Did Isaac and Rebekah have the "perfect" marriage? 

Everything started off beautifully in this God ordained marriage.  Both Isaac and Rebekah were obedient in marrying the spouse that God had chosen for them. In the early part of their marriage, they loved each other, prayed for each other...but then what goes wrong in this perfect marriage?

Just as we have all experienced in our own marriage, sin enters the picture. As the story of Jacob's deception unfolds, each is out for their own interest. We see the picture of what we would now call a dysfunctional family.  There is no thought about the "other" person, let alone any consideration for God's will.

Instead of thinking that our marriage would have been better if we had just married the right person, perhaps we should concentrate on how we can transform our marriage by the renewing of our minds by not conforming to the expectations of this world (Romans 12:2), but by patterning our lives after God's standard that is revealed to us through prayer and meditation on His Word.

Some notes on the reading....

Sarah was not Abraham's only wife. He had also taken another wife (i.e. concubine), whose name was Keturah (Genesis 25:1-2). Now concubines funtioned as secondary wives or surrograte mothers. The practice seems to have bled over from the neighboring (Babylonian/Assyrian) cultures. One of Keturah's sons is named Midian. Abraham sent Midian and his other sons "away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east" (Genesis 25:7). It is unclear whether Abraham's marriage to Keturah and the birth of these other sons followed or preceded Isaac's birth or Sarah's death. If these sons came after Sarah's death, they may have been an even greater wonder, for Abraham would have been over 137 years old when he had them (cf. Genesis 23:1 with Genesis 17:17).

This Midian was the father of the Midianites, among whom Moses would take refuge and find his wife (Zipporah) many hundreds of years later. In Moses' day the land of Midian was on the east side of the Gulf of Aqaba, the northeastern fork of the Red Sea. From the testimony of Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, there were some God-fearing people among them.

Unfortunately, it was also the Midianite women that helped King Balak of Moab to seduce the Israelites into immorality and idolatry in the days of Balam, so that God struck down 24,000 Israelites in punishment.

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The expression "he [Ishmael] settled in defiance to all his relatives" (NIV 2010) is elsewhere translated "he died in the presence of all his brethren" (KJV). The confusion arises because of an expression and an unclear antecedent. The Hebrew text could read,

"It (the lot or district) fell (or was divided to him) in the presence of all his brethren" or

"He fell in the presence of all his brethren."

What is more, the expression "in the presence" can sometimes carry the sense "over against" or "in opposition to." In light of the prophecy of Genesis 16:12, many modern translations (e.g. NIV, NASB, ESV) have chosen to take this latter interpretation of the verse:

He [Ishmael] will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him...

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The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23).

In keeping with the prophecy Jacob, the younger twin, becomes greater than the older Esau. More than this, we discover that God chose Jacob to carry on the promise of Abraham rather than Esau. The prophet Malachi puts it in even stronger terms, saying that God loved Jacob and rejected Esau:

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the Lord says. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” (Malachi 1:2-3).

When we come to Paul, he reveals that this divine decision to love one and hate the other was made even before the twins were born:

Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.."(Romans 9:10-13).

What are we to understand from this explanation of the birth and fate of these twins? God's purposes are sovereign and override Jacob's deception, Esau's despising his birthright, and Rebekah's trickery. One might even say that God used all of these things in order to accomplish His purposes in election.

When we understand this, then we can appreciate a verse like Ephesians 1:11-12,

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

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Consider this matter of Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of soup. This seems unbelievably foolish of Esau on first reading. After all, Moses even comments, "Thus Esau despised his birthright" (Genesis 25:34). While some might consider it cunning, others might see what Jacob did as being both manipulative and unethical, especially in light of the fact that this was his own brother - hardly the noble character of the future leader of God's people. I draw your attention to these things not so that you will have disdain for the leaders of God's people but so that you can see that the fortuitous progress of God's people was not by the greatness of her leaders but because of the unthwartable purposes of God.

Also, while Esau may have despised his birthright, he may not have been as big a fool as one might think from this event. This is what we undertsand about the birthright. The birthright belonged to the oldest son. Even though Esau and Jacob were twins, Esau secured the birthright because he was born moments before Jacob. The benefit of a birthright included (1) having precedence over the other children, (2) receiving a double share of the inheritance, (3) and becoming head of the clan at the father’s death (Gen 43:33; Deut 21:15-17; 1 Chron 5:1).

However, these benefits could be lost through some offense (ex. Reuben – defiled father’s bed), traded (Esau traded for some soup), or negated by the father’s last will. This last will was called the “blessing” and was actually more important than the “birthright” since the rights of the oldest son might be modified or even cancelled. The pronouncement of blessing was legally binding.

“In an essentially nonliterate society, oral transactions were extremely important; and the oral blessing had the force of a legally-binding oral will, as texts from the Mesopotamian city of Nuzi demonstrate. The binding character of the blessing is clear because Esau did not argue for a transfer of the blessing to him just because a mistake had been made. He merely asked for some additional blessing.” (Howard F. Voss, Genesis, p. 105).

With respect to Esau trading his birthright for food, the Bible calls Esau “godless” because he despised his birthright (Heb 12:16). It could be that Esau assumed that since he was the favorite of Isaac (Genesis 25:28a), he would get it all back when his father blessed him. While he was correct in his thinking, he did not count on his mother's (who loved Jacob, cf.Genesis 25:28b) trickery (Gen 27:1-45).

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God brings another famine in Isaac's time. Isaac responds by seeking food among the Philistines in Gerar. It appears that God kept him from going all the way to Egypt (Genesis 26:2), as his father Abraham had done. And while this is only conjecture, perhaps it was because God wanted to prevent another Hagar/ Ishmael incident. Remember, Hagar was Sarah's Egyptian slave, whom she presumably purchased during their sojourn in Egypt in the time of the first famine (Genesis 12:10). In that account we are told that Abraham purchased "menservants and maidservants" (Genesis 12:16). Hagar may have been one of these maidservants.

Then, in a "like father like son" moment, Isaac uses the same ploy with Abimelech as his father did with Pharoah (Genesis 12:10-20). Because his wife was beautiful and he feared for his life, Isaac asks Rebekah to pose as his sister rather than as his wife. Abraham even allowed Pharoah to take his wife into his harem. Once again we cringe at the ignoble behavior of these patriarchs of God's people. And we are reminded again that their progress is all due to God's grace.

Jacob and Esau had an interesting relationship. They were essentially polar opposites in every way. They were also respectively favorites of their parents, and this dynamic must have made for some interesting family dinners. But here is how I looked at Genesis 25 and 26.

So Jacob cooked supper, and Esau came in from work, hungry and weak, and says "Feed me!" Jacob says, "Wait a minute here, you have to pay up first! I didnt slave over this stove all day for nothing!" Esau says, "Im going to die anyway, so what do I care about some stupid birthright? You can have it." and Jacob says, "Swear to me."

So Esau promised his birthright to Jacob, but he never had any attention of paying up. Jacob wouldn't have known about Isaac giving Esau his birthright if Rebekah had not been paying attention to what Isaac was up to. Rebekah knew the promise the Lord had given her, and through her subversive actions, the prophecy we see in 25:23 came true.

This deception is another example what Yujin has discussed before, that sometimes there are actions where the end justifies the means, like Rahab the spy's lies, and she was blessed in return.

²¹ Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

Verse 21 sounded like Issac prayed and Rebekah just pregnant over nite but according to Isaac's age, it took them 26 years to get Lord's answer.

Once again, God's time zone is completely different then ours. Must pray for much more patient.