Chuck Larsen

At the end of Genesis 35, Isaac dies at the age of 180. Verse 29 says, “He breathed his last, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days.” Hey, I turned 75 last month (January 2022) and I’m nowhere near “full of days.” Anyway, I hope I’m not! Yet at times I feel old for sure but at other times I feel like I’m just getting started. Think about this: Isaac was nearly my age when Jacob was born! What? Michelangelo painted the ceiling of Sistine Chapel on his back on a scaffold when he was 90 years old. Cato, a renowned Greek Orator began studying Greek at 73. Goethe wrote his most famous work “Faust” at 82. Galileo invented the telescope and tracked the rotation of the planets after he was 80. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt when he was 80. Caleb led his tribe in battle against the Giants in Canaan at 85. Verdi produced his masterpiece “Othello,” at 80, “Falstaff”, at 85. The great Zoologist Lamarch wrote his famous “The Natural History of the Invertebrates,” at 78. Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar” at 83. Browning wrote: “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be the last of life for which the first was made.” I’m finding that Browning was right!

Genesis 35:29 closes the chapter. It says, “Now the days of Isaac were 180 years.  And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.” I like the phrase “gathered to his people.” It was 20 years ago that the blind Isaac called his boys to him to give them his blessing on his “so called” death bed. Jacob cheated Esau out of Isaac’s intended blessing and that scene became the event that separated Esau and Jacob for the following 20 plus years. After their reconciliation, Isaac’s real death brings the two brothers back together again. Guzik observes, “We should remember our times are in God’s hands. We may expect a long or short life for others or ourselves and be quite wrong. Only God knows.”¹ Some have suggested that “gathered to his people” simply means he was buried like his ancestors were. They argue that because Isaac was interred at the same place Abraham and Sarah were buried is clear proof of that. Genesis 49:31 is going to affirm the fact that both Isaac and Rebekah were buried at Machpelah with Sarah and Abraham. But, It’s got to mean something more. Exell agrees. He writes, “We are told of Abraham that ‘he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God;’ and further, that ‘Isaac and Jacob’ were ‘heirs with Him of the same promise.’ (Heb. 11:9, 10.) Surely Isaac died with the thought of meeting the beloved ones who had gone before, in a better country.”²

Funerals have a way of bringing families back together. The last time I can remember when the family was altogether was when my sister, Rita, passed away in 1993. She was only 48. It was a shock to us all especially her children. We all comforted each other in just our presence. Death can do that. The Pulpit Commentary says this, “Death is a terrible divider, but a uniter too. Under the shadow of the great mystery, on the borders of an eternal world, in the presence of those tears which human eyes weep for the dead, even when they can weep no other tears, the evil things of envy, hatred, revenge, alienation do often hide themselves, and the better things of love, peace, brotherhood, amity come forth.”³ The things that really matter in life become central where deaths are concerned. The text speaks of being “full of days.” According to most Hebrew scholars this involves a sense of satisfaction with the results of one’s life. You can see why in both Abraham’s death as well as Isaacs. The things that mattered most were involved. Williams observes, “Good had resulted at the funeral of Abraham in that the estranged Ishmael and Isaac were reconciled and attended the event together (see 25:9). Likewise, Esau and Jacob underscore their reconciliation by together laying Isaac to rest (see 35:29).”⁴

1 David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 35:27.

2 Joseph S. Exell and Thomas H. Leale, Genesis, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1892), 622.

3 H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Genesis, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 419.

4 Wilbur Glenn Williams, Genesis: A Commentary for Bible Students (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1999), 249.

I am so thankful for my sons. My wife and I love them more than anything except maybe our three grandsons! We’ve occasionally thought it would have been nice to have had more children. We would have especially wanted a daughter. But, God gave us what God gave us and we’re very grateful for them all. We love to spend time with them! We have great meals and game nights with our family and look forward to them every other week. We are content with the situation God gave us regarding children. God gave Jacob 12 sons and a daughter. The sons are children of four different women. Jacob’s two wives named all 12 of them and when you study the names of each son you see they’re named in competition with the other wife. Without going into the details of each name notice that once Rachel receives the boy born by one of her handmaidens she is overcome with joy and glorifies God. But sadly the name she chooses, Dan ( “vindicated me against my sister” ), taints the gift with a competitive sting, as if God had taken her side to restore her dominance over her sister. But the God who never keeps score, acts once again with gracious abundance, doubling the gift and granting Bilhah another child. To Rachel, winning this last round is the ultimate victory. The boy’s name, Naphtali (“with the wrestling’s of God I have wrestled my sister”), cements her belief that God has permanently taken her side, giving her final victory over her sister. Sadly, it reflects not praise but dominance in her struggle for the coveted “love trophy.” But little does Rachel know that when we compete to prove our worth, it never produces contentment. I’m not sure that Jacob’s example in his competitive life with his brother Esau, spurred along by his mother Rebekah, didn’t help motivate them all, not to mention the strife Jacob had with Laban, his father in law.

