July 31, 2007

  • Discovering God’s Character – Part 17B



    Esau and Edom: History

    After looking at Genesis 36 and its fairly intensive, long term focus
    on the children of Esau (Edom), it seems rather curious why the Bible
    which is centered the nation of Israel in the Old Testament would even
    record the family lineage of Esau. In fact, I Chronicles 1 records it
    as well. In addition, we have some suggestion that there is some
    information of Edom interacting with Israel beyond the point we are in
    Genesis.  As we have seen in earlier accounts in Genesis, when a family
    line or a person would not be important to the main thrust of what the
    Bible’s all about, it was simply not listed again.  So the implications
    are that there were some things that God wanted us to know about Esau
    and Edom that would be important later on.  While we find that Edom
    plays an important role in the history of Israel, it also seems to have
    a part to play in prophecy as well.  However, before we do that, let’s
    first quickly review what we’ve already covered in our Discovering
    God’s Character series.

    We’ll start in the beginning… God told Rebekah, his mother about it first.

    1. Before the birth of Jacob and Esau… there was a struggle between the two children. (Genesis 25:21-24)  This ought to tell us something important right away.
    2. Esau despises and sells his birthright to Jacob. (Genesis 25:29-34)
    3. Esau’s bad reaction to not receiving his father, Isaac’s first blessing.  (Genesis 27:41)
    4. Esau’s good reception of Jacob when he returned from Paddan-Aram 20 years later. (Genesis 33:4)
    5. Esau and Jacob bury their father Isaac. (Genesis 35:29)
    6. Esau moves to the hill country of Seir (Genesis 36:8)

    Now moving forward in time… looking at Edom’s interaction with Israel until the Babylonian Captivity of Judah

    7. Esau took over the land of Seir from the Horites. (Deuteronomy 2:12)
    8. Edom becomes worried when Pharaoh’s army is defeated during Israel’s exodus from Egypt. (Exodus 15:14-18)
    9. When the Children of Israel left Egypt and came near Edom, God told
    Moses to have Israel respect Edom’s (Esau’s descendants) right to their
    land because God gave it to them. (Deuteronomy 2:1-6)
    10. God tells Israel to respect the people of the land of Edom. (Deuteronomy 23:7)
    11. By the time Saul became king, Edom was an enemy of Israel. (I Samuel 14:47-48)
    12. King David put garrisons in Edom and all the Edomites became servants to him. (II Samuel 8:14)
    13. Edom is an ally with Israel and Judah in the war against Moab. (II Kings 3:9,12)
    14. Edom joins the Moabites and the Ammonites and turns on Israel in Jehoshaphat’s reign.  (II Chronicles 20:1-29)
    15. Edom revolts and breaks away from Israel in the reign of Jehoram, Jehoshaphat’s son. (II Chronicles 21:8-10)
    16. Amaziah defeats the Edomites.  (II Chronicles 25:5-14)
    17. Edom attacks Judah in the time of King Ahaz. (II Chronicles 28:16-17)

    Moving ahead to the Babylonian Captivity, the Edomites had a historical
    role in severely persecuting Judea when they were taken away to
    Babylon. Then many of them moved into the lands they vacated and did
    not respect Israel’s right to the land. At the same time, it appears,
    from historical sources that the people from Dedan, down the coast of
    the Saudi Arabian peninsula, moved northward into the Edomite’s
    territory.

    We will cover the prophecies concerning Edom in the next post… yet all this history puts perspective on those prophecies.

    So, let’s stop and look at God’s character for a moment. I thought it
    was very interesting to see how God wanted Israel to respect Edom’s
    right to their land because He, Himself, had given them a place to live
    and have their own nation. God makes a point to make sure Israel knows
    this and they do. Yet in the end as we will see next time, Edom speaks against Israel and even
    God Himself and then abuses and kills His people during the Babylonian
    Captivity and do the very thing that God told Israel not to do to them.
    They move into Israel’s territory and claim it for themselves. It is
    from this we will see that God’s blessing is removed from Edom and it
    (along with some others as we will see) will see incredible destruction
    and much of that is during the last days.

    Its been more than a couple of millennia since these things happened
    and God is still patient with those descendants who have lived down
    through history with their hatred toward Israel and still have disdain
    for the God of Israel.

    There is also another point to mention about God’s character. God gives
    everyone blessings even when we aren’t the “favored son”. These are
    God’s measure of goodness toward each of us. We have learned that God
    is not pleased when people take away the blessings that He has given to
    another. We also learn that Edom did not respect God for who He really
    was and this will result in the judgment that Edom and her allies will
    experience.

    More could be said but we’ll wait until we actually explore the
    prophecies concerning Edom and their impact on our world today. We’ll
    take a look at these in the next post. Mr.Vee

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