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DEATH, MARRIAGE, AND THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

(c. 1859–1759 B.C.)

Sarah, Rebekah, and Jacob

More than a decade after God tested Abraham’s faith by telling him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Abraham’s wife Sarah breathed her last.1 Sarah, the mother of Isaac, was God’s chosen matriarch of the future Israelite people,2 and Abraham purchased a cave near Hebron as a tomb to bury her.3

After about three years when Isaac was 40,4 Abraham sent his most-trusted servant, Eliezer, to find a bride for Isaac among Abraham’s relatives.5 It may have been weeks before his ten-camel caravan arrived at the well outside Haran.6 As the sun drew near to the western horizon, the godly servant prayed for specific confirmation about Isaac’s wife-to-be. The description in Genesis 24 is a striking reminder that the Creator orchestrated this crucial moment in molding a chosen people.

God answered Eliezer’s prayer down to its finest detail when the beautiful maiden Rebekah arrived. She showed great kindness to him and his caravan. Later that evening her father and brother gave permission for the marriage, and many valuable gifts from Abraham were bestowed.7 The next morning, Rebekah agreed to depart immediately. Trusting God, she said goodbye to loved ones she might never see again and set out to meet her unknown groom in an unfamiliar land.

Some days later in a field in Canaan where Isaac was praying at evening, Rebekah dismounted her camel, and the couple finally met.8 Obviously pleased by Eliezer’s amazing report of the Lord’s leading, Isaac and Rebekah soon married, and she gladdened his heart.9

However, God did not give children quickly. Finally, after 20 years of waiting, and Isaac’s earnest prayer for his wife, Rebekah bore twins! The first was red and very hairy so they named him Esau.10 The second grabbed his brother’s heel, so they named him Jacob.11

When they became adults, Esau loved hunting, while Jacob apparently helped oversee the family’s herds.12 One day when Jacob was making stew, Esau came in. Tired and famished, he wanted to eat immediately. Jacob respected that God had given Abraham and Isaac an amazing inheritance and knew that Esau did not value it. So he offered his hungry brother a quick meal in exchange for his birthright.13 Incredibly, Esau agreed. He simply ate and left.14

When the twins were about 7715 and their wealthy father had gone blind,16 Isaac was about to bestow the blessing of family leadership on Esau — who was ungodly, sexually immoral, and had sold his birthright to Jacob!17 However, God had revealed to Rebekah that the older would serve the younger,18 so when she commanded Jacob to help deceive her husband in order to receive the birthright blessing, she felt justified. Rebekah prepared goat meat to taste like wild game, which Isaac was awaiting from Esau. Then she had Jacob wear Esau’s clothes and placed goatskin on his smooth neck and hands.19 Jacob repeatedly lied to his blind father Isaac, who gave Jacob the blessing.20

Within minutes, Esau learned of the deception and wailed bitterly. He threatened to kill his brother,21 so Rebekah convinced Isaac to send Jacob north to find a wife among her nieces, away from pagan Canaanite women like Esau’s wives, who brought them much heartache.22

Jacob fled Beersheba for Haran.23 Possibly that very night he dreamed of a ladder that connected earth and heaven. Angels went up and down.24 Like us, Jacob was a sinner but God had chosen him, promised to protect him, and to give him and his descendants the land where he was sleeping. Genesis says that when he awoke he was awestruck, so he took the stone that had been his pillow, set it to mark the spot, and called the place Bethel.25 Then he started again to Haran.

Many years later, Jesus revealed that He is the ladder, the only true way to heaven.26

PRIMARY PASSAGES

Gen. chapters 23–28, Gen. 35:28–29

KEY VERSE

“So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night. . . . Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said . . . ‘the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 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. 28:11–14

WRAP UP

“You bring good from bad, Lord. You even use broken, deceptive sinners to accomplish Your plan. Thank You so very much that in spite of Isaac’s favoritism toward his immoral son Esau the hunter, and Rebekah’s scheming and deception with her favorite son Jacob the rancher, You made sure that Your sovereign will was accomplished. Your plan is never overwhelmed by man’s feeble deceptions. Thank You, Lord, for Your love-filled grace!”