After Dinah’s rape and the slaughter of the Shechemites, Jacob (Israel) is afraid for his life. But God appears to him and says “go back to Bethel. Stay there and worship me.” Jacob now convicted of his backsliding calls his family to destroy their idols and moves back to Bethel and builds an altar and worships God. God renews his promises to bless Jacob and his descendants. Then the text says something very profound. In Genesis 35:16 we read, “They left Bethel.” I can’t help but ask why? Bethel means “God’s house” or “the House of God.” Bethel is where man and God can meet. Bethel is where God wanted them. When Jacob was at Bethel he worshipped God. Worship is what God wanted. Nothing but trouble follows Jacob’s family after they leave. Rachel is blessed with another child on the way but then dies in the delivery. Genesis 35:16-18 says, “Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, ‘Do not fear, for you have another son.’  And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.” The family begins to fall apart then. Rachel dies in childbirth; Reuben tries to usurp the leadership of the family by sleeping with one of Jacob’s wives. The other brothers sell Jacob’s beloved Joseph, Judah sleeps with Tamar, and then a famine hits the land and forces them to flee to Egypt.

Who wants more kids?? You never know what you’re gonna get! But I’d take the story a little deeper and ask why did this happen. I think it’s because Jacob left Bethel, the house of God. In other words he left God out of the equation of family life. Jacob with his two wives set a tone that impacted the entire family. The same bad things happened to David. I’m not arguing that any child’s rebellion or failure to live godly lives are to be blamed on the parent. That’s not appropriate nor is it true. But there are still principles of establishing a solid family life that is more conducive to happy living in the home. I think it was Jim Dobson who told this story: “In a recent conversation with a sixth-grade teacher in an upper middle-class California city. She was shocked to see the results of a creative writing task assigned to her students. They were asked to complete a sentence that began with the words, ‘I wish.’ The teacher expected the boys and girls to express wishes for bicycles, dogs, television sets, and trips to Hawaii. Instead, twenty of the thirty children made reference in their responses to their own disintegrating families. A few of their actual sentences were as follows: “‘I wish my parents wouldn’t fight and I wish my father would come back.’ ‘I wish my mother didn’t have a boyfriend.’ ‘I wish I could get straight A’s so my father would love me.’ ‘I wish I had one mom and one dad so the kids wouldn’t make fun of me.’ ‘I wish I had an M-1 rifle so I could shoot those who made fun of me.'” I’m just saying…..

Esau hugged and kissed his brother Jacob when he returned after 25 years in Haran. There seems to have been serious reconciliation between the brothers. I think Jacob took the humble position in that reconciliation. It’s not perfectly clear but it looks like Jacob wants to return the blessing that he stole from his brother. Genesis 33:10-11 tells us that Jacob presented Esau with many gifts but Esau was hesitant to accept them. Jacob said, “‘No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand. For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.’ Thus he urged him, and he took it.” It appears to me that offering “my blessing” is like offering to return what he had stolen from his brother. Briscoe observes “Reconciliation requires those who have done wrong to admit it and those who have been wronged to accept the apology. Without both parties being willing to participate appropriately nothing is achieved.” We can all relate to this. We’ve all been wronged and we’ve all wronged others. I must admit that when someone has wronged me there’s something about my heart that wants to hold on to the bitterness. Sometimes it’s hard to forgive. It’s also hard to accept forgiveness.

Like Ogilvie says, we have “drunk so long and deeply of the waters of resentment that we find it impossible to break free from our addiction to bitterness.” Yes, it becomes an addiction. We can wallow in it, escape from our current trials into it, dream about it and let it eat our lunch in so many different ways. Someone said, “We refuse to stop drinking the wine of resentment and when we’ve emptied the cup, we find that what we’ve consumed is ourselves.” Isn’t it our pride? One must humble themselves to the wrong and the wronged and learn to be at peace with it and the frailties of ourselves and others. It seems like this happened to Jacob just before he met Esau. He wrestled with God. The great preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones was once asked, “What does a person look like who has truly met God?” Alluding to Genesis 32:31, he replied, “He walks with a limp.” That is incredibly perceptive, isn’t it? After encountering the living Christ, Jacob was forever crippled—both physically and in regard to his ego. He could no longer strut around arrogantly as he had done before. His pride turned to lowliness (33:3). His greed turned to generosity (33:10–11). And his self-reliance had turned into worship (33:20).¹

