“By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.” (Heb. 11:20, NKJV)
Back to the master narrative of Elijah of which we read in 1 Kings 18. We now need to make typological sense of verses 31 and 32a: “And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, ‘Israel shall be your name.’ Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord”.
We’ve pointed out a number of times that the manifestation of a personal mantle is dependant on the sanctioning thereof by a spiritual father. Fatherhood is the foundation of everything that comes to being in the spiritual realm.
Elijah, in the road of obedience he is walking, has now been placed in a situation in which he needs to test his spiritual authority to the threatening reality. Take note of his very first prophetic action – he picks up twelve stones, which for him represent the twelve tribes of Israel. But then the narrator includes this extremely important sentence, to shed light on the matter: “to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, ‘Israel shall be your name.’” Strictly speaking this word that is referred to is not directed at the twelve tribes, but to the archetypal father, Jacob, according to Gen. 32:28: “And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.’”
What does Elijah’s particular situation have to do with Jacob, and with his sons, and why does Elijah call on them? Within this we find an immensely important revelation, but before we can get to it, it is first necessary to understand what exactly happened during this life-changing episode in Jacob’s spiritual journey.
This incident is presented as narrative in Gen. 32:22-32, but it is preceded (Gen. 32:1-31) by a very anxious Jacob, for whom the return of his brother Esau involves a very difficult situation, as he had Esau give up his first born rights (Gen. 25:33-34), as well as later trick him out of his blessing from their father, Isaac, taking it for himself (read the version of events in Gen. 27).
Jacob’s anxiety was indeed warranted – part of the prophecy that Isaac had spoken over Esau was truly something to be afraid of: “By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; and it shall come to pass, when you become restless, that you shall break his yoke from your neck.” (Gen. 27:40). In the next verse we read: “So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, ‘The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’” And Esau’s personal history did indeed speak to this lust for revenge – he was extremely violent. Fausset’s Bible Dictionary describes him as follows: “The animal appearance marked his sensual, self willed, untamed nature, in which the moral, spiritual elements were low.”
But it is of great importance that Esau, even in his unbridled state of the unregenerated self, “the strenuous, daring life of the chase” (ISBE), immediately links what Jacob had done to him, and the meaning of his twin brother’s name. In Gen. 27:36, Esau says: “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times.” In the Old Testament a first name points to one’s identity, and in this case Jacob’s name was an apt description of his character: a backstabber, a traitor, a forsaker, a deviant.
For Jacob something major did indeed need to change in his life before he could be the rightful owner of the patriarchal blessing, and obviously be worthy of it. For although Jacob was, in everyday terms, a less violent man than Esau, there was not much difference between their characters – both had dishonoured God.
There is a lot at stake here, and therefore Jacob made a very selfish choice to, at all costs, grab a hold of Esau’s first born rights, and the generational blessings that form part of this package. What exactly was at stake? An incomparable future for his descendants: “The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power” (Gen. 49:2); the priesthood is entrusted to this family line (Num. 8:17-19), and this includes “the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises” (Rom. 9:4), but especially that Jacob would become the one through which the seed is carried from which the Messiah eventually is born, as Rom. 9:5 beautifully suggests: “of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God”. With this act Jacob inherited EVERYTHING that can possibly be inherited on this earth! Please selah about this immense heritage, and also how it affects you, as part of the Christ. Former President Nelson Mandela once said: “It is not our failures that frighten us, but our potential for greatness. We fear authentic greatness far more than we fear our failures and shortcomings. We fear the kingly and queenly parts of ourselves because the other parts of us are so demanding that even if that royal part of us were to emerge, the other parts of us would surely seek to destroy it.”
Although Jacob stole the promises of God from his brother he was now responsible for them, and first had to change his nature before he could become the vehicle for the promises of God. He had to have the authority to bring the calling into being. Many people receive a calling, indeed, “many are called” (Matt. 22:14), but there are very few who walk the path until the calling is realised. They firstly need to demonstrate a spirit that speaks of the godly nature before they can receive the mantle which will make it possible for them to operate within the authority that comes with it. In 2 Pet. 1:4 it notes how we are called by his glory, “by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust”. Jacob first had to escape his decrepitness. This process is obviously not something he is capable of doing by himself, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” Jacob could join Paul in calling out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me …” (verse 24). So can we.
