Genesis 23-28: Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Judah
Genesis is divided into 50 chapters with the two major divisions below. Chapters 1-11 cover thousands of years with four major events. Chapters 12-50 cove about 400 years with four majorcharacters. (See diagram at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)
Without doubt, the major player in Chapters 12-50 is Abraham. Isaac, who lived the longest of the Patriarchs, plays a transitional role to get to Jacob through whom the promise to Abraham begins to come into fruition with the multiplication of Abraham’s family line. Joseph is a major figure in the history of redemption. But his role is to become the preserver and protective womb for the the promised Redeemer and the people through whom He will come. Joseph is not in the direct line leading to Christ.
In Chapters 23-50, there is a mystery chapter that is the key chapter in this section. The stories of Jacob and Joseph seem to dominate everything in this group of chapters, but Chapter 38 is what this section is all about in the lead story of the history of redemption.
One of the things to be noticed in this section is how the promise made to Abraham is repeated and reconfirmed over and over, even though God promised Abraham that his Seed would come through Isaac. For example, God speaks to Isaac in 26:3,4 after Abraham died in chapter 25. He promises Isaac the same things He promised Abraham. When He does, God does not start a new covenant with Isaac. He says that He “will confirm the oath I swore TO ABRAHAM.” So the covenant with Abraham is dominating the story and will all the way to the end of the Old Testament.
There is a beautiful story of how Isaac found his wife, Rebekah, in Genesis 24. Her significant role in the Bible is that she is the mother of Jacob who is in the line of the Redeemer.
The story of deceit and the relationship between Esau and Jacob covers 9 chapters in Genesis. So one must ask how this relates to the story of Christ and the history of redemption. Paul uses this section of Scripture in Romans 9:6-13 to explain why all the physical descendants of Israel are not the children of God even though they physically descended from Abraham. It is because the promised Seed of Abraham is Christ, not the Jews. It is not those who are in the Jewish nation who will be saved; it is those who are IN CHRIST who will be saved. The Jews were bypassed when the promise went through Isaac and his seed and eventually ended in Christ. “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29. See Lesson 7: Genesis 12-22 for fuller explanation.)
But then Paul continues on in Romans 9:10 with the role of Jacob. He says, “Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born (Jacob and Esau) or had done anything good or bad--in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.‘ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I LOVED, but Esau I HATED.’” The point here is that just as God sovereignly bypassed Eliezer and Ishmael and chose Isaac to bring in the promised Seed, so he bypassed Esau and chose Jacob for the same reason. God went against all the natural rights that Esau had (God even went against the natural rights that Ishmael had over Isaac) as the oldest son. Instead of choosing Esau as the one through whom Christ would come, God chose the younger son, Jacob, who deceived and stole the rights he had from his brother Esau. Nevertheless, God chose Jacob – “in order that God’s purpose in election might stand.” The Redeemer was appointed through Jacob. More than that, it appears that God’s election (or choice) was even much deeper than that. “Jacob I LOVED, but Esau I HATED.” The evidence from the life of Esau as opposed to the life of Jacob strongly suggests that Jacob was sovereignly elected in Christ as Abraham’s seed and Esau was not. A reading of verses Romans 9:14-29 seems to confirm that. The reason anyone will be saved is because the Lord has chosen a remnant to be saved. He LOVED some, and He HATEDothers. Those LOVED by God are the remnant who are chosen in Christ as Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
To summarize this, the narrative about Jacob and Esau is parallel to the narrative about Ismael and Isaac. God chose one over the other. That person was in the line of promise that led to Christ. Other than Israel, few of those who were passed over and whose descendants became nations, namely the descendants of Ishmael (the Arabs) and Esau (the Edomites), enjoyed the blessings of being included as the seed of Abraham in Christ.