We’ve already read in the book of Genesis that the angel of the Lord proved that there is nothing “too hard for God.” He gave Sarah and Abraham a miraculous child in their own age. He brought Isaac back from the dead for Abraham on Mount Moriah. There’s nothing that God cannot do! Why is it that we have such a hard time applying this truth to our own sins and failures and guilts and grudges. Of all the things that seem impossible to me is for God to remove my grudges and griefs with those who have wronged me as well as the guilt and remorse I feel over those I have wronged. Forgiveness is a very hard thing to receive! It appears that Esau extended that forgiveness to his brother most graciously. “Father, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

¹ Kurt Strassner, Opening up Genesis, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2009), 132.

Jacob had a relatively mild healing in his relationship with his uncle and father-in-law, Laban. Among the hills of Gilead that found the healing balm of forgiveness of sorts and Laban hugged and kissed his children farewell and wish Jacob the best. Yes, Jeremiah, there is a balm in Gilead. But when Jacob heard that his brother was coming to meet him with 400 soldiers, Genesis 32:7 says that Jacob panicked and “was greatly afraid and disturbed.” He then divided the people who were with him , and the flocks and the herds and camels, into two camps.” How soon we forget the lessons about God’s protection of us when people intend us harm. Jacob didn’t know what to expect from his brother who had pledged to kill him for stealing Isaac’s blessing from him. Rebekah had sent Jacob away telling him that when Esau’s anger subsides, she will send for him and tell him it’s safe to come home. Jacob never heard from Rebekah, so he was taking a huge chance.

Can you imagine the joy Jacob felt at their first encounter? Genesis 33:4 tells us, “But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” They “wept”!! Duh!! We all know what it is like to be estranged from family members. Our root connections with family are deeply ingrained and we long to be reconciled when relationships are broken. This is what it was like for Jacob. He wanted to go home. Jacob did not have to go through his brother’s territory to go home, but he chose to do so only after wrestling with God all night long. Obviously he wanted to put things right with the brother he had cheated. Barnhouse used to say “the way to up is down, and the way to down is up.” Meaning that God will humble those who exalt themselves, but will exalt those who humble themselves. Jacob humbled himself before his brother Esau by bowing down seven times before him. Ogilvie says that even though Jacob did not know Christ’s teaching about “first be reconciled to your brother” (Matthew 5:24), “he showed sensitivity to the necessity of this kind of action.” Because of Jacob’s humble approach, God moved Esau to welcome his brother home. The joy is unmistakable as seen in verse 4 of chapter 33,”Esau ran to meet him and embraced him…and kissed him and they wept.”

I believe it took 25 years for Jacob’s relationship with Laban to sour to the point Jacob wanted to go home. He needed to go home. It was so important that he was willing to risk it all to make the reconciliation happen. Several times during his stay with Laban he thought about and even desired to go home. He even tried to do so a couple of times but things just didn’t work out for him to do so. Things had to get bad for Jacob with Laban before he was willing to make that break! I guess that’s often the case with us too. Things have to get bad before we’re willing to humble ourselves and set some broken relationships right. They say that John Lennon was trying to get things right with his estranged family when he was murdered in New York. He waited too long!

Jacob spoke to Laban about the “fear” of Isaac and planted the seed that it was Abraham and Isaac’s God that was protecting him. In the hills Gilead, Laban had the fear of Isaac’s God as well and made a truce with Jacob sending him and his daughters away with hugs and kisses. Probably with a sigh of relief Jacob’s attention was turned from his father-in-laws pursuit of him from the north to his inevitable encounter with the brother in the south who he had cheated out of Isaac’s blessings. He sent messengers ahead to see what they could learn about his brother Esau. In Genesis 32:6, we read, “And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, ‘We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.’” Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as one commentator expressed it. But did that bother Jacob? Of course not! (Read some Sarcasm here please!). He had just been protected by God and bragged to his father-in-law that Abraham and Isaac’s God was looking out for him against any who might intend to do him harm. You’d think that he would have had more faith but the following verse, Genesis 32:7, says, “Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.”

