Editorial note: This is a transcript of an audio talk lightly edited by Claude AI. Misspellings have been corrected, paragraphs and sentences have been formed for readability, scripture quotations have been highlighted, and banter or conversational interjections have been marked. The content and argument remain those of the speaker throughout.
Jacob: To Supplant — Sunday Teaching
God’s Presence in Withholding
God is transcendent but also present. Where is God here? God is here, first of all, in withholding the pregnancy, withholding the birth of children, as He did beforehand with Abraham and Sarah, as He would do so many times in scripture. The Lord withheld something — and from whom? From two godly people. From godly Isaac, who was praying to the Lord.
When Rebecca first meets Isaac, what is he doing? He is praying to the Lord. When we meet him here, what is he doing? He is praying to the Lord. And the Lord answers him — and yet he had to pray and pray and pray, for twenty years he had to wait before the answer came.
Sometimes the Lord says no to some couples, to some people. He says no all the time. But God is here. God is here. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that a comfort to know that in withholding something and in giving something, the Lord is here — His sovereignty is here?
“And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren… and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.” — Genesis 25:21
The Lord who withholds is also the Lord who animates us to grow through prayer. He is there animating us, giving us the pressure — this intense pressure, all these questions running through: Why can’t I? Why am I not at this certain stage in my life already? Everybody else seems to be racing ahead of me. But the Lord was holding back, holding back. Meanwhile, He wanted to hear the prayers. He wanted to animate the prayers of His servant Isaac.
God’s Presence in Conflict
And Rebekah his wife conceived. Where is the Lord? And the children struggled together within her. You might say the Lord cannot be there in the struggle — surely the Lord has nothing to do with conflict. He is reconciling; He has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. But remember what the Lord Himself said:
“I have come not to bring peace on the earth, but a sword.” — Matthew 10:34
Division is of the Lord. So the Lord is present again, in a way that seems strange to our minds. We want the Jesus of the storybooks — always with perfect hair, always smiling, always gentle and accommodating. A Jesus who is not allowed to be God. But here we find the true God — the God who holds back, and the God who ordains conflicts. None of those things are easy. Is it easy to not yet come into the fullness of who you are — as a woman, as a man, as a husband, as a wife? But we have to say: it is the Lord’s will. And I will battle through, believing that and praying to the Lord.
The Lord is here, present. We cannot say the Lord is only present when He answers prayer. He is also present when He holds back. How wonderful He is.
Rebekah Goes to the Lord
And the children struggled together within her. That is the question Rebecca asked. We meet Rebecca here. She has been formed by her father — a man with a very godly name — and she has spent twenty years together with righteous Isaac. And the Lord is in her life. As a result, when trouble comes, she goes to the Lord.
She does not go anywhere else. She does not go to the witch doctor or the psychiatrist or anyone else. She goes to the Lord and says: Look, there is conflict. Why is there conflict? Is there something wrong with me?
“And she said, ‘If it be so, why am I thus?’ And she went to enquire of the Lord.” — Genesis 25:22
And the Lord said unto her — this is a godly woman who not only receives an answer to prayer but receives a special revelation. This is now part of our general revelation, but the Lord speaks to her directly. What a godly woman, to have God speak to her. This is the kind of God who is present here. This is the kind of God we have — a God who speaks to women, who speaks to men.
Two Nations in the Womb
“Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.” — Genesis 25:23
Where is the Lord in today’s world? Each of the nations of the world, biblically understood, is of the Lord. We are seeing nations attacked today, left, right and centre. They are trying to merge all the nations, trying to erase the nations. But all through history, since Abraham onwards, in the aftermath of the Tower of Babel, the Lord has been at work — and Abraham in particular reveals that God is, as it were, a nation factory. He has ordained them as such.
And again, with Abraham’s son, we have two nations. So as we look around us, we must say by faith that the nations God has ordained are units created by Him. There is something real here.
“Two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels.” Again, the Lord has brought want — no birth — and He is present also in the conflict, and present now in the creation of nations that we see all around us. He is talking about separation because of this conflict. There is a great move today to erase nations and erase all difference. But the Lord says no. His Word ordains that the unrighteous and the wicked cannot dwell together with the righteous indefinitely. They must be separated.
