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1 Now Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and there, Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants. 2 And he put the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children behind, and Rachel and Joseph last. 3 Then he crossed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. 4 But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. 5 And he lifted his eyes and saw the women and children, and said, “Who are these with you?” So he said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” 6 Then the maidservants came near, they and their children, and bowed down. 7 And Leah also came near with her children, and they bowed down. Afterward Joseph and Rachel came near, and they bowed down. ~ Genesis 33:1-7
Today, we transition into Genesis 33. We live in a world which is constantly trying to divide us. When He came to this earth, the Lord Jesus said, "For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior." God is not the author of division. No, He is the author of reconciliation. But, we must be willing to yield our will in order to enjoy the reconciliation that He desires to give us. C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'"
When man rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, we were all immediately separated from God due to the entrance of sin in our existence. With the entrance of sin into this world, two paths were presented. One path, the path of Lucifer, is natural, easy to do, yet it leads to our destruction. The other is supernatural and it requires the brokenness our will to access. His path leads to eternal life. This path was earned for us by the Lord Jesus Christ who went to the cross of Calvary to pay the penalty that our rebellion created.
In v.1-3 of today's passage we read, "1 Now Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and there, Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants. 2 And he put the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children behind, and Rachel and Joseph last. 3 Then he crossed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother."
After 20 years, the long-awaited and greatly anticipated meeting between Jacob and Esau finally was to happen. Jacob had deceived Isaac and had stolen the blessing from Esau. As a result, Esau had threatened to kill Jacob as soon as their father was dead, so Jacob fled to Haran at the behest of his mother. Now, these many years later, still before the death of Isaac, Jacob was returning home as directed by God. As Jacob moved to the front of the line, he was noticeably limping, exposing his injury from the night before. His vulnerability had granted him a deeper intimacy with God and it would render a great reunion with his brother.
The many expressions of our brokenness are often useful at weakening our wills to the point that we might be strengthened in our faith in God. Faith is what we need to face our fears, even our fears of losing control to God. Faith is not the absence of fear but the courage to face our fears with trust in God. Like Jacob, with faith we have "crossed over" that place between the Esau's in our lives and ourselves. We must not placate or appease or impress those with whom we are at odds. No, we must choose to bless them. And we bless them by being ourselves, not by being someone we think they’ll like better. We must show up with our true selves, not our false selves. We come close to them, not to take, as the old Jacob, but to give, as the new Israel.
When Jacob divided up the families of Leah and Rachel, he unknowingly provided for us a picture. While Jacob was a picture of the Lord Jesus, Leah pictured the law, Rachel pictured grace, and their two maidservants pictured man's captivity to sin. And, their children represented the people of Israel as a whole. Jacob divided each up in such a way that the Gospel of the Lord was presented. Captivity to sin was pictured first by the maidservants, then came the law whom Leah pictured, and finally, pictured by Rachel, was the grace of God. Jacob, pictured the Lord Jesus as he went before them.
Jacob bowed himself before his brother seven times. These bows half way down to the ground were a sign of respect to the older brother. Jacob's deference to Esau was striking especially in light of the blessing that he had stolen from Esau 20 years earlier. This story reveals to us man’s reconciliation to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is when we recognize that it is truly impossible to navigate our existence into eternity that we are prompted to run to the Lord Jesus for our salvation.
In v.4-5 of today's passage we read, "4 But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. 5 And he lifted his eyes and saw the women and children, and said, 'Who are these with you?' So he said, 'The children whom God has graciously given your servant.'"
In light of the fact that Esau was a picture of fallen man, this meeting pictures for us the coming together of the Lord and repentant fallen man. Reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son, this story reveals what is required for a sinner to be saved. It was Esau who initiated the embrace followed by the kiss. I think of Psalm 2:12 which reads, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him."
After their embrace, both Esau and Jacob wept. This is the heart of God and the glory of the gospel of the Lord Jesus who was so moved by the plight of the broken that even He wept over man's waywardness. The embrace between these once adversaries was largely due to the fact that Jacob consistently humbled himself to Esau. He consistently refers to himself as Esau's servant. In like manner, the Lord Jesus humbled Himself by coming as a descendent of Adam to be the Savior of all humble enough to believe in Him. And, although our justification before God depends solely on the Lord Jesus' death on the cross, our sanctification is largely realized by us as we consistently choose to humble ourselves before God.
In v.6-7 of today's passage we read, "6 Then the maidservants came near, they and their children, and bowed down. 7 And Leah also came near with her children, and they bowed down. Afterward Joseph and Rachel came near, and they bowed down."
It is clear that Jacob could not have known the ultimate significance to how he aligned his family to meet his brother Esau but a careful look into their placement spells out the greatest story in the history of man on this planet. Most interestingly is Joseph mentioned before his mother Rachel in today's final verse. Further study of the Scriptures reveals that Joseph was a clear picture of the Lord Jesus Christ at that time. This accentuation of the name of Joseph and especially before Rachel is to show us the coming of the Lord Jesus born under the law for Joseph means "He shall add." It was He who went to the cross of shame and woe in order to fulfill the law and to remove the condemnation of the law from all who would trust in His finished work on the cross. Positioning Joseph before Rachel pictured for us how the Lord Jesus introduces the repentance sinner to the marvelous grace of God.
