The Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur'an by Wessels Anton;Wolterstorff Nicholas;

Author:Wessels, Anton;Wolterstorff, Nicholas;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 2013-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

One’s Own Brother as the Enemy

While the story of the first children of mankind, Cain and Abel, is a story of a fratricide, the tensions between brothers emerge again in the stories of the children of the patriarchs. Let us begin with the tension between Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, and his older brother Esau. Jacob represents the shepherd culture and Esau the hunter culture. The latter is a “skillful hunter, a man of the open country.” Isaac, their father, favors Esau, for he likes venison and wild game, but his mother Rebecca loves Jacob more (Gen 25:27-28).

Jacob’s descendants and Esau’s clashed in Palestine, in the area east of the river Jordan, and the hunters won their independence from the shepherds (Gen 27:40). The Edomites, who saw Esau as their forefather, apparently settled in the Transjordan towards the end of the thirteenth century B.C. and already before David had set up a kingdom without a hereditary monarchy. Perhaps there is a connection between life at court that had already developed early and the special wisdom that was accorded the Edomites and for which they were famous (cf. Jer 49:7; Job 2:11; 15:8; cf. Obad 8).

The growth of a very expansive kingdom in Israel led to conflict with the Edomites, whose copper mines and strategic position invited conquest. Under King David, Israel would overshadow the older state of Edom (Jer 49:8-10; Mal 1:2-5). Edom would thus be degraded to a province with an Israelite viceroy. All Edomites would become David’s subjects (2 Sam 8:14).

When the kingdom of Judah collapsed in 587 B.C. after Jerusalem had been captured by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, the Edomites avenged themselves because of their previous humiliation and thus profitted from the fall of Jerusalem. That is why the prophets later directed several prophecies at the land of Edom (Isa 34:5; Ezek 25:12-14):

Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever. On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble. You should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over them in their calamity in the day of their disaster, nor seize their wealth in the day of their disaster. You should not wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their survivors in the day of their trouble. (Obad 10-14)

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