We see the Lord’s ordination of this in the justice system: the righteous must be separated from the wicked by the punishment of the wicked, and ultimately, where it is warranted, by full separation. We know even from the COVID situation that God has ordained that uncleanness should be separated from cleanness.
“The elder shall serve the younger.” — Genesis 25:23
This might seem ambiguous at first. [Banter: It’s a bit like my father being fond of saying he would be lucky to have Nathan work for him — which could mean you’re lucky to have him work at all, or he’d be lucky to have him. A bit ambiguous, isn’t it? Ah, dad.]
But there is an egalitarian bent to society, and we are given more information here — more clarity — than the world allows. God has said that the elder, who is not merely one person but a representative of a nation, shall serve the younger, who is also not merely one person but a representative of a nation.
Esau and Jacob: God’s Assessment
Now we come to the ethics. By God’s ordination, as we see His presence here, the righteous are stronger than the wicked, the profane, the sexually immoral. And the one shall serve the other.
How can we say that Jacob represents the righteous and Esau the unrighteous? We know from Romans 9 and Hebrews 12 what God’s assessment of these two men is.
“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” — Romans 9:13
And Hebrews tells us:
“Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.” — Hebrews 12:16
God does not hate the righteous — He hates the wicked. We can therefore say with confidence that Esau was wicked because he was profane — profanos, meaning outside the temple, having no interest in, placing no value on, the things of God and God’s Word. There is no need to belabour that point.
But can we say that Jacob represents the righteous? We must look at God’s own assessment of him. In verse 27, Jacob is described as a “plain man.” Now if you use a good Hebrew lexicon — I use Logos — when you look up that word, tam, it means: complete, perfect, sound, wholesome. And we see it used again and again of men like Job:
“Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man?” — Job 1:8
Job is called an ish tam — a tam man, a righteous man. That is God’s own assessment of Jacob. Not “deceiver.” Not “liar.” Righteous.
Esau the Hunter
What does the passage tell us about Esau? Apart from being red and hairy, he was a hunter — a man of the field. You might think, well, hunting is not so bad. But in this context, what does it mean? The Bible gives us two hunters before this hunter.
The first is Nimrod:
“He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” — Genesis 10:9
He set his face up before God and declared: I hunt what I like. I hunt men. I am a tyrant. I do what I want. And he built all these tyrannies, one city after another. He was a terrible man — a hunter before the Lord, in the very face of the Lord.
The second hunter is Ishmael. The Bible does not use the word “hunter” of him, but calls him an archer:
“And he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.” — Genesis 21:20
And of Ishmael we read:
“He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.” — Genesis 16:12
[Banter: Nobody listens to British radio these days. Very sad. The Archers. Somebody got it. Anyway.]
These associations are huge clues. It was not a good thing for Esau to be a hunter. He was placing himself in the company of those who rejected the covenant, who were tyrants, who acted out of their own will: I will do what I want, when I want, and I will do it by force.
Consider also the economics of the situation. What was Abraham and Isaac’s livelihood? Agriculture — particularly livestock, but also some arable farming. If Esau truly wanted to inherit his father’s estate, he would have had to learn the business. How do you learn your father’s business? By working alongside him, year in, year out. Did Esau do that?
He did not have to work. He was rich enough not to. He simply indulged himself in macho pursuits and, whenever he needed something, he could produce some game for his father. And note how easily Rebecca was able to replicate Esau’s hunting — she took a kid from the flock, added some herbs, and that was that. Esau brought zero economic value. He simply hunted because he could.
[Application aside: There is a lot of content on the internet celebrating the macho survivalist ideal — real men hunt, real men are independent, and so on. But I do not think that is what the Bible gives us. That picture aligns more with Nimrod and Ishmael — rebels against God. The Bible says it is not good for a man to be alone. And yet there are men today who spend a great deal of time alone, playing video games in which they kill people or build virtual kingdoms, living in a non-economic world in which they serve no one but themselves. These people are Esaus, unless the Lord intervenes.]
