Jacob Sent Esau 550 Animals Ahead of Him (Genesis 32:13–21)

Five hundred and fifty animals

Jacob sent Esau a gift of more than five hundred animals, chosen from the flocks and herds he had built over twenty years with Laban. "Jacob spent the night there, and from what he had brought with him, he selected a gift for his brother Esau" (Genesis 32:13). There were two hundred female goats and two hundred ewes, each with twenty males, and then "30 milk camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys" (Genesis 32:15).

Ten she-goats to every male goat, ten ewes to every ram. A herdsman reading that list knew those flocks were breeding stock, wealth that would keep growing in Esau's hands for years. Only a few hours earlier Jacob had prayed, "Please deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid" (Genesis 32:11). Then he went out among his animals in the dark and started choosing.

Jacob is behind us

Jacob sent the herds in separate droves so that Esau would meet one gift after another before he ever saw Jacob. He told his servants, "Go on ahead of me, and keep some distance between the herds" (Genesis 32:16), and he gave every herdsman the same lines to say: "They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift, sent to my lord Esau. And behold, Jacob is behind us." (Genesis 32:18).

Esau was on the road with four hundred men. The goats were meant to reach him first, and a servant would say his sentence. Then a gap, then ewes and rams, and another servant with the same sentence, then camels with their calves, then cattle, then donkeys, and every time the same name came at the end.

Perhaps he will accept me

Jacob hoped the gift would calm his brother's anger so that Esau would receive him. Genesis 32:20 records what he thought: "I will appease Esau with the gift that is going before me. After that I can face him, and perhaps he will accept me" (Genesis 32:20). The Hebrew word for appease is kaphar, to cover. Jacob meant to cover his brother's face with goats and camels.

Perhaps. That was as far as his plan could reach. Yet that same night Jacob had prayed, "But You have said" (Genesis 32:12), and twenty years before at Bethel God had told him, "I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land" (Genesis 28:15). He held the promise and the plan side by side, and he lay down in the camp with both. Plenty of us know that night. We pray what God said, and then we lie awake arranging our own covering.

The gift God sent

Jacob's gift points to Jesus because God has sent a gift to us, and He sent it Himself. Jacob went toward his brother with a perhaps. John wrote that God "loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10), and Paul told the church in Rome that "when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son" (Romans 5:10). The covering Jacob tried to build out of his own flocks, God provided in Christ, and He gave it to people who had nothing to send.

Hold what He said tonight

We are the people who remember what God has said. Jacob carried God's promise all the way to the river Jabbok, and his fear travelled with it. On the night you are afraid, read back what God has told you before you start counting goats. Write His promises down in the Doxa app, from Scripture and from encouragements others have shared with you, so His word is in front of you before your plan is. This is how we come to know God and be known by Him: we hold what He said, we bring Him our fear, and we find that He went ahead of us. That same night, by the Jabbok, God met Jacob Himself.

What has God said to you that you need to read back before you make tonight's plan?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the Bible's atonement word in Jacob's mouth, and the five faces in two verses. Read it here.