Genesis 28: 1-5: “And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.”
The best way for Jacob to escape from Esau’s anger was for him to go away to another country. Rebekah had already done the preparation and so Isaac called his younger so and sent him away to his mother’s homeland to find a wife for himself. Isaac, probably, never knew the real reason why he sent his son away but that didn’t really matter. The Lord was in control and Jacob had some very hard lessons to learn. When Isaac sent his son away he invoked the blessing that God first gave to Adam and then passed on to other people in history, he told him to be fruitful and multiply and raise up a large crowd of children. This may seem somewhat incongruous after Abraham’s experiences but God’s plan was for Abraham’s descendants to be fruitful and to be a source of blessing for all the families of the earth. The more fruitful those descendants became the more likelihood of the blessing reaching all the families of the earth. Of course, looking back after four thousand years it is easy to see that that has happened and that God was faithful to his promise.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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