God doesn’t think like we do. Thank heavens for that.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:9 KJV

And even though we know that God doesn’t think like we do, it’s still going to be a surprise to most believers that Esau, the archetype of the evil twin of literature, had a mantle that remains significant in God’s economy, even today. Now I could call it ‘Isaac’s mantle’ or ‘Thomas’ mantle’ to make it a little less confronting and controversial, but Jesus treated it as if it were Esau’s mantle. So let’s go with the way He regarded it. After all, it’s not just the so-called ‘heroes’ of Scripture who inherit mantles, so too do the ‘villains’.

Ahab and Jezebel, for example, followed Barak and Deborah as the heirs of Joseph’s mantle and proceeded to follow his original example of dispossession, rather than use it as the spiritual powerhouse to facilitate the return of the inheritance of their people. In addition, even when the quote-unquote ‘good guys’ are in possession of a mantle, they have—as we’ve repeatedly seen in earlier episodes—made spectacular messes of the divine assignments they’ve been entrusted with. There isn’t one who didn’t succumb to major failure at some point. Except for the women, that is. And let’s face it, the women are probably only exempt because we don’t have enough of their story to know otherwise. I don’t doubt that, if we had more details of their lives, we’d see the same sort of slippages from grace as happen with the men.

Now Esau gets a bad rap, mainly because he despised his birthright as the firstborn and traded it with his twin brother Jacob for some red. Our translations presume the red was lentils, but what it was is never made entirely clear. But it comes to define Esau, to grasp hold of his identity because thereafter he’s also known as Edom, red. In making the exchange—obviously a covenantal bargain, since he acquires a new name in the process—he bartered his inheritance away. It’s clear he took his position in the family for granted. He didn’t value it—he apparently didn’t consider the trade he made with Jacob to be significant. Nor, apparently, did his father Isaac. Esau took the matter of the trade lightly until such time as he was swindled out of the blessing of the firstborn. It obviously didn’t occur to him that Jacob would conspire with their mother, Rebekah, to deceive Isaac to obtain the blessing. There’s a certain trusting naïvety about Esau.

Now once Jacob had disguised himself and obtained the blessing he so deeply coveted, Esau conceived a murderous hatred of his twin. If we judge Esau for hatred, we must also judge Jacob. After all, isn’t a jealous desire for someone else’s birthright the same as saying, ‘I wish you were dead. If you weren’t here, all this would be mine’?

Jacob used Esau’s extreme hunger as a point of coercion to get him to trade his birthright. It’s easy in retrospect to think Esau was exaggerating because he obviously survived—but we can’t know if that was only because he got the food. He was apparently weak and exhausted enough not to fight Jacob and grab what he needed. Jacob’s attitude at this moment is vicious. If he believes Esau’s statement that he’s dying, he’s prepared for that to happen right in front of him. He’d get the birthright anyway if that happened.

But he pressures Esau into a sale—a covenantal exchange that somehow involves a name. Jacob, at this point, is acting just like the rebel angel who was exiled from Eden for trading in names and destinies.

Esau’s new name, Edom, red, is a descriptor not only used at his birth but also became the title of the nation descended from him. Edom is a variant of Adam, red.

And his mantle is one that is meant to foster reconciliation.

Elijah’s mantle, as we’ve seen in earlier episodes, carries an assignment of reconciling the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Esau’s mantle, on the other hand, is to reconcile brothers, to turn aside jealousy, confront deception and overcome inter-family conflict. Esau’s father, Isaac, managed three of those four tasks. He was the original great reconciler. Esau, trying to follow in those footsteps, was thwarted by Jacob. 

That’s where the mantle needs repair and restoration. Because Jacob’s inability to reconcile was to have enormous repercussions in the centuries that followed.

This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus of Nazareth be your reconciler of grace.

Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.

The latest books in the Forgotten Covenants series are God’s Poetry, a new edition of of God’s Panoply with an additional chapter which looks at cornerstone as an alternative to head in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and God’s Palmoniy. Please get in touch through the contact form at Armour Books if you are in the US, UK or Australia and there are unusual availability/price issues at the retailer.