The lesson of Esau and Jacob
12
Jul
There is a book by brazilian writer Machado
de Assis about two brothers, also called Esau and Jacob, one of whom was a monarchist and the other a republican, and who made their mother suffer because of the dispute between the two, the story narrated by Machado de Assis’s alter-ego, Counselor Aires, it deals with the struggle of the twin brothers Pedro and Paulo, in endless conflicts and reconciliations from their mother’s womb until the beginning of adulthood, and also their love for the young Flora Batista.
In the biblical narrative Esau is older and it also says that Jacob is born moments later according to the biblical interpretation “clinging to his sister’s heel”, by a strategy of deceiving his father (he dresses in furs because his brother had more hair) and despite the father Isaac recognizing the voice ends up deceived and blesses the son, in Jewish tradition the eldest is the patriarch who must follow the father in charge of the Hebrew people.
But Jacob will spend many years running from his brother Esau for having usurped him and when he goes to meet his brother he fights “a whole night with an angel” who, at the end of the fight, wounds him in the nerve of the thigh and he starts to limp after that, but at the end of the fight he gets what he wanted to “be blessed” despite what he had done (Genesis 32:26).
After the fight, the name Jacob will be renamed to Israel by the angel, which means the one who fought with God and the place of the fight that exists is called Penuel, near the ford of Jabbok (passage where the river is shallow), one of the tributaries of the river Jordan (photo).
The figure of Jacob has no historical proof, but the twelve tribes that are born from his descent, the famous twelve tribes of Israel, whose best known and cited in history and biblical narrative are to the north: Asser, Naphtali and Eastern Manasseh, in the center Manasseh, Dah, Zebulon and Ephraim, to the south: Judah, Reuben and Moab (from the desert), of the children of Israel still have Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh), Benjamin and Levi, who were priests did not have territorial inheritance.
They formed a United Kingdom with different tasks, the official historiography registers it as the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, since the descendants of David will come from the tribe of Judah, and registers it as in the period of 930 BC. to 730 B.C. when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrians under King Shalmaneser V, who levied heavy taxes on the Israelites.
The lesson of Esau and Jacob can be read both for the current world polarization, and for “brother” peoples who fight for pieces of land and power.