It’s always easy to see How God has delivered us through our problems in the past. Hindsight is always 20/20. But I somehow don’t have the same confidence about the problems that are staring me in the face at the moment. My mother was right. “There is always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” You just get over one difficulty and you face another one. You get through one fear and there’s something else facing you. There’s always something else to be afraid of. Why was Jacob so brave to stand up to Laban but so afraid to face Esau. Maybe Guzik is right. He says, “This was because Jacob knew he was in the right with Laban, but he knew he was in the wrong with Esau.”¹ Shakespeare wrote in Act 3, Scene 1 of Hamlet, “ “Conscience does make cowards of us all.” Wow! How true is that? Like Jacob I believe my confidence and assurance is often hindered by my past. I’m thinking that’s not unusual for believers today and of every age. Indeed guilt makes cowards of us all! There might be a good reason for Jacob’s fear also. Before Jacob left home, after his brother swore to kill him, Rebekah told Jacob until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send and bring you from there (Genesis 27:45). Rebekah never sent for Jacob; therefore he had every reason to believe that Esau was still angry with him 20 years later.

Genesis 32:1-2 says that as Jacob went on his way from Laban, “… the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said, ‘This is God’s camp!’ So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.” This is a good place to set up camp is what Jacob thought. It’s safe, I have God’s protection all around me. Even though Jacob saw the angels, he was afraid of Esau and the 400 soldiers that came with him. Jacob was still afraid. I like how Duguid wraps up this scene. He writes, “Do you see the message that God is trying to get across to Jacob? It is that he need not resort to slippery strategies in the face of obstacles, no matter how overwhelming they appear. Instead, he should trust in the unseen forces of God. Just as God had protected him against the wrath of Laban, so he could be trusted to protect him against any threat from Esau.”² But, Jacob, devised his own plan to protect himself from Esau. I often do the same thing with all the Labans and Esaus in my life. And my mother was right, “There is always something!”

¹ David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 32:7–8.

² Iain M. Duguid, Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace: The Gospel in the Lives of Isaac and Jacob, ed. Tremper Longman III and J. Alan Groves, The Gospel according to the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 108.

Laban, Jacob’s uncle, had kissed him upon his arrival. That’s interesting because Jacob had kissed his father when he tricked him out of giving the blessing to Esau instead of himself. After Laban’s welcoming kiss, he proceeded to trick Jacob into marrying his oldest daughter after Jacob had served for 7 years to win Rachel. Laban then exacted another 7 years from Jacob to get Rachel. Besides this there were disputes between the two and Laban attempted to keep the richest parts of the flocks and harvests from Jacob. But God would have none of that. Genesis 30:43 says, “Thus the man (Jacob) increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.” However, don’t forget that Jacob was plotting to plot to mate the flock before some kind of reed that would guarantee their health and color. The blessing of prosperity and wealth came to Jacob, not because of his reeds and rods but because someone was watching over him. If Laban would have had his way, Jacob would never leave and would end up with little or nothing. Fortunately, as Boice observes, “Jacob had an ally who was open-handed, upright, straightforward, generous, and compassionate. His ally was God. The secret of Jacob’s success in working for Laban is that even in the unpleasant earthly relationship, he was really working for God, who would protect him and prosper his efforts.”

The Handbook for translators disagrees with Boice’s interpretation and thinks that his wealth had to do with his conniving nature associated with his name Jacob, which means trickster or supplant. It reads, “Thus the man grew exceedingly rich: thus marks a conclusion to this story, which has been told to explain that Jacob became a rich man because he was more clever than his uncle. We may say in English, for example, ‘And so it happened,’ ‘In this way,’ ‘By doing these things,’ ‘as a result.’ Grew … rich translates a Hebrew verb that describes something bursting or breaking forth, and so in this context describes Jacob’s wealth as developing suddenly and greatly.”¹ Regardless, both Laban and Jacob got what they deserved from each other. Ryle summarizes the contest between Jacob and Laban for us. He writes “In this passage and in the following chapter Laban is depicted in the Israelite narrative as the typical Aramaean, a crafty, selfish, grasping man of business. Jacob, however, in spite of Laban’s duplicity, prospers exceedingly. By greater cunning he outwits Laban himself, and God gives him protection and prosperity.”²

It seems that based on the promises that God had made to Abraham, Isaac and they passed on to Jacob, the wealth that Jacob acquired had much less to do with his own cleverness than it had to do with the promises of blessing that he tricked his father Isaac into giving to him rather than his brother Esau. Romans 9:13 makes it clear that God’s blessing was freely bestowed on Jacob not Esau. Why God chose Jacob over Esau was simply a matter of His promises to Abraham and Isaac. He could not go back on his promise. It wasn’t Jacob’s cleverness. Butler suggests, “Success accompanied the scheming but success did not result from the scheming. Sometimes when God blesses us in spite of ourselves, we have a tendency to credit some evil scheme.” ³

¹ William David Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry, A Handbook on Genesis, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1998), 705.

² Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version with Introduction and Notes, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), 306.

³ John G. Butler, Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis (Clinton, IA: LBC Publications, 2008), 301.