Esau's Lineage - Genesis 36

36:1-43 – Chapter 36 isn’t one of those where I’m going to cite it very much because it is basically just the lineage of Esau and his sons and grandsons through his various wives, and where they went to live after Isaac died. I’m not exactly sure on the timetable here, if they moved before Isaac died or afterward, and it might not even matter that much. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure where Jacob even lived specifically, so it’s all kind of a mess to me. Reading through some different articles about chapter 36, here are some of the take away lessons from it:

1. Esau’s lineage was placed here by Moses because as the Hebrews were leaving Egypt, they were to pass the land of Edom without fighting with the current inhabitants, and the reason why was kindship. With this lineage, Moses showed that the Edomites were distant family to Israel and so they should be left alone on the journey to the promised land of Canaan.

2. God fulfilled the promises made to Esau by Isaac in his blessing, promising him a dry land without much moisture, which is where Esau ended up taking his family, but Esau was still significantly blessed with prosperity even though it seemed like he was given the lesser portion of the blessing.

3. Esau’s family completely turned away from the God of Israel within one generation. To be fair, it’s not really clear just how much Jacob and his family knew about the one true God, because it seemed that they were still worshipping idols in the land before they got to Canaan. But one significant point is that one of Esau’s close descendants is named Baal-hanan, which is a name given to a child as a sign of respect to the god they worshipped, as was a cultural practice at the time.

4. All of Esau’s sons were born in the promised land of Canaan, but were taken out of the promised land by their father, whereas all of Jacob’s sons were born outside of the promised land, but brought in to it by their father. There can be some significant symbolism here, one that birth doesn’t dictate your spiritual status, that anyone can be close to God even if not born with the right “credentials.” Even the most traditionally “gifted” people such as those with strong family ties to God, can leave it, nothing is guaranteed with spirituality, not even from person to person, but even within the same person at different times in their lives.

5. God blessed Esau abundantly, but only materially. I doubt that this was because God deemed Esau “unworthy” of receiving spiritual blessings, because everyone is worthy, but because Esau didn’t want it. Physical blessings and spiritual blessings are not the same thing, and a lot of times in order to receive significant spiritual blessings, one has to be stripped of many physical blessings. Think about Joseph Smith for example, he was the prophet of the restoration, but he didn’t have a house of his own until they got to Nauvoo and then he died like 2 years later, he failed in almost every business he tried, he lost everything in bad investments, etc. He was not what we would consider to be materially blessed, but it had to be that way to keep him able to learn spiritually, and to keep him in the position that he needed to be in for his role in the Church. You can be physically blessed, spiritually blessed, or both or neither, your individual circumstances are between you and God, and we don’t always know or even usually know, the reasons behind what we are blessed with, but surely our blessings in whatever capacity are given or withheld from us so that we can excel in the capacity that God needs for us to fill.

6. Esau and his descendants were living in the desert thriving with lots of riches, power, prestige, influence, animals, etc while Jacob’s descendants were slaves in Egypt. There was a lot of “look how wicked Esau was and he prospered, while Jacob was righteous and great and his people were enslaved,” and I’m not super interested in that because, again, I think Jacob is a huge douchebag with a few redeeming qualities, and I refuse to believe that Esau and his family aren’t just as important to God as Jacob’s is, because we all matter the same to God. So I am not completely sold on the whole “Jacob focused on the things of God and was therefore poor, but Esau only focused on himself and was rich,” the whole spiritual vs. physical prosperity, I don’t buy it, especially considering that Jacob was quite wealthy himself! That was the whole point of Jacob’s last 6 years working for Laban, that God blessed Jacob abundantly when Laban tried to screw with him. Jacob came out of that whole deal filthy stinking rich, so I’m not going to take that on, because I don’t really buy it.

That’s all I can think of now, but that is enough for me, and makes Genesis 36, the lineage of Esau, quite interesting and profitable.