As Isaac starts fading into the background in these chapters, Jacob becomes more prominent. In Chapter 28:13-15 and 35:11,12, God announces the same promise He gave to Abraham and Isaac to Jacob. This is not a new promise. It is the same in content as the one given to Abraham, and it is linked back to both Abraham and Isaac by name. It will just continue on now through Jacob, the one chosen over Esau, to be Abraham’s next heir on the way to THE HEIR.
Chapter 29 finally starts the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that he would have offspring as numerable as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Jacob marries two women, Leah and Rachel. These two women produce twelve sons and one daughter for Jacob. From these children, the nation of Israel starts to grow and does so exponentially by the time of Exodus 1. Though Jacob loved Rachel more than he loved Leah (this caused great bitterness between the two wives), the Lord favored Leah over all, not only with more of Jacob’s children but with Abraham’s promised Seed. Below are the children that came from these two women and their birth order in Jacob’s family. Each of these women also used their maidservant to give Jacob children when they seemed to be barren. Using the maidservant was a ploy each wife utilized when she became jealous of the other wife’s success at having a child or when she wanted to get Jacob’s attention. The maidservant for each wife is to the right of her name in red. (See fully illustrated document at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)
LeahZilpahRachelBilhah
1. Reuben
6. Naphtali
7. Gad
8. Asher
13. Benjamin
Another feature of these chapters to note is the sins that several of these children of Jacob fell into. Satan could easily follow at this point the promise God made to Abraham and track the Promised Seed through all of these twelve sons of Jacob. So he was at work in each one of them using the ploy of corruption of the seed to stop the Redeemer. For example, in Genesis 34 Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi butchered to death the Schechemites in a vendetta after Shechem had violated their sister Dinah. In Genesis 35, Reuben sleeps with Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah, his brother’s mother. In Chapter 37, the story of Joseph begins, but the internal family strife that had developed in Jacob’s family over Joseph was like a civil war. Underneath jealousy, hatred, boiling resentment, brotherly antagonism, and favoritism, conspiracy, and murder were breeding. It is possible that Satan focused his attention on Joseph for elimination because he suspected Joseph to be the next carrier of the Redeemer’s seed. Jacob had special favor toward Joseph who was having grandiose dreams that sounded like prophecies of a coming Ruler before whom heaven and earth would bow. It was even enough to make Jacob pause when he heard Joseph’s dreams. So Joseph’s brothers intrigued against him. Rather than kill him, they eventually talked themselves out of that plan and sold him into Egyptian slavery through the Midianites.
It is interesting that right at this point – the end of Chapter 37 and the beginning of Chapter 38 – theSUPPOSED Redeemer (Joseph) and the REAL Redeemer (in the seed) intersect. Rather, thePRESERVER AND PROTECTOR of the Redeemer and the REDEEMER meet at this crossroads in the story. At first thought, as one reads the narrative of Joseph, it appears that Chapter 38 comes out of nowhere and has absolutely no relevance to Joseph’s life whatever. In fact, Chapter 39, the story of Joseph from the end of Chapter 37, resumes as if there had been no Chapter 38 at all. There is not one hint of a transition between 37, 38, or 39. Chapter 38 just seems to be thrown in there and is totally out of place. (See diagram at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)
But Chapter 38 is placed perfectly. As Joseph is being Providentially hauled off to Egypt at the end of 37, Chapter 38 is one of those “Meanwhile back at the ranch…” episodes. Chapter 38 is WHY Joseph is headed to Egypt, unknown to him, of course. But Chapter 37 and 38 will come together down in Egypt in approximately 22 years or so in Genesis 46, which will be presented in the next lesson.
Chapter 38 is a sordid tale of lies, adultery, and hypocrisy. But nestled in the heart of it is hope for the world. As soon as Joseph was off to Egypt, Judah left his brothers and married a Canaanite woman (from Ham’s family). This woman gave Judah three sons, Er, Onan, Shelah.