1 Sarah died at age 127 (Gen. 23:1). This means that Isaac was 37 when his passed away. Ussher’s Annals of the World, note 93, says Sarah was 127 in 1859 B.C., and we know Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born and Sarah was about 10 years younger than Abraham, about 90. Since Sarah was 127 at her death, and 90 at Isaac’s birth, Isaac was about 37 when his mother died. Abraham was about 137 when Sarah died, and he lived to 175, per Genesis 25:7.

2 To understand the difference between an Israelite, a Hebrew, and a Jew, see the online article, “Who is a Jew” at www.biblelineministries.org/articles/basearch.php3?action=full&mainkey=WHO+IS+A+JEW%3F), accessed February 2017.

3 Genesis 23:2–19. Also of note is that Genesis 18 states that it was in this area — perhaps at the same field where this cave-tomb was located — that the Lord told Abraham when he was 99 that within a year his 90-year-old wife, Sarah, would bear the long-awaited son of promise, Isaac. The field chosen to bury his sister-wife may have been especially significant to Abraham because of the promise God made to him at that place. In the cave that Abraham purchased for a tomb (in Ephron’s field in Machpelah near “Mamre,” which is near Hebron at the south end of the Dead Sea) all three patriarchs and their covenant wives were eventually buried; Abraham and Sarah, the mother of Isaac (Gen. 25:8–10), Isaac and Rebekah, the mother of the heel-grabber Jacob, and Jacob (Israel) and Leah, the mother of adulterous Judah.

4 Three years after Sarah died, Isaac was 40 (Gen. 25:20) and Abraham sent his chief servant Eliezer to Haran (in modern-day Turkey) to find a wife for Isaac from among Sarah’s relatives. Isaac married his cousin Rebekah, the daughter of Sarah’s brother Bethuel, and sister of Laban.

5 Genesis 24:4,7,15,37–38,40. Abraham was 140 at this time and lived to 175, even marrying again and having more children. Isaac was 40 and lived to 180, so Isaac was just 22% of the way through his life when his father, Abraham, determined it was time for him to get married. As of 2017, a U.S. male has a life expectancy of 76 years and marries when he is 29, which is 38% of the way through life. Since modern U.S. men marry when nearly twice as old as Isaac was (by percent of life lived), the fact that Abraham waited until Isaac was 40 to help him find a bride is not odd. (Note: Modern ages and percentages derived chiefly from the U.S. Census Bureau.)

6 Genesis 24:10–11, The distance to Haran was more than 400 miles. Eliezer took ten camels and other servants.

7 Genesis 24:50–51

8 Genesis 24:63–67

9 Genesis 24:15–16. Because Isaac’s second cousin Rebekah is described as a “maiden” (ESV) or a “young person” (YLT) it is likely that she was no older than 20 when Isaac was 40 and they married. Genesis 24:67 indicates that Rebekah brought him comfort when they married at that time, about three years after his mother’s death. In Genesis 26:6–17, we see that Isaac followed somewhat in his father Abraham’s footsteps in that when he was afraid for his life due to his wife’s beauty, he deceived the men of Gerar — where Isaac and Rebekah lived for a long time — by telling them that she was his sister. This was a lie. She was his second cousin. Isaac’s deception became known to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, when he saw them “frolicking” from his window and chastised Isaac for the lie. Eventually, God blessed Isaac in terms of his wealth and the envious king sent him and his clan away.

