Rebekah: The Mother Of Esau And Jacob Series

The Lord granted/answered Isaac’s prayer and enabled Rebekah to conceive. God uses our prayers to fulfil His purposes. In salvation history, the conception and birth of children is a divinely ordained event that has significant consequences. This was true of the birth of Isaac (chaps. 18, 21), the twelve sons of Jacob (29:30–30:24), Moses (Ex. 1), Samuel (1 Sam. 1–2), David (Ruth 4:17–22), and our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 4:4–5). Conception, birth, and death are divine appointments, not human accidents, a part of God’s wise and loving plan for His own people (Pss. 116:15; 139:13–16). Just as God orchestrated Isaac’s own conception and birth, so also the conception and birth of Isaac’s sons will be possible only through divine (action) (Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Ge 25:21). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.). The people of God do not exist by natural birth but are born of the Spirit. They exist because God brought them into existence as his people.( Ross, A. P. (1998). Creation and blessing: a guide to the study and exposition of Genesis (p. 438). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.)

Illustration: The Spiritual Impact of a Mother

A London editor submitted to Winston Churchill for his approval a list of all those who had been Churchill’s teachers. Churchill returned the list with this comment: “You have omitted to mention the greatest of my teachers—my mother.”914(Michael P. Green. (2000). 1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (p. 251). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.)

• It is not uncommon to find behind the greatest men, a mother who had a direct, life changing impact on her son guiding his spiritual development to become a man who changed the world.

Rebekah the Mother of Esau and Jacob, is a lesson in struggling through:

2) A distressed home (Genesis 25:22–23).

Genesis 25:22–23 22 The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 And the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” (ESV)

Here we see how one problem soon led to another, because Rebekah’s pregnancy was a difficult one: The babies in her womb struggled together within her. The Hebrew word means “to crush or oppress,” suggesting that the fetal movements were not normal. The pregnancy is so painful that she wonders if there is any point going on living. After they had grown up, Rebekah had similar thoughts (27:46; cf. Job). “What a unique conflict we have here! A conflict of twins which rages even in the womb and so vehemently that their mother is driven to despair. ‘Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity’ a psalmist says, but to Jacob and Esau any room is too small when they are together. Their first battlefield is their mother’s womb. How cruelly the sweet expectations of children, the greater after twenty years of hope and despair, are dashed for Isaac and Rebekah! As early as the pregnancy their parental happiness is threatened. ‘What shall I do’ Rebekah wonders in despair” (Wenham, G. J. (1998). Genesis 16–50 (Vol. 2, p. 175). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.).