Jacob Flees Esau: The Promise Rebekah Could Not Keep (Genesis 27:41–46)

Esau said in his heart

Esau planned to wait until his father died and then kill his brother. "Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him" (Genesis 27:41), and inside himself he fixed the timing: "The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob" (Genesis 27:41).

He said it in his heart, and by the next verse it has reached his mother's tent: "When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah" (Genesis 27:42). The God who made the heart hears what is said in it: "Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD" (Psalms 139:4). Esau never takes his anger to God, and in these verses the only voice he listens to is his own.

Obey my voice

Rebekah sent Jacob to her brother Laban in Haran to keep him alive until Esau's anger cooled. She tells him, "Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you" (Genesis 27:42), and then, "So now, my son, obey my voice and flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran" (Genesis 27:43). It is the third time in one chapter she has told Jacob to listen to her voice (Genesis 27:8, 27:13). To Isaac she gives another reason: "I am weary of my life because of these Hittite women" (Genesis 27:46).

Years before, Rebekah had gone to God herself. "So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD" (Genesis 25:22), and He answered her about these same two boys: "the older will serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23). In this chapter she plans, persuades and sends, and she never once goes back to ask Him. Knowing God means going back to the One who spoke, and letting His voice be the one we follow.

I will bring you back

Genesis never records Rebekah seeing Jacob again. She promised him a short stay and a quick return: "Then I will send for you and bring you back from there" (Genesis 27:45). The stay lasted twenty years. "Thus for twenty years I have served in your household" (Genesis 31:41).

On the road north another promise to bring Jacob back was spoken, and this one came from God at Bethel: "I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you" (Genesis 28:15). Jacob carried that promise through twenty years of another man's flocks. Then "the LORD said to Jacob, 'Go back to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you'" (Genesis 31:3). God kept every syllable.

He will come back for us

Genesis 27:41–46 points to Jesus because Rebekah promised to send for her son and bring him home, and Jesus makes that promise to everyone who is His. "I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am" (John 14:3). He says it again on the same night: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (John 14:18). To know God and be known by Him is to live on promises He has never failed to keep.

Hold His promise for the long road

Jacob crossed the Jordan with only his staff (Genesis 32:10) and a promise from God. Some of what God has said to you will take longer than a while. Write it down in the Doxa app, in His exact words and with the date, and read it back in the second year and the twentieth. The record will show who kept His promise.

We are the people who remember what God has said, and He brings His people home.

What has God promised you that you are still holding in a far country?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the Hebrew behind Rebekah's short stay, and the grudge Genesis brings back at its end. Read it here.