Rebekah, A Marvelous Mother Series

Nathan Ausabel tells of the Jewish couple with 9 children who went to the Rabbi to get a

divorce. When the question of custody came up the wife said she wanted 5 of the children

and he could have 4. The husband said, "Why should I have only 4? You take the 4 and

I'll take the 5." In order to resolve the conflict the Rabbi suggested that they live

together one more year and have another child. Then they could divide with an equal

share of the family. The couple agreed to the plan. But a year later the man came back

to the Rabbi and said the plan did not work. The Rabbi asked, "Why? Didn't your wife

give birth?" "Yes," he said, "But you see, it was twins." They were right back where

they started, and even Solomon in all his wisdom could not divide an odd number of

children evenly.

Twins can be a problem. Luis Palau, the Billy Graham of South America, was

worried sick when his wife gave birth to twins in 1963. The doctor told him there was a

very strange heart beat and they may loose the child. They did not know she had two

babies in her. Palau had to make the decision that if necessary they let the baby die to

save his wife, but it turned out to be a day of joy as the irregular heartbeat was really the

regular heartbeat of two. What a scare these twins gave him. Twins have scared people

all through history, and in many cultures they have been immediately killed. Christian

missionaries have labored hard to convince natives that twins are not an evil omen, and

today there are many healthy twins where once they were killed.

This does not mean that twins are no longer a problem. They are often double

trouble, and because of their potential for mischief Walt Disney has been able to make

some of his greatest movies about mischievous twins. It is not all fiction either, for there

are numerous true stories about the complexity of raising twins. One mother heard both

laughing and crying coming from her twin's bedroom at bath time. She went to see what

was the matter and the laughing twin pointed to his weeping brother and said, "Grandma

has given Alexander 2 baths and hasn't given me any at all."

The problems get greater as they get older. Jean and Auguste Piccard, the famous

Swiss twins, decided to have some fun with a barber. Jean went in for a shave and

complained that he had the most annoying beard in the world because it grew back so

fast. The barber assured him that his trusty razor would keep it off for 24 hours or he

would shave him free. Jean let him scrape away and left. Several hours later Auguste

came in with a heavy stubble and collected his free shave. He left the barber pondering

the most amazing beard he had ever seen.

The reason I share these twin stories is because we are looking at the mother of the

most famous twins of the Bible. Rebekah was the mother of Jacob and Esau. These two

brothers were as different as night and day. They had the same parents and the same

environment, but they were opposites and totally different in personality, and in the way

they responded to the will of God. It is superficial to expect all children in a family to be

alike. Even in a godly family there will be radical differences. I once had a family in my

church where the best kids and the worst kids were from that same family. Two of them

ended up in the ministry and another broke the parents hearts with unbelievable

ungodliness. This can be tough on parents, but it has to be accepted as a fact of life that

the best parents have no guarantee that their children will follow their values.

Rebekah was a great mother, but her twins sometimes became as famous for their

folly as for their faith. Some twins become much alike for all of life. The most famous

example in our time is Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. They are both famous

counselors, and their advice columns are very much alike. Other twins do not follow the

same pattern at all. One of the 12 Apostles was a twin. Thomas called Didymus was a

twin. Didymus is Greek for twin, and Thomas means twin in Aramic. We have no idea

about his twin. He may have been an enemy of Christ for all we know. Twins can be

opposites and that is what we see in the twins of Rebekah. They were opponents.

Rebekah favored Jacob and her husband favored Esau, but in the end mom's boy