Jacob the Supplanter
And what of Jacob? What is the first thing that comes to mind when we say his name? [Audience response: Deceiver.] That is right. That is what you will hear left, right and centre. Oh, Jacob the deceiver. Jakob der Lügner, le menteur — whatever language you use, that is what you will hear.
But what is God’s assessment? God’s assessment from above is that Jacob is an ish tam — a righteous man. Other people look at Esau and say: How exciting! He is getting the head lamp out, he is taking risks, he is doing his own thing. And then they look at Jacob — oh, Jacob, what a bore. Do you know what he does? He dwells in tents.
But does the Bible tell us anything about that? Way back before the flood, it tells us about the first person to dwell in tents and keep flocks — the two activities are joined together. Jacob was locked on to his father’s business, by his father’s side, in the encampment, learning from the ground up, wanting to serve, wanting to keep the wealth that his father and grandfather had accumulated.
Those tents were not simply a tent and a latrine. They were surrounded by thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of head of flock. There were a thousand or more people employed in that household — remember that in Abraham’s day there were three hundred fighting men alone. So this was a workplace, as the home used to be a workplace. Jacob was at the heart of it all — seeing the business from top to bottom: the raising of flocks, the horse trading, the deal making, the disputes, the teaching of the law. He was at the centre of things and he was serving.
That is a radically different picture from what we are usually given.
And who accused Jacob of being a deceiver? Esau. Why would we take the word of a fornicator, a profane man, a man who broke his own oath, as a character witness? The Christian church has taken this lie, pressed it to its breast, and closed off the godly witness of Jacob to us — dismissing an entire massive section of scripture with the verdict: he was a liar.
What does it mean to grasp the heel? It means literally what it says — to be behind someone, to want first place. It means to supplant.
[Banter: In the last election the Labour Party supplanted the Conservatives. The Conservatives face-planted and Labour supplanted. We have an interesting king at the moment — Charles the Third. The mathematics of number three is… I will not go into that. My mouth is zipped.]
Imagine if a wicked ruler were supplanted by a good ruler. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously a good thing. As the proverb says:
“When the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn: but when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.” — Proverbs 29:2
And consider the thousands of people working for Isaac in the household. Imagine if that entire operation had passed to Esau. Would they groan? Of course they would.
We need to be like Jacob. We need actively to take godly steps to supplant — to supplant the unrighteous, the profane, the sexually immoral. There are plenty of them.
Jacob’s Terrible Bind
God spoke directly to Rebekah and told her: the elder shall serve the younger. Jacob was going to rule over his brother. But Jacob was in a terrible bind.
His father — righteous Father Isaac, the patriarch with whom God identified Himself, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob — loved the son that God hated. He loved a man who was, at this point, functionally like Ishmael, like Nimrod — a man who placed no value on the things of God. Why? Was it because Isaac believed Esau had a heart of gold? Was it because he wanted Esau to be converted? No. It was because, at this point, Isaac’s god was his belly. He liked the game. He liked the stew.
“And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison.” — Genesis 25:28
His father opposed him. For a father to oppose his son is a very hard thing. It is very tough never to receive a father’s approval, or to find approval impossible to obtain. But Isaac was not your average father. His father Abraham had rubbed shoulders with Pharaoh himself. Isaac, in the next chapter, dealt with Abimelech, who said:
“We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee… and we said, Let there now be an oath betwixt us.” — Genesis 26:28
And Abimelech had already told him:
“Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we.” — Genesis 26:16
This was a mighty man — powerful in wealth, in politics, in military strength. And yet it was this man who favoured the unrighteous son over the righteous one. You hold your head in your hands. How is this possible? And yet this is Isaac. A good man who, at this point, had fallen dramatically. Right up to his old age, he held on to his love of Esau — even after Esau took foreign wives, even after he knew Esau to be sexually immoral, even after Esau threatened to kill his brother.
But here is the great thing — the promise did not go away. That promise stood.
