This is an addendum to the season 1.1 talk on Esau.
There is a passage in the Gospel of John that, when laid beside the story of Esau, illuminates the entire Jacob narrative with a sudden and startling clarity. In John 10:10, the Lord Jesus Christ declares: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”
The thief is Satan. And Esau, in his actions, his accusations, and his intentions, is a living portrait of the Devil’s own programme against the people of God. This is not a loose analogy. It is a pattern woven into the very fabric of the Genesis narrative, and it has profound implications for every believer who faces opposition from the enemies of the godly.
The Accuser of the Brethren
One of the Devil’s primary titles in Scripture is “the accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10). He stands before the throne of God and levels charges against the saints, twisting the truth, fabricating evidence, and turning righteousness into a crime.
Esau did precisely this to Jacob.
In Genesis 27:36, Esau cries out: “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing.”
This accusation is a masterclass in false witness. Esau did not have his birthright “taken” from him. He sold it. He sold it voluntarily, in a straightforward transaction, for stew and bread, and then swore an oath before God to confirm the deal. Genesis 25:33 records the sale. Hebrews 12:16 confirms that Esau despised it. The birthright was no longer his. It had been lawfully transferred to Jacob.
And yet for thousands of years, the Christian church has echoed this false accusation, repeating the words of a profane man whom God hates, and treating them as though they were the verdict of Scripture itself. Bible section-headings read “Jacob’s Deception” and “Jacob Steals Esau’s Blessing,” but these are the words of translators and editors, not the words of the Holy Spirit. God never calls Jacob a thief. God never accuses Jacob of deceit. It is Esau, the accuser, who does so, and we have taken his word for it.
The pattern is satanic. The Devil accuses the righteous of the very sins he himself commits. Esau, who had forfeited his birthright through profanity and contempt, turned around and accused Jacob of theft. This is the hallmark of the reprobate in every age: they project their own wickedness onto the godly. When the Esaus of this world fail in their endeavours, they accuse God’s people of doing what they themselves do all the time. It is blatant hypocrisy, and it stinks of the pit.
Steal: Esau Came for Jacob’s Wealth
When Esau marched out to meet his returning brother with 400 armed men, he was not coming for a family reunion. Jacob had left Canaan with nothing but the staff in his hand, but he returned with a vast fortune: great herds of goats, sheep, camels, cows, and donkeys, together with servants, wives, and children. Esau wanted that wealth.
But Jacob’s wealth was not merely the product of human ingenuity. It was the fruit of God’s covenant blessing on a faithful man. Every animal in Jacob’s flocks was a tangible expression of the promise God had made to Abraham, renewed to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob at Bethel. To steal Jacob’s wealth was to steal the material evidence of God’s faithfulness.
This is what the thief always does. He comes for what God has given His people. The inheritance that belongs to the righteous, the land, the wealth, the influence, the godly legacy passed from generation to generation, is precisely what the Esau spirit targets. And if Esau could remove his brother from the picture, he would inherit all that belonged to his father. The motive was not merely greed; it was the desire to supplant God’s chosen heir and seize the covenant promises for himself.
Kill: Esau Plotted the Murder of His Brother
Genesis 27:41 records the chilling words: “Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.”
This was not a passing fit of temper. It was a premeditated plan to commit fratricide, calculated to coincide with Isaac’s death so that the mourning period would provide cover for the crime. And the plan did not die in Esau’s heart. Years later, when Jacob was returning to Canaan, Esau came out to meet him with a force of 400 men, an army by any standard of the ancient world.
The target was not just Jacob. It was Jacob’s entire family: his wives, his children, his servants, and the unborn generations that would descend from them. In the loins of Jacob was the line of Christ. To kill Jacob was to strike at the very root of God’s redemptive purpose in history, or so Esau hoped. Like Cain, the first murderer, Esau hated his righteous brother and sought to extinguish the godly line.
Destroy: Esau Would Have Annihilated the Line of Promise
The stakes in the Jacob and Esau conflict were not merely personal. They were cosmic. Esau was not just a disgruntled sibling; he was, in the language of Genesis 3:15, the seed of the serpent in his generation. The enmity between Esau and Jacob was a specific manifestation of the enmity God had decreed between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed from the very beginning.
If Esau had succeeded, the godly line of promise would have been destroyed, or at the very least catastrophically disrupted. The Messiah, the Seed of Abraham in whom all nations would be blessed, was carried forward through Jacob and his sons. Esau’s war was ultimately a war against Christ.
This is what makes the Esau spirit so profoundly dangerous. It is not merely a personality flaw or a character deficiency. It is an instrument of the Devil’s programme to steal, kill, and destroy everything that belongs to God and His people. Every generation faces its own Esaus, men and women animated by the same profane contempt for God’s covenant, the same lust for power, and the same readiness to use accusation, theft, and violence to overthrow the righteous.
Jacob as a Picture of the Elect
If Esau is a picture of all the reprobate, as Romans 9 makes clear, then Jacob is a picture of all the elect of God. His name was changed to Israel, and the Israel of God, the true church of Jesus Christ, bears his name to this day. Every believer is “in Jacob,” so to speak, just as every believer is in Christ, who was in Jacob’s loins.
The warfare between Esau and Jacob, then, is not merely history. It is the template for the warfare every Christian man faces. The accusations will come. The attempts to steal your inheritance will come. The threats of destruction will come. But the promise of God stands firm: the older shall serve the younger. The seed of the serpent will be crushed. And Jacob, the beloved of God, will inherit the earth.
The question for every godly man is simply this: do you recognise the Esaus in your life? And do you know the God of Jacob well enough to stand firm against them?
Romans 9 gives us the answer God has given from eternity. Jacob have I loved. That is your foundation. That is your inheritance. And no Esau, however armed and however cunning, can take it from you.