Genesis Chapter 25

¹ Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.

For more about Keturah I found this link https://aish.com/keturah-origins/. Basically nothing is really known about her, just that she married Abraham and had 6 children with him.

² And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.

One of the children is named Midian which is likely the father of the Midianites. This is the tribe of people that Moses found a wife from when he left Egypt.

³ And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.

⁴ And the sons of Midian; Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abidah, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah.

⁵ And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.

Even though Abraham has several other children, including a son with Hagar that was older than Isaac, Isaac was his one true heir. In Genesis 22:2 Isaac is referred to as Abraham’s only son.
Genesis 22:2 ² And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

⁶ But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.

Here, Ketutah is called a concubine. A concubine is a sort of tier 2 wife. She enjoys all the benefits of being a wife but comes second to the actual wife. It seems to me the main wife has authority over the concubine. According to Genesis 16:6 ⁶ But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. (Sarah was dealing with Hagar who was treating her with disrespect after Hagar gave birth to Ismael, Abrahams son.) —- Another instance you see the maid of the wife become a concubine is with Rachel and Leah who send their handmaids in to conceive children with Jacob and then consider those children their own. Genesis 30:12-13¹² And Zilpah Leah’s maid bare Jacob a second son.¹³ And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed: and she called his name Asher.—
Sarah was Abrahams wife from which the nation of Israel was born.

⁷ And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years.

⁸ Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.

⁹ And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre;

¹⁰ The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

¹¹ And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi.

I wonder if this verse is worded this way to note that the leadership blessing that was on Abraham was being passed on to Isaac at his death.

¹² Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid, bare unto Abraham:

¹³ And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,

¹⁴ And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa,

¹⁵ Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:

¹⁶ These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations.

¹⁷ And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.

¹⁸ And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.

¹⁹ And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac:

²⁰ And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.

²¹ And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

Intreated means to beg.

²² And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord.

²³ And the Lord said unto her, 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.

We see this in other places that the elder is passed over and the younger becomes greater…or is more favored by God as was the case with Cain and Able. Other examples are Ismael and Isaac…and here with Jacob and Esau.

²⁴ And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.

²⁵ And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.

²⁶ And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.

60 years old.

²⁷ And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.

²⁸ And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.

²⁹ And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:

Jacob was there cooking a pot of lentils….and Esau was starving to the point of fainting.

³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

Esau means Hairy and Edom means Red…. so Hairy Red Man.

³¹ And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

While Esau didn’t value his birthright with the respect it deserved, Jacob did and took this opportunity to get it from his brother. At one point I thought, “Jacob could have just fed his brother out of kindness.” But here’s the thing… Jacob took things seriously… he took the birthright seriously and respected it in the way it should have been respected…. which comes from realizing the value and importance of this birthright….. he was listening to his father when he spoke of it. Esau was the opposite. He didn’t prepare for an unfruitful day of hunting by taking enough bread to eat to keep himself from starving. He heard his father speak of the blessing of the birthright, but he couldn’t have valued it or respected its value. He didn’t count the cost of the agreement with Jacob, he just agreed to whatever to get a bowl of lentil stew…perhaps thinking this agreement wouldn’t be honored by his father. He clearly wasn’t taking things seriously…. a guy like this is not “Father of God’s chosen people” material… but a man who valued this blessing the way Jacob did was.

³² And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

³³ And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

Esau tells Jacob that he is about to die if he doesn’t eat right then and if he dies, the birthright won’t do anything for him. So, he swore to give Jacob his birthright for a bowl of stew. Esau clearly didn’t believe in his birthright because had he had faith in it, he would have realized that he wasn’t going to starve to death, his calling was to be the father of Israel.

³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.