Jacob’s Colossal Mistake
By Michael Dewar
February 25th 2024
Introduction
Abraham, the Father of the Hebrew nation, had two sons: one by a slave woman named Hagar, and the other by his wife Sarah. The slave woman’s son Abraham named Ishmael and the son by his wife he named Isaac (Genesis 16:1-15, 21:1-13). Isaac was the promised child, the child of the covenant. The Hagar and her son were cast out (Gen.21:14-21).
The descendants of both boys would be great and occupy the region of the earth the Arabs and Israel now occupy. Isaac grew up and had twin boys: Jacob and Esau. God chose the younger of the two (i.e., Jacob) to implement the covenant he made Abraham.
The name Jacob means supplanter; today, we say trickster, con artist, street smart. Despite his character, he was God’s man. Everything Jacob coned to get was what God intended him to have. He coned his brother, Esau, out of the birthright, but there was no need for him to do that because that was what God intended him to have (Gen.25:19-34,27:1-46). He tried to help God but made an enemy of his brother in the process. Jacob also coned his uncle, Laban. But Laban was the greater con artist who exploited Jacob (29:14-35). Everything Jacob got while in Laban’s employ, was gotten honestly (Gen.31).
Jacob had a dramatic encounter with God after he left the employment of Laban. God changed his name from Jacob to Israel (Gen.32:22-32). Scholars believe this encounter with God is equivalent to what we call being converted or saved today. That is how the nation got its name Israel. The name change signals that God was ready to implement his covenant through this young man and his family. Israel had twelve sons who grew up to be the twelve tribes of the nation, Israel.
Like all families, there was sibling rivalry among the twelve brothers. This rivalry resulted in Josph being sold into slavery by his brothers. He was brought down to Egypt. He became Pharoah’s righthand man and saved Egypt from starvation due to seven years of famine.
When the famine hit Joseph’s family back home, his brothers went down to Egypt to buy food. They had no idea that they would be dealing with the brother they sold into slavery twenty years earlier. That salve brother was now the Prime Minister of Egypt, the second most powerful man in all of Egypt.
After testing them, Joseph revealed his identity as their brother. The entire family, seventy strong, moved to Egypt to survive the famine. They prospered in Egypt and became over two million strong. A new Pharoah came to the throne and became threatened by these prosperous foreigners He made slaves of them. Moses was born during this time of slavery and was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter.
Moses kept his Hebrew identity a secret. But his cover was blown when he wittingly or unwitting killed an Egyptian and had to flee Egypt. He was about forty years of age when he fled from Egypt. He went to the desert and lived with a Midianite family. He married and became a shepherd. Here, you say, WOW! From an educated Prince of Egypt to shoveling sheep manure. That would drive anyone insane. But do not feel sorry for him. God is at work behind the scenes, but Moses did not know that.
At age eighty the pieces of the puzzle came together. This is where God called to him from the burning bush and commissioned to return to Egypt to liberate his people. He spent the next forty years of his life leading his people back to Canaan, the promised land.
Let me apologize here. I wanted to give a little context for what I really want to say about what is currently happening with Israel, Gaza, Hamas and the Palestinian people but I got carried away. Now, the tempo of the story is going to change, but keep your cool to the end.
Here is a gem to remember. After Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, just about every time he did sometime stupid, rather than God calling him Israel, God addressed him by his old con man’s name, Jacob. Why? He was not acting under the character of his new name, he retreated to his old character. This dualism continues to plague the nation to this day. This is the reason for the title of this article. The nation’s leadership is acting like Jacob, not as Israel that is expected to conform to higher moral law.
Nothing Political
First, I am not a political person or student of politics. But I am somewhat a student of Hebrew history from the call of Abraham to the Exodus, the settlement in Canaan, to the Assyrian captivity of ten tribes, to the seventy years Babylonian captivity of the other two tribes, to the Romans occupation and the 70 AD dispersion. From then to the Holocaust under Hitler, and rebirth of the modern State of Israel and beyond.
I know a thing or two about a people who have suffered so much. I also know when their leaders have made a colossal blunder that is going to take decades to recover from. The current leadership (February 2024) has made that blunder the way they prosecuted the war with Hamas. The message to the world is that not only Hamas dispensable, but the whole civilian population of Gaza is also dispensable. That is where the moral line has been crossed, where Jacob becomes more brutal than the enemy he seeks to eradicate.
In a recent report by the Anti-defamation League (ADF), antisemitism has sky-racketed 900 percent since the Israel-Hamas war. Israel had the sympathy and support of the whole world. Because what Hamas did was horrific, brutal, and they deserve being dealt with harshly but not at the extermination of the people of Gaza. That is madness!
The civilians of Gaza got more than the tip of the spare. They are getting what some view as a hundred times more brutal. If you take on the character of your enemy to destroy your enemy, you may win the battle, but you have already lost the war. Two evils do not make one good. The question is, how can a people who suffered so much become void of compassion that they now become the very evil they deplore.
Israel has lost an opportunity to stamp out antisemitism; it is an opportunity they may never regain. President Biden was right when he cautioned Benjamin Natanyahu not to make the same mistake of prosecuting the war against Hamas emotionally as America did after 9/11. American ended up leaving Afghanistan with its tail between its legs.
No matter how powerful Israel is or become, she cannot survive on her own. You may say Israel survived the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Romans, and Hitler’s Germany. Yes, but Israel did not survive without the help of other nations. Zionism on its own did not bring about the modern State of Israel, the United State and Great Britain, among others help to bring that vision to fruition.
The State of Israel will not be annihilated as some would wish; there is a divine plan that is unfolding that must happen. But that reality can be achieved with less bloodshed if Israel’s leaders conform more closely to the higher moral law. Christians and the teachings of the New Testament can help to provide that direction.
Israel has every right to defend itself; nobody is arguing against that. She will have a coalition of global support in that defense, but now nations abandon her left and right because she is too brutal to the civilian population of Gaza. War is messy and has collateral damages, but what we see in Gaza is beyond ordinary collateral damages.
This article appeals to the leadership of Israel to work for the release of the hostages, protect the civilians of Gaza, and work for Palestinian Statehood. If this sounds like what others are calling for, it is because it is logical and reasonable. It is the only way the generations to come will have a modicum of peace.
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