Because Er was wicked, God killed him. Because Onan didn’t fulfill his duty to Er’s wife and produce offspring by her after Er’s death, God killed him too. So Judah told Tamar to wait till Shelah grew up, and he would give Shelah to Tamar for a husband. But he had no plans on doing this because he was afraid that God might kill Shelah also.
After a while, Judah’s wife died. Judah eventually went into a nearby city. Tamar realized that Judah would not keep his promise of giving Shelah to her. So she disguised herself as a prostitute and went into the same town where Judah had gone and waited for him in a strategic spot. When Judah saw her, he wanted to sleep with her. She agreed if he would give her a gift. Since he had no gift with him, he gave her some personal belongs that verified who he was as a downpayment of a gift to come. He was never able to find the prostitute Tamar again to give her the gift he promised. In three months, he heard a report that Tamar was pregnant and guilty of prostitution. In self-righteous wrath and hypocrisy, Judah ordered Tamar for be burned to death for her sin. That is when she pulled out Judah’s personal belongings to verify that the man who made her pregnant was him. In great shame, He had to confess that he had never intended to give Tamar his son Shelah. Her life was spared, and he never slept with her again. But she bore Judah two son’s from that sinful liaison he made with her, Perez and Zerah.
So what in the world does all this have to do with anything, and in particular with Joseph or Christ? This is another example of Satan’s work to corrupt, eliminate, or prevent the Redeemer from crushing his head. Whether Satan knew this or not, of all of Jacob”s twelve sons, Judah was the one who held the promised Seed who would fulfill God’s promise to Abraham and bless the world. Unbelievably, that Seed came through Tamar, his daughter-in-law, and not through his legitimate wife who had died. Judah passed the Conqueror’s seed on to his son, Perez, in this seemingly obscure and isignificant story.
The Scriptures are filled with similar events like the one above and how God worked through, and in spite of, the sin of man and Satan’s machinations to stop the Man promised to Eve. Christ’s family tree is fallen and filled with sin. But the Redeemer Himself is not. Otherwise, He could not be our Savior. (See diagram at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)
Without doubt, the major player in Chapters 12-50 is Abraham. Isaac, who lived the longest of the Patriarchs, plays a transitional role to get to Jacob through whom the promise to Abraham begins to come into fruition with the multiplication of Abraham’s family line. Joseph is a major figure in the history of redemption. But his role is to become the preserver and protective womb for the the promised Redeemer and the people through whom He will come. Joseph is not in the direct line leading to Christ.
In Chapters 23-50, there is a mystery chapter that is the key chapter in this section. The stories of Jacob and Joseph seem to dominate everything in this group of chapters, but Chapter 38 is what this section is all about in the lead story of the history of redemption.
One of the things to be noticed in this section is how the promise made to Abraham is repeated and reconfirmed over and over, even though God promised Abraham that his Seed would come through Isaac. For example, God speaks to Isaac in 26:3,4 after Abraham died in chapter 25. He promises Isaac the same things He promised Abraham. When He does, God does not start a new covenant with Isaac. He says that He “will confirm the oath I swore TO ABRAHAM.” So the covenant with Abraham is dominating the story and will all the way to the end of the Old Testament.
There is a beautiful story of how Isaac found his wife, Rebekah, in Genesis 24. Her significant role in the Bible is that she is the mother of Jacob who is in the line of the Redeemer.
The story of deceit and the relationship between Esau and Jacob covers 9 chapters in Genesis. So one must ask how this relates to the story of Christ and the history of redemption. Paul uses this section of Scripture in Romans 9:6-13 to explain why all the physical descendants of Israel are not the children of God even though they physically descended from Abraham. It is because the promised Seed of Abraham is Christ, not the Jews. It is not those who are in the Jewish nation who will be saved; it is those who are IN CHRIST who will be saved. The Jews were bypassed when the promise went through Isaac and his seed and eventually ended in Christ. “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29. See Lesson 7: Genesis 12-22 for fuller explanation.)