Isaac, Eli, and David: Good Men Who Indulged the Wicked
We find Isaac in the position of favouring the wicked. Like who? Like Eli. Was Eli a wicked man? No. But at one point he was so far off base it was a catastrophe. And like David:
“But his father had not displeased him [Adonijah] at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” — 1 Kings 1:6
David — the sweet psalmist of Israel, the man after God’s own heart — indulged Amnon, coddled Absalom, favoured those he should never have favoured. Just as Isaac did. There is something in our lives, there will come a point where we say, everything else I give to God, but this one thing is mine. I have this little corner for myself. But what was at stake for Isaac? The inheritance. The capital accumulated over generations. The line of the Messiah.
Isaac was effectively cutting off the line of the Messiah by wanting to give the birthright and the blessing to Esau. Because the line of Christ cannot be transmitted without true faith in Christ. And Esau showed no interest in any of that.
“Lest there be any… profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.” — Hebrews 12:16
These are not comfortable moral tales. They are not easy stories with easy endings. And yet I think Isaac is the most troubling and most relevant character in this account. So much of the progress of the church toward inheritance and blessing has been blocked by very good, otherwise pious men who simply do not believe that the righteous should inherit and rule. If Jacob had heeded Isaac, the promise would have been over. No Messiah. The world would die in darkness. Those were the stakes.
Jacob’s Response: Active Faith
My contention is that God had, in this prophecy, effectively already given Jacob the birthright. He had given him the blessing. Jacob, in supplanting, was not taking anything away. He was simply taking what was already his by divine ordination.
“You cannot steal what is already yours.”
And so Jacob, rather than writing anonymous criticisms of his father, rather than despairing, rather than sitting on his hands — he was found in the place of duty. He was found in the place of service and business. Anyone who can buy a birthright — worth hundreds of billions in today’s terms — for a bowl of soup and a roll, is a man who has faithfully spent time at his father’s side learning the tricks of the trade, the art of buying and selling. He was learning to serve. He was learning through service.
Frequently in church circles we are taught: be quiet, be still, let your soul be at rest, all things come to those who wait. And there is a time for waiting — we must wait upon the Lord. But we also find Jacob to be as active as possible in the work of the household. He was found in his place of duty. And he knew — or had learned from his father’s teaching — that if you are faithful in little, you will be faithful in much, and that if you want to be first, you must first serve.
“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” — Luke 16:10
“Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister.” — Matthew 20:26
Applications: Orienting Toward Inheritance
So a few applications.
Believers are to orient themselves toward conflict — not conflict with the godly, but with the ungodly. We are to expect it, and to ask ourselves: How can I position myself so that God’s blessing will enable me to gain the upper hand? Because it is an awful thing for the righteous to be enslaved to the ungodly. It is a terrible thing when the unrighteous bear rule. That is not what God has ordained.
“The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” — Psalm 37:11
“The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.” — Psalm 37:29
God has ordained that the righteous shall inherit the earth, shall judge the earth, shall rule the earth. No matter where we are right now, we must orient ourselves toward that goal.
Jacob did what he could in his lifetime. Just like Joshua, who did what he could in his lifetime — and even then, looking at the map, there were still strongholds remaining. He did what he could. He warred the wars of the Lord. But the prophecy — that the elder shall serve the younger — did not come to its full fruition until his son’s son’s son… many generations later, in David. It was only with David that the children of Israel, the children of Jacob, brought the Edomites, the sons of Esau, to tribute.
“And the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went… And David put garrisons throughout all Edom; and all they of Edom became David’s servants.” — 2 Samuel 8:6, 14
You might say: I live far ahead of other countries in many ways, or far behind in others. But we must do what we can in our generation, in our circumstances. We cannot despair.
Who does Isaac represent in all this? Isaac represents good people — sincere, pious people who hold positions of power in church and in state — who do not believe that the righteous should inherit and rule. They believe it is a matter of indifference who rules, so long as their own needs are met. These are not non-Christians. These are often the best of people — people with large platforms, influential ministries, well-known names. But they will rob you. They will steal from you the reality that the righteous are ordained to be stronger, to rule, and that the unrighteous are ordained to serve them.
And consider: what does righteous rule look like in our day? It looks like responsibility — provident people, people who run businesses, people who serve others in the marketplace. Even the laws on slavery in the Bible point toward this:
“If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant.” — Leviticus 25:39
Even the unrighteous serving the righteous is, in the end, a blessing to them — it moves them toward liberation. Whereas when the unrighteous bear rule, the people groan, and there is nothing but misery.
