• Ted: By the way, Jacob's 3rd son was Judah, and Jesus was his descendant.


    • Chapter 30:
    What are mandrakes?
    Ted: Definition here.

    30:35-43 What's going on with the goats? Why is Jacob peeling birch trees...what does that have to do with goat coloration?
    Ted: The best i can tell is that way back then, when God had more personal dealings with people, things that don't make any sense to us now DID happen. I got a little confused about what jacob's intent was by doing all of that (although, again, it did involve deception), but evidently God was behind it because of 31:11,12.

    And the language was not clear to me, but was Jacob allowed to keep all of the goats that were spotted? And did Laban take away the spotted and streaked ones so that he could hopefully keep those genes out of the herd?
    Ted: Frankly, I'm not sure. i remember that whole passage as being confusing to me every time I've read the bible. We need some preacher who has researched and understood it to explain it to us in simple language, but I've never heard one do it so far. But basically, again Jacob's deception got him ahead, and God allowed it.

    Chapter 32:
    32:8 I don't understand Jacob's plan when he learns Esau is coming. Is he sending the groups up to be slaughtered so that he may run in that event?
    Ted: Basically, he split everyone that was with him into two groups. He figured that Esau was going to attack him, and if there were 2 groups then Esau hopefully would attack only one of the groups and the other group would get by. Then he prayed to God and evidently God impressed upon him just to send ahead all those animals to Esau as gifts, so hopefully Esau's anger would be pacified and he wouldn't want to attack Jacob.

    And was Esau pacified from that, or was he not angry in the first place?
    Ted: Well, I'm not sure, and I don't think the text is specific.

  • Ted: A general consensus of 32:22-32 was that the "man" Jacob wrestled with was God; even today, Israel "wrestles" with God.


    • Why did God not defeat him?
    Ted: Basically, that encounter was the beginning of Israel (the nation's) struggle and rebellion against God. I think God just used it as an illustration and a foreshadowing of what was to come. It wasn't that God couldn't have overcome Jacob; of course He could have. He just allowed Jacob to "overcome."

  • Ted: In Daniel 10, Daniel prays for understanding of a message and in 10:5,6 he sees a "man" whose description is virtually identical to that of Jesus several other places in scripture. In 10:13, He says that the prince of the Persian empire (an evil angelic being) resisted him for 21 days, but how could God allow this evil angel to "resist" him? For the same reason that he ALLOWED Jacob to "overcome" Him when they wrestled: during this history of mankind, God ALLOWS man and evil angels to struggle against Him, and actually "WIN" many times. (It's) not that God is unable to destroy them instantly, but He is saving that vengeance for the end of this age.