Jacob Have I Loved… Jacob, Esau and Gaza pt 2

Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated… Malachi 1:3

In my previous article I pointed out that the Arab/ Israeli conflict is really a continuation of the wrestlings of Jacob and Esau, and will one day soon, engulf all of the world in their struggle. It is biblical and prophetic and is in Genesis because it is a fundamental and universal conflict which will culminate in Armeggedon.

In this article I would like to clarify a few things, for their is much confusion about the particulars of this subject.

The original conflict in Genesis, when discussing the problems Abraham,Isaac and Jacob had within their own families, centered around issues about Divine Election.

God chose Abraham, not Lot. Abraham was a pagan idolater, and yet God chose Him and called him to leave all to follow God.

God chose Isaac, not Ishmael, Ishmael was born first to Abraham, thus by man’s standards he should have been given preference, but God chose Isaac, and not Ishmael.

God chose Jacob, not Esau. It is not that Jacob was a better person, or that he was more spiritual, Election is solely of grace. God chose Jacob. Isaac chose Esau over Jacob, but God chose Jacob over Esau.

In the Malachi passage above, God is said to have “Loved Jacob:” and “Hated Esau”. This is the language of election, it has nothing to do with whether or not God loved them in the sense we understand love. “Love” and “Hate” have to do with acceptance or rejection for a certain God ordained task. God loved Israel in “setting his love on them”, and not for any other reason.

He chose them because He decided to, He set his love on them in a way he hasn’t done to the Irish, the Norwegians or the Zulus.

The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:  But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.( Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

It would be good to consider exactly what God wa electing this remarkable and miraculous family to do … . Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were chosen to be the human conduit through which he would send the :”seed of the woman” promised in Genesis 3, into this world. They were chosen to be the Messianic line.

It is not that Abraham,Isaac and Jacob were chosen to salvation whilst Ishmael, Esau and Hagar were not. This Divine election is about who would be the ones through whom the Messiah would come into the world. God was not going to bring Messiah through Ishmael or Esau.

Ishmael and Esau and Hagar would have to submit themselves to the revelation given to Isaac and Jacob and eventually through the Jews. That would be humbling and they would have to accept the fact , that, as Jesus told a woman at the well, “Salvation is of the Jews”.

A good many of the descendants of Ishmael and Esau did indeed do so, for at the time of the explosion of Islam, most of the Middle East was either Jewish or Christian or variations of Christian. Even to this day, there are quite a few Arabs, Syrians and Assyrians who hold to some form of Christianity.

But as it turns out, Esau would become restive, and tire of submitting to the Jews, or coming behind in contrast to them. One way that this “restlessness” worked out in History, is the development of a Religion which would codify the grievances of Ishmael, Hagar, and Esau, namely Islam.

Islam is the :”restlessness” of Esau, it is the vindication of the spurned Ishmael. In fact Islam has a feast and a special Mosque to commemorate the sacrifice Abraham made of Ishmael unto God. It nourishes and commemorates every grievance Ishmael and Esau had at being cheated, supplanted and disenfranchised (supposedly) by Israel.

Our God is the God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob. He is not the God of Ishmael or Esau, they are not Patriarchs, and there is no such thing as Abrahamic religion. The modern moral and spiritual descendants of Esau resent this greatly.They do not want to submit to the Spiritual yoke of the revelation which developed from the seed of Jacob, so they have crafted their own counterfeit to nurse their bitterness.

This has developed into something called,”The Everlasting hatred” . God calls it out in the book of Ezekiel, and it will be the cause of severe judgments…

there is more to come…