So in the face of all this difficult news — even when your own father, a godly man, actively favours the wicked — what should we be doing? Should we be on social media all day, our heads in our hands? No. We should be like Jacob. Stepping forward in faith. Learning our trade. Working our trade. Bearing the responsibilities we have right now. Meditating on God’s Word, as his father Isaac would have done.
And most importantly, gripping the promise tight. The promise given to Abraham:
“I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” — Genesis 12:2
And:
“The meek shall inherit the earth.” — Psalm 37:11
We hold that promise tight. We grip it. We say, Lord, bring this to pass in my life — maybe not in my generation, maybe in the generation after, or the generation after that. So we invest in our children, patiently. We hold the promise, knowing that even if it takes generations and generations — as it did for this prophecy to be fulfilled — we take the faithful actions now that we can take in order to bring it to pass. Obediently and faithfully, just like our holy father in the faith, Jacob.
Questions and Discussion
[Banter/conversational exchange: “Passes the Tif test and the Christine test.” “Nathan, I appreciate you bringing out this side of Jacob that I have very rarely heard of.”]
Mike: Nathan, I appreciate that. I think of Jacob later in his life, before Peniel, before he met his brother — he wrestled with the Lord and by many accounts seemed a bit of a scoundrel, perhaps with his mother’s instigation. But I appreciate how you brought the other perspective — that it was God who had ordained him, that the elder shall serve the younger. I need to chew on that and think about how it applies in my own context here in the States.
Nathan: Do what Mike does — ruminate on it. Don’t take my word for it. You have got to ruminate.
[Banter: Good to see you Christine, and the Beyond family.]
Christine: I have been reading Rushdoony’s commentary on Revelation and it ties in very well with what Nathan has been doing in Exodus. There are so many connections — some of the plagues are literally the same. The way he presents it is very interesting.
Nathan: I highly recommend it. As for the podcast, [to group:] the plan is to go through the story of Jacob and continue — Jacob, then the sons of Jacob, Joseph, and on to Moses. My strength is taking a scripture and going through it carefully, this way and that way and the other, rather than trying to be broad. So with the Lord’s help, that is the plan.
Mike: What you did today falls naturally into three parts — three characters. You are a Presbyterian, after all — three points. Jacob, Esau, and Isaac, then a summing up: how to be the Jacob character. What strikes me is the sheer passivity in the church. And Jacob is often resented because he fought for something. He went for it. He persisted. He was also, clearly, a man of business. But interestingly, the Bible nowhere condemns him.
[Banter: If it does, it’s only in uninspired chapter headings like “Jacob Deceives Esau.” Happily those are not inspired — unless it was someone from the OPC who wrote them. No, I’m joking, I’m being silly.]
Nathan: Yes, Genesis is full of accounts that we would have written differently — what we might call imperfect, morally untidy narratives. And I think that speaks to God’s transcendence. They are not easy moral tales with a tidy moral ending. But Isaac is the most troubling and most relevant character in this account. So much of the progress of the church toward inheritance and blessing comes from very good and pious men who, if followed without discernment, would destroy the faith. If Jacob had heeded Isaac, the promise would have been over. No Messiah. The world would die in darkness.
These are the stakes. And so — God did not send them to hell, but there will be a record. Just as there is a record of Isaac’s behaviour.
[Banter: Of course he is perfected in heaven now. And everything hinged on the most stupid reason of all — Isaac just liked the taste of Esau’s game. Like getting Honey Nut Loops brought in from the wild. Just as stupid as that.]
The most dangerous and serious villain in this piece is emphatically Isaac — a good man. But you cannot follow men. You will die in a ditch spiritually if you follow men. You must follow the Word of God.
Mike: [Sharing from his own context:] I appreciate that timely reminder. Currently the minister I sit under in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has now been voted in as moderator of the General Assembly. And there are challenges — he has publicly and repeatedly rejected Rushdoony, as have other OPC individuals. It is very hard to sit under such men. The lifeline is the Word of God itself, and how the Spirit opens my mind and heart and applies the Word. Very few in the congregation are there, and I dare not say anything contrary to what the moderator has said.
