(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)
“The words of Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah. She sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, “Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban, my brother, in Haran. Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury turns away— until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send, and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?””
(Genesis 27:42-45)
Esau had cried loudly when he heard about Jacob taking his blessing. He was a man of passion. Of physicality. Although we know that he spoke of his desire to kill Jacob in his HEART (Genesis 27:41), I don’t think he was good at keeping secrets. I think in his mannerisms and dirty looks those around him figured it out. I think his animosity toward Jacob was pretty obvious for all to see. At least one servant figured it out, anyway.
Once Rebekah heard of Esau’s intentions, she made another plan. Her first plan was full of deceit to ensure her son got the blessing she felt was his right because of what God said (Genesis 25:23) – even though he didn’t get that one, instead getting Esau’s temporary and flesh-based blessing. This time, her plan has some merit for getting an acceptable non-idolatrous mate, but again, she didn’t go to God to ask Him what He wanted. It cost her decades of time with her son. She meant for it to be temporary. It was a twenty-one year visit. She never saw him again once he left. She lost Esau’s love and respect for her part in the deceit. Now she was going to lose her other son. She arranges to send word when Esau’s anger subsides, but it never does in her lifetime.
God didn’t need machinations and deceit to get a blessing to the person He chose. God didn’t need Jacob to run away to protect him from Esau. In fact, if they had done things by checking with God first, there would have been no strife in the first place and no need for Jacob to flee -whether he was sent to get a wife there or not. Interference and preference by parents tore this family apart.
Haran was the third son of Terah. He died in Ur of the Chaldees, although Terah moved to a town named Haran (possible named by them?) after Haran’s death (Genesis 11:28-31). It was there that Abraham’s family settled and from there that Abraham left to come to the Land. Haran was where Rebekah had been found by Abraham’s servant. Rebekah was sending Jacob to her family for safety.
The Torah: A Women’s Commentary writes: ‘“get going.” Rebekah gives up what she loves most, her son Jacob. Like so many mothers, she sacrifices her own desires to ensure her child a future. “I will…bring you back from there.” As this episode comes to a close, Rebekah remains a woman with a plan. Her hope is that Jacob leaves only temporarily, until it is safe to return. Yet once Jacob leaves home, they never meet again. “why should I be bereft of the two of you…” Rebekah encourages her son to leave by saying that it is better for her if he does, a statement calculated to release Jacob from the fear that he is abandoning her.’
The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 42 יעקב בנה הקטון ,עשו בנה הגדול, is certainly not stressed without reason, just as, at the end of the whole story: אחי רבקה אם יעקב ועשו. After all these happenings Esau remained the elder, Jacob the younger, and Rebecca Esau’s mother as much as Jacob’s. All this expresses fully the pure feelings of Rebecca and Jacob, and confirms the way we have taken the meaning of the story. When people of baser natures have done wrong to, and harmed somebody else, they then become even worse disposed towards that person, try to find pretexes and reasons to make their action justified. Ignoble characters become even less scrupulous after the injury has been done than before they committed it. How about Rebecca and Jacob? That Esau felt rather more than indignant after what had happened, Rebecca found perfectly natural. For Esau could never understand her reasons, much less forgive them. And did Jacob make the slightest use of the ברכה and the בכורה? Not in the least. Rather we find Jacob very definitely at a disadvantage. After all they were twin brothers. And yet Esau was already married at forty years of age, brings two, then three daughters-in-law into the home, takes part in the father’s housekeeping and household, while Jacob has to go away empty without a penny, to hire himself out as a servant and by hard toil acquire a household of his own, ויעבד באשה, ובאשה שמד. Many people have found it striking that Isaac, who, both by inheritance from Abraham and by his own successful good fortune, was more than an ordinary rich man, should have allowed his son to wander forth without anything at all, just with his wanderer’s staff in his hand. But the reason for this condition had its roots deep in the motives which lay behind all these happenings. If Jacob, induced by Rebecca, had obtained the ברכה and the בכורה, it was to be made perfectly clear that no trace of any material advantage ensued thereby. After Jacob’s departure Esau was not to be able to find a pin missing. This is the greatest testimonial of Rebecca and Isaac’s nobility of soul. These words אם יעקב ועשו are, at the same time, the epitaph of Rebecca. Henceforth we hear nothing more of her. In everything and until her end, she was the mother of Jacob and Esau, always behaved as a mother to both. ותשלח, she had to send for him, he was not with her, was no “mummy’s boy” tied to his mother’s apron-strings. אחיך, who is and remains your brother, and towards whom you may never forget that he is your brother. V. 44 חמה, is a higher degree of אף .אף is the anger that shows itself in an angry face, it need not necessarily be so bad down in the heart. But חמה is the real glow of burning anger. V. 45 עד שוב אף. It is not sufficient for the burning anger to cool down. I will wait until you can meet him without having to expect any unfriendliness. It is evident that Rebecca had the best opinion of Esau’s feelings, that he would be able to entirely forget even the wrong which he had endured. “Shall I then lose you both on one and the same day”, just as I bare you both on one day? The murdered one she would no longer have, and the murderer would no longer be her son. But inasmuch as she feared to lose them both, they are both hers, her heart still clings to both of them, and Esau is no less her son than Jacob. These are all traits which must not be overlooked.’
The sage Radak writes: ‘ויגד לרבקה, how did she get to know about Esau’s intentions which he had not articulated? It is possible that she experienced a prophetic revelation, seeing that she was a prophetess. (compare Rashi) It is also possible that what Esau had thought about doing, he inadvertently mentioned to someone so that the one who had heard him reported it to Rivkah. מתנחם לך להרגך, he acts as if he is already consoling himself over the death of Yaakov. Or, the meaning of this phrase could be that Esau has made peace with his own death because he knows that at least he had first killed you.’
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