10 Esau would become the father of the Edomites and Temanites.

11 Genesis 25:20–26

12 Genesis 25:24–27. The fact that Esau was out hunting even though it was not necessary since the family had large herds of animals, and that Jacob stayed among the clan’s tents where there was work to be done in maintaining the flocks and family finances seems to reflect somewhat on the character of each of the sons. Esau, who wantonly sold his birthright for a non-urgent bowl of stew may not have been as patient or as responsible as Jacob. And according to Hebrews 12:16, he was sexually immoral and unholy.

13 A “birthright” was a person’s future inheritance.

14 Genesis 25:31–34

15 Per James Ussher’s Annals of the World (English translation dated 2003 by Larry and Marion Pierce, paragraph 113), Jacob was 77 at this time; 1759 B.C. Though Ussher does not explain his calculation to arrive at the age of 77, following is a complicated, yet clear, biblical calculation that Jacob indeed was 77 when he deceived Isaac. - Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, and 60 years old when Rebekah bore Jacob and Esau. Isaac was 180 years old when he died (Genesis 35:28), so his sons Jacob and Esau would have been 120 when Isaac died. Per Genesis 47:9, Jacob was 130 when he went to Egypt during the famine. Genesis 45:11 says Jacob went down while there was 5 years of famine (of the 7 years) left; 130 years minus 2 years of famine already, minus 7 years of good crops, makes Jacob 121 at the start of the good crops. Genesis 41:46 says Joseph was 30 years old when he was assigned to begin overseeing the 7 years of good crops. So Jacob’s 121 minus Joseph’s 30 makes Jacob 91 when Joseph was born. Jacob served Laban a total of 14 years for Leah and Rachel. Right at the end of the 14 years was when Joseph was born (Gen. 30:25). Now we have to subtract the 14 years from the age of 91, which gives Jacob’s age of 77 when he left Canaan for Haran. Per https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090215190920AAYXFg9, as accessed April 2017.

16 Genesis 27:2. Isaac was about 136 years old at this time, 44 years prior to his death at 180. Genesis 26:12–14 — Isaac was very wealthy.

17 Hebrews 12:16–17

18 Genesis 25:23. God told Rebekah before the twins were born that “the older shall serve the younger.”

19 Genesis 27:5–17

20 Genesis 27:18–29. Note also that, “With Jacob, the issue of the blessing and birthright are pretty much one and the same. Esau despised his birthright so much as to sell it to Jacob. Birthright meant Jacob had a right to receive the blessing, and Jacob knew better than to let Esau take it out from under him after he purchased it, and so went along with his mother’s scheme. So, although he was not honest with his father (and this was a fault for Jacob), the blessing was his to receive due to the agreement between Esau and Jacob in Genesis 25:31–34. Isaac never repealed the blessing but reaffirmed it afterwards, and even the Lord gave his blessing to Jacob in Genesis 48:3,” by Bodie Hodge in the online article “More Righteous Lies?” as viewed February 2017 at https://answersingenesis.org/morality/more-righteous-lies/.

21 Genesis 27:41

22 Genesis 28:10

23 Jacob’s father Isaac died when he was 180 (Genesis 35:28). We know that Esau and Jacob were born when Isaac was 60 (20 years after he married Rebekah), so they were 120 when Isaac died. Isaac’s death was 43 years after Jacob, at age 77, got Isaac’s blessing by deception and then fled to Haran to find a wife. Isaac’s death was (about) 22 years after Jacob returned with his two wives, 2 concubines, 11 sons, and at least one daughter, plus servants and livestock. Rachel died bearing Jacob’s 12th son Benjamin (her 2nd son) a short distance from Bethlehem, after living in Succoth and Shechem for nearly a decade. She was buried at Bethlehem, also called Ephrath (Gen. 48:7). Leah, not Rachel, was the wife through whom God’s line of the Promise continued.

24 Genesis 28:11–22

25 Genesis 28:18–22. Jacob called the place Bethel, which is literally “house of God” (it was previously called Luz). Genesis 35:6–15 reveals that Jacob revisited Bethel on his return from Haran/Paddan-aram decades later.

26 John 1:51: “. . . you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”