Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1169 | The Wild Childhood Rivalries That Inspired ‘Duck Dynasty’ & Who Miss Kay Loves the Most

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Al, Zach, Christian Huff, and John Luke open up with some family confessions about who the true “favorite” Robertson sibling and grandchild really is. That leads to Genesis 25, where Jacob and Esau’s clash over birthright and blessing mirrors the dangers of picking favorites and the pain of sibling rivalry. The guys dig into what it means that God shows no favoritism, why Jacob and Esau’s story is really about nations more than individuals, and how grace and forgiveness will always win out. In this episode: Genesis 22; Genesis 25, verse 23; Genesis 25, verse 30; Genesis 33, verse 10; Acts 10, verse 34; Romans 9; John 1, verse 51; John 2; Hebrews 4; Isaiah 2 Today's conversation is about lesson 5 of The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives taught by Hillsdale Professor Justin Jackson. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ More about The Genesis Story: Genesis is a book of fundamental importance for the Jewish and Christian faiths and has exerted a profound influence on Western Civilization. In addition to being a great religious text, it is also a literary masterpiece.  This free online course explores some of the work’s major narrative themes, including the complex relationship between God and man, the consequences of a rupture in that relationship, and the path towards reconciliation. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00–11:48 Sibling Rivalries & Favorite Sons 11:49–21:20 Jacob & Esau Represent Two Nations 21:21–32:43 Deceivers Always Get Deceived 32:44–44:00 How to Wrestle With God 44:01–55:28 Why Jesus Came From Judah — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, we are back. We do this every Friday. It's called Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College. We're getting into the book of Genesis this time. You guys can sign up for free. All you got to do is go to Unashameforhillstale.com. This week we're talking about Jacob and Esau, two brothers. One was the favorite. One was the, well, I guess they both were favorite of a parent. Do you all have favorites, by the way? I just have one sibling, so. So were you the favorite? Oh, was I the favorite?

I think we're, we, it was reiterated very often that we were both equal. Yeah. But now tell us the truth. I think I'm the favorite. You think you are? I think so. How, what about you? Well, you know, you know, y'all, in my case, our whole family's been on television for years, so it's kind of out there.

But in our family, with mom especially, because it is interesting because our story. storyline today is about the moms in terms of the, you know, the favorites. But it, in our case, it was whoever's in the room is the favor with mom. Like, if you're there, of course, you're the favorite. She told me I was, I went and saw her because she was sick recently, and I saw her, and she said, you're my favorite nephew. Yeah, said the same thing to John Gimber right before you got there. I think the person said, is, oh, this is John? She's like, oh, Zach, Zach's my favorite. So personally, that was a Jacob Esau situation. Exactly. Exactly.

So personally, I know I'm the favorite, like deep down, I'm like you, because I'm the most dependable. You know, I'm there. I come up with the most, the brightest and best ideas. But, you know, I let the others bask in their favoritism that they think they have. Of course, the only one that knows he's not the favorite is Jace, because he's nobody's favorite. Yeah, except I guess Missy. He's everybody's favorite villain. Exactly.

He's the villain. It's like a Bond movie. What's a Bond movie without a villain, right? We talked about that on the last podcast. So I know it's me, but I let Jep take the mantle because he's the youngest. I feel like it's Jeff. I mean, just from the outside looking at it, what are you saying? From the outside looking in, for sure, Jeff.

I mean, that seems like that. Well, he's the most coddled for sure because he's the youngest. That, yeah, it is. I mean, you're the oldest in yours. Yeah, so we all know oldest, you're oldest. I'm middle child. Oh, that's right. No one