham, who is the progenitor of the entire Hebrew race and nation; Esau is Jacob’s elder brother, who, by convention, would receive the birthright and inheritance from his father. The birthright includes God’s promise given to Abraham and Isaac that God would bless and multiply them and bring forth a great nation from their descendants. Although twins, Jacob and Esau were by no means identical. Esau is a farmer, a man of the earth; Jacob is the quiet, indoors type.
First, Jacob tricks Esau into giving up the birthright. Esau “sells” it to him for some good stew that Jacob made. But Isaac’s dying blessing still would have gone to Esau. However, Rebekah, their mother, favored Jacob. She helped him swindle Esau again by tricking Isaac, who had gone blind, into blessing Jacob instead of Esau.
Esau was infuriated. The Bible reports:

Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob” (Genesis 27:41–42 NRSV)

Jacob, no dummy, decides to hightail it until Esau cools off. His mother suggests that he go stay with a relative, Laban, for “a few days,” and find a wife there. Laban lived where Isaac and his family had moved from, in Haran. The distance from Beer-Sheba to Haran was about 550 miles (Portland, OR to Sacramento, CA), so this was no small trip.

It put a safe buffer between the brothers. But Jacob runs into a few problems. First off, Esau holds on to his grudge. Second, Laban insists that Jacob work 7 years to earn his wife and then, when the 7 years are up, he tricks Jacob by sending in his older daughter to the bridal chamber, and then demands that Jacob work another 7 years for the second daughter! (What goes around comes around.) Even after the 14 years, Jacob stays another seven years in Haran. By this time he has become rich. He basically cons Laban out of the best of his herds of sheep and goats, so that when he finally decides to return to Beer-Sheba to confront Esau, he was “exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.” See Gen 32:13–15.

So Jacob is afraid of Esau and sends him gifts. During the night, as he waits to meet Esau, God appears to Jacob in the form of a man and wrestles with him. They struggle, and the man tries to break free, but Jacob is determined not to let him go. So the man touches Jacob’s thigh and dislocates it, but Jacob still won’t let go. He says to the man, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” He seems, at this point, to have realized that the “man” is really an angel or a manifestation of God. The man replies with a question, “What is your name?”, to which he replies, “Jacob.” The name Jacob means “supplanter”; he took Esau’s place. The angel tells him his name will now become “Israel,” which means “prince with God” or “Striving with God”. He realizes it is God because he says, “I have seen the face of God and lived.” He calls the place Peniel, which means “face of God.”

The next day, he meets with Esau, who, despite Jacob's anxiety, forgives him, and welcomes him. From this time on, he becomes a prince with God.

The symbolism here is powerful. Esau represents our lower or animal nature or our material life; Jacob represents the mental person; Israel represents the spirit, the Christ within us all. Fillmore says, “"Israel" (a prince with God) is the real of man, that consciousness which is founded in God.” (MBD) This is the story of the transformation of consciousness, from material consciousness that uses conflict and deception to achieve its ends to the consciousness that surrenders to God and accepts God’s blessing. When the twins were born it was prophesied that “the elder [Esau, representing the body] shall serve the younger [Jacob/Israel, representing the mind and spirit]” . The Jacob consciousness supplants or supercedes the animal nature; the spiritual idea supplants the material. He is showing us the way to return to God, and to freedom and harmony, even with our bodies.

Emmet Fox points out how, when Jacob started back home, he did not turn to God at first. He “began to rearrange outer affairs”. He puts his handmaidens in front (people who didn’t matter much to him), and then Leah (the second-choice wife), and then even Rachel and his favorite son, all between him and the threatening Esau! What a sleeze! This pictures what we often do, trying to work things out on our own instead of trusting God.

“And Jacob was left alone.” (Gen 32:24). Finally, alone, he turns to god. He wrestles with God. And he would not let go. To really break through spiritually, it takes that kind of determination: “I won’t let go until you bless me.” How much do you want to know God’s blessing, to live in full awareness of the divine Presence? The story is told of a young Buddhist monk who was seeking enlightenment, but could not seem to break through. Finally his teacher took him to a stream and held his head under water for over a minute. When he released him, and the young man had caught his breath, the teacher asked him, “When you were under the water, what did you want?”
“I wanted air!” he cried. “I wanted to breathe!”

The teacher then said, “Until you want enlightenment that much, you will not find it.”

The Psalmist wrote, “As a deer pants for flowing streams,
                so pants my soul for you, O God.” (Psalm 42:1)

The very image of wrestling with God is so powerful! Physical wrestling requires enormous energy and concentration. And Jacob wrestled all night long! This was a persistent man! How persistent are we in our spiritual endeavors? How determined are we?

Meister Eckhart, in the 14th century, wrote: “The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.”

There is so much more in the symbolism of all the details! Here is just a taste from the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary:

> In Genesis 33:1-15 we read of the reunion of Jacob and Esau. In the 1st and 2d verses Jacob (the mental) prepares to unite with Esau (physical expression). Mind and body must be joined before the divine law can be fulfilled.
> Verses 3 and 4: The mind must be unified with the body in all the seven natural faculties. When the union between mind and body takes place a humility born of surrender of the self comes into expression.Verses 5-7: The women and the children here represent the accumulations of the mind.
> Verses 8 and 9: The mind is willing to share its accumulations, but the body (Esau) cannot receive the gift until it has been uplifted. In verses 10 and 11 we find that, after mind and body are reconciled and adjusted, they share alike the gifts of Spirit.
> Verse 12: Jacob, the mind, should go before and direct the body (Esau).
> Verse 13: The children, and the young animals in the flocks and herds, symbolize new ideas' being established in consciousness.
> Verses 14 and 15: There is not necessarily enmity between the mind and body of man, but only a difference in states of consciousness. The body becomes an obedient servant of the mind when the two are unified in Divine Mind.