But then Paul continues on in Romans 9:10 with the role of Jacob. He says, “Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born (Jacob and Esau) or had done anything good or bad--in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.‘ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I LOVED, but Esau I HATED.’” The point here is that just as God sovereignly bypassed Eliezer and Ishmael and chose Isaac to bring in the promised Seed, so he bypassed Esau and chose Jacob for the same reason. God went against all the natural rights that Esau had (God even went against the natural rights that Ishmael had over Isaac) as the oldest son. Instead of choosing Esau as the one through whom Christ would come, God chose the younger son, Jacob, who deceived and stole the rights he had from his brother Esau. Nevertheless, God chose Jacob – “in order that God’s purpose in election might stand.” The Redeemer was appointed through Jacob. More than that, it appears that God’s election (or choice) was even much deeper than that. “Jacob I LOVED, but Esau I HATED.” The evidence from the life of Esau as opposed to the life of Jacob strongly suggests that Jacob was sovereignly elected in Christ as Abraham’s seed and Esau was not. A reading of verses Romans 9:14-29 seems to confirm that. The reason anyone will be saved is because the Lord has chosen a remnant to be saved. He LOVED some, and He HATEDothers. Those LOVED by God are the remnant who are chosen in Christ as Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
To summarize this, the narrative about Jacob and Esau is parallel to the narrative about Ismael and Isaac. God chose one over the other. That person was in the line of promise that led to Christ. Other than Israel, few of those who were passed over and whose descendants became nations, namely the descendants of Ishmael (the Arabs) and Esau (the Edomites), enjoyed the blessings of being included as the seed of Abraham in Christ.
As Isaac starts fading into the background in these chapters, Jacob becomes more prominent. In Chapter 28:13-15 and 35:11,12, God announces the same promise He gave to Abraham and Isaac to Jacob. This is not a new promise. It is the same in content as the one given to Abraham, and it is linked back to both Abraham and Isaac by name. It will just continue on now through Jacob, the one chosen over Esau, to be Abraham’s next heir on the way to THE HEIR.
Chapter 29 finally starts the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that he would have offspring as numerable as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Jacob marries two women, Leah and Rachel. These two women produce twelve sons and one daughter for Jacob. From these children, the nation of Israel starts to grow and does so exponentially by the time of Exodus 1. Though Jacob loved Rachel more than he loved Leah (this caused great bitterness between the two wives), the Lord favored Leah over all, not only with more of Jacob’s children but with Abraham’s promised Seed. Below are the children that came from these two women and their birth order in Jacob’s family. Each of these women also used their maidservant to give Jacob children when they seemed to be barren. Using the maidservant was a ploy each wife utilized when she became jealous of the other wife’s success at having a child or when she wanted to get Jacob’s attention. The maidservant for each wife is to the right of her name in red. (See fully illustrated document at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)
LeahZilpahRachelBilhah
1. Reuben
- Simeon
- Levi
- Judah
6. Naphtali
7. Gad
8. Asher
- Issachar
- Zebulun
- Dinah
13. Benjamin
Another feature of these chapters to note is the sins that several of these children of Jacob fell into. Satan could easily follow at this point the promise God made to Abraham and track the Promised Seed through all of these twelve sons of Jacob. So he was at work in each one of them using the ploy of corruption of the seed to stop the Redeemer. For example, in Genesis 34 Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi butchered to death the Schechemites in a vendetta after Shechem had violated their sister Dinah. In Genesis 35, Reuben sleeps with Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah, his brother’s mother. In Chapter 37, the story of Joseph begins, but the internal family strife that had developed in Jacob’s family over Joseph was like a civil war. Underneath jealousy, hatred, boiling resentment, brotherly antagonism, and favoritism, conspiracy, and murder were breeding. It is possible that Satan focused his attention on Joseph for elimination because he suspected Joseph to be the next carrier of the Redeemer’s seed. Jacob had special favor toward Joseph who was having grandiose dreams that sounded like prophecies of a coming Ruler before whom heaven and earth would bow. It was even enough to make Jacob pause when he heard Joseph’s dreams. So Joseph’s brothers intrigued against him. Rather than kill him, they eventually talked themselves out of that plan and sold him into Egyptian slavery through the Midianites.