But even more than this: Jacob was constantly walking around with the fact that he knows that he has very little integrity. The word integrity derives from the Latin word integra, which means to be whole. Wholeness entails bringing all the different facets of your life in balance and harmony with God, and to bring all broken elements and unfinished business before Him, so that He can bring you into His wholeness and fulness. Our Archimedes Point, that point where all things harmonise together, integrating into fullness, is nestled in returning to the image of God with which He created you and I. Each of us is wonderfully made, as is said in the words of Ps. 139:13-15. But there is only one way in which this image we lost in paradise can again be found – through the gospel of the glory of Christ, which is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4). Selah.
If Scripture then says of Rebecca that “there were twins in her womb” (Gen. 25:24), her womb thus carries the typological dual nature of man. In the preceding verse God makes it clear: “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” A very important observation is that the word that is here translated as nations, gôy, is exactly the same word that is used to speak of heathens! Outside of the covenant Yahweh prepares with the Hebrews (Ex. 3:18), He is preparing a plan of salvation for the entire world, as He had earlier promised to Abraham: “Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen. 28:14).
Here in Rebecca’s womb, in a prenatal forecast, are found, in typological terms, the entire mankind’s two (potential) natures: the (sinful) “mankind” (James 3:7), and the “divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). From 1 Cor. 15:46 we learn: “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual,” and this is then exactly what happens to Isaac: Esau, who signifies the natural man in his challenging wildness and sinful untamed nature, is of course first born, and after him Jacob, who here then signifies the spiritual man. Esau’s physical characteristics act as symbolic markers – they are the origin of his name: “And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau.” Further, in verse 30, we read that after the incident where he sold his first born right for a pot of red lentil soup, he was also called Edom, which also means red, and of course shares the same root word as Adam.
Remember that in the teachings of Day 235 and 236 we learnt that the first created being on earth, who carried the name Man, was for the first time called by another name after the fall: Adam. The earth (adâmâh), from which Man was taken, is cursed (Gen. 5:29) on account of man (adâm). In chapter 4 of Genesis man is for the first time no longer referred to as man, but is also given a name and an identity. In Gen. 4:25 he is called by his new name, Adam. This name means red. From then on man would have blood in his veins, and not light, and the life would henceforth be in the blood: “The life of every living creature is in its blood.” (Lev. 17:4 CEV). The first man revealed the colour of shame for the first time after the fall: red, like blood (Gen. 2:25; 3:10; Isa. 24:23).
God clothed Adam and Eve with tunics of skin after the fall (Gen. 3:21), the original meaning of tunic in Hebrew being covering. For the first time in the existence of Adam and Eve the concept of death became a reality for them. God had after all warned them that if they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will surely die (Gen. 2:17). The “tunics of skin” thus also have the function that man realised, for the first time, that if your spirit is not alive you have the exact same status as an animal: both have a soul dimension and are clothed in a mortal body. This has the implication that the natural man (here symbolised by Esau), devoid of spiritual capability, can only manifest his carnal nature. The non-born again natural man, “does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14), thus he only thinks of carnal matters (Rom. 8:5), and is thus carnal (Prov. 23:7) and this brings forth only death (Rom. 8:6). Such a state of thought and living is enmity against God (Rom. 8:7)! Of all of this Esau then becomes the prototype.
As was explained in the teaching of Day 303, it is now easier to understand that God states that He hates Cain, and that He ordained that the oldest will serve the youngest (Rom. 9:12-13). In short: all who are born are firstly flesh, but the spirit is, in a sense, grabbing him by the ankles (Gen. 25:26; Gal. 4:29)! The hand of the spiritual man brings the covering there where it symbolically locks around the ankle, the place where the snake bites (Gen. 3:15), his Achilles’ heel. There is thus, in an amazing manner, a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3) that is offered to the fallen man by the born again man, here symbolised by Esau. This history thus becomes a way for the playing out of the (also) fallen Jacob undergoing a change of name and identity, and thus a prototype of that which Elijah speaks when referring to the spiritual authority of the spiritual man. More on this in the next teaching!
- Selah: Try to come to an understanding of the opening Scripture.
- Read: 25-30; 1 Pet. 5; Ps. 96; 2 Cor. 1.
- Memorise: 96:1 (and do it!)