Nathan: The fear of man is a snare.
Mike: It is. It is coming to a head.
[Banter: Nathan mentions visiting Mike’s church once while Tiffany was wondering about the state of things between them. The sermon he heard there was, in his assessment, what he called “a Barthian sermon” — God almost touches down to earth, skims by, and you get a whiff of something real, but no true application, never to the real world.]
Mike: That is part of why I stay in the United States — that is predominantly what the church is here too.
Nathan: Yes, it is very difficult. But we have Esaus and Isaacs in charge, and we have got to figure out how to be a Jacob — how to inherit, how to covet the blessing of God and covet the inheritance. And my goodness, if there ever was anyone in the Bible against whom the odds were stacked, it was Jacob. But he prevailed, and he prevailed, and he prevailed — by the grace of God. He had such heartaches in his life. But God owned his very name:
“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” — Exodus 3:6
That is an amazing reward and honour. And Jacob was lifted up even before Pharaoh to give a blessing.
“And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.” — Genesis 47:7
What a man. How exalted he was on earth, and how exalted he is in heaven. And God will give a reward to those who persist in faith, seeking the blessing — even if they are marked by the whole experience, as Jacob was.
Closing Prayer
[Mike leads in prayer.]
Mike: Our Heavenly Father, our Lord and our God, we are so thankful that You have caused Your Word to be preserved — to pierce our souls, to convict us, to encourage and exhort us in faith, to see Your goodness and Your love and Your provision, and to know how You are for us, and that Your blessings cannot be revoked. Your blessings are marvellous, Father.
I pray for my dear brethren who are present here this evening. I pray that You would continue to pour out Your encouragement and grace on the Beyond family. I pray, Father, that You would make their path straight and that the entire family would soon be able to gather together. Give them strength; protect them in every way — John Michael and Joshua, all who are still in England. Father, watch over them.
Thank You for Christine and her always-good questions. Bless her, Father, as she continues to follow the path You have ordained.
Father, I thank You for my precious brother Nathan. I pray that You would continue to shape and mould his soul, that You would use Tiffany in that process, and that You would continue to use him for the encouragement of Your people — that we may all grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. In His name I ask all of these things. Amen.
All: Amen.
Scripture Index
The following passages were quoted or directly referenced in this teaching:
| Reference | Text / Subject |
|---|---|
| Genesis 25:21 | Isaac entreated the Lord for Rebekah; she conceived |
| Genesis 25:22 | Rebekah enquired of the Lord — “If it be so, why am I thus?” |
| Genesis 25:23 | ”Two nations are in thy womb… the elder shall serve the younger” |
| Genesis 25:27 | Jacob described as a tam (plain/perfect/upright) man |
| Genesis 25:28 | ”Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison” |
| Genesis 10:9 | Nimrod, “a mighty hunter before the Lord” |
| Genesis 16:12 | Ishmael — “a wild man; his hand against every man” |
| Genesis 21:20 | Ishmael became an archer |
| Genesis 26:16 | Abimelech to Isaac: “Thou art much mightier than we” |
| Genesis 26:28 | Abimelech’s oath with Isaac |
| Genesis 47:7 | Jacob blessed Pharaoh |
| Exodus 3:6 | ”I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” |
| Leviticus 25:39 | Laws on bondservants — service not to be as bondage |
| 2 Samuel 8:6, 14 | David subdued the Edomites; all Edom became David’s servants |
| 1 Kings 1:6 | David had not displeased Adonijah at any time |
| Job 1:8 | ”Have you considered my servant Job… a perfect and an upright man?” |
| Psalm 37:11 | ”The meek shall inherit the earth” |
| Psalm 37:29 | ”The righteous shall inherit the land” |
| Proverbs 29:2 | ”When the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” |
| Matthew 10:34 | ”I came not to bring peace, but a sword” |
| Matthew 20:26 | ”Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister” |
| Luke 16:10 | ”He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much” |
| Romans 9:13 | ”Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” |
| Hebrews 12:16 | Esau described as a profane and fornicating person |
| Genesis 12:2 | The Abrahamic covenant — “I will make of thee a great nation” |