It is interesting that right at this point – the end of Chapter 37 and the beginning of Chapter 38 – theSUPPOSED Redeemer (Joseph) and the REAL Redeemer (in the seed) intersect. Rather, thePRESERVER AND PROTECTOR of the Redeemer and the REDEEMER meet at this crossroads in the story. At first thought, as one reads the narrative of Joseph, it appears that Chapter 38 comes out of nowhere and has absolutely no relevance to Joseph’s life whatever. In fact, Chapter 39, the story of Joseph from the end of Chapter 37, resumes as if there had been no Chapter 38 at all. There is not one hint of a transition between 37, 38, or 39. Chapter 38 just seems to be thrown in there and is totally out of place. (See diagram at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)
But Chapter 38 is placed perfectly. As Joseph is being Providentially hauled off to Egypt at the end of 37, Chapter 38 is one of those “Meanwhile back at the ranch…” episodes. Chapter 38 is WHY Joseph is headed to Egypt, unknown to him, of course. But Chapter 37 and 38 will come together down in Egypt in approximately 22 years or so in Genesis 46, which will be presented in the next lesson.
Chapter 38 is a sordid tale of lies, adultery, and hypocrisy. But nestled in the heart of it is hope for the world. As soon as Joseph was off to Egypt, Judah left his brothers and married a Canaanite woman (from Ham’s family). This woman gave Judah three sons, Er, Onan, Shelah.
Because Er was wicked, God killed him. Because Onan didn’t fulfill his duty to Er’s wife and produce offspring by her after Er’s death, God killed him too. So Judah told Tamar to wait till Shelah grew up, and he would give Shelah to Tamar for a husband. But he had no plans on doing this because he was afraid that God might kill Shelah also.
After a while, Judah’s wife died. Judah eventually went into a nearby city. Tamar realized that Judah would not keep his promise of giving Shelah to her. So she disguised herself as a prostitute and went into the same town where Judah had gone and waited for him in a strategic spot. When Judah saw her, he wanted to sleep with her. She agreed if he would give her a gift. Since he had no gift with him, he gave her some personal belongs that verified who he was as a downpayment of a gift to come. He was never able to find the prostitute Tamar again to give her the gift he promised. In three months, he heard a report that Tamar was pregnant and guilty of prostitution. In self-righteous wrath and hypocrisy, Judah ordered Tamar for be burned to death for her sin. That is when she pulled out Judah’s personal belongings to verify that the man who made her pregnant was him. In great shame, He had to confess that he had never intended to give Tamar his son Shelah. Her life was spared, and he never slept with her again. But she bore Judah two son’s from that sinful liaison he made with her, Perez and Zerah.
So what in the world does all this have to do with anything, and in particular with Joseph or Christ? This is another example of Satan’s work to corrupt, eliminate, or prevent the Redeemer from crushing his head. Whether Satan knew this or not, of all of Jacob”s twelve sons, Judah was the one who held the promised Seed who would fulfill God’s promise to Abraham and bless the world. Unbelievably, that Seed came through Tamar, his daughter-in-law, and not through his legitimate wife who had died. Judah passed the Conqueror’s seed on to his son, Perez, in this seemingly obscure and isignificant story.
The Scriptures are filled with similar events like the one above and how God worked through, and in spite of, the sin of man and Satan’s machinations to stop the Man promised to Eve. Christ’s family tree is fallen and filled with sin. But the Redeemer Himself is not. Otherwise, He could not be our Savior. (See diagram at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_8-_Genesis_23-38_-_Isaac,_Jacob,_Joseph,_Judah.pages)