Jacob meets Esau
33
📚And Jacob raised his eyes, and looked, and, there came Esau, and with him four hundred men. And Jacob divided the children between Leah and Rachel and the two maid servants. 2 📚And he put the maid servants and their children in the front, and Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph last 📖. 3 📚And he went on ahead of them, and bowed down to the ground seven times 📖, until he came near to his brother.4 📚And Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, and kissed him 📖. And they wept. 5 📚And Esau raised his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, “Who are these with you?” And he said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant”.
6 Then the maid servants approached Esau, they and their children, and they bowed down. 7 And Leah also, with her children came near, and bowed down. And after them Joseph and Rachel came near and they bowed down.
8 📚And he said, “What do you mean by this whole drove that I met?” And he said, “Those are to find favour in the sight of my master”.
9 📚And Esau said, “I have enough, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself”.
33:9 Esau showed more kindness and generosity to Jacob than Jacob had to him (Gen 25:29-33; 27:36) This does not necessarily mean that Esau had by faith taken the one true God as his God.⚜
10 📚And Jacob said, “Please, no. If I have now found favour in your sight, then receive my present from my hand. For I see your face, as though seeing the face of God, and you were pleased with me. 11 📚Please accept my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me and so I have enough”. And he urged him, and he accepted it.
12 And Esau said, “Let us set out on our journey, and move on, and I will go ahead of you”.
13 📚And he said to him, “My master knows that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me. If they drive them too hard one day, the whole flock will die. 14 📚Please let my master go on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, as much as the livestock going in front of me and the children are able to bear, until I come to my master in Seir”.
15 📚And Esau said, “Then let me leave with you some of the people who are with me”. And he said, “What is the need? Let me find favour in the sight of my master”.
16 So Esau went back that day on his way to Seir. 17 📚And Jacob journeyed to Succoth 📖 and built a house for himself, and made booths for his cattle. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. 18 📚And after coming from Padan-Aram, Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, and pitched his tent before the city.
33:14-18 Jacob had no intention of going to Seir (Edom) where Esau lived. This whole passage shows that he was still uneasy about Esau. It shows too that Israel had not completely lost his Jacob nature overnight. Succoth was a long way from Seir and in a different direction. And Shechem was straight west in Canaan and not south toward Seir.⚜
19 📚And he bought a part of the field where he had spread his tent, from the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money. 20 📚And he erected an altar 📖 there, and called it El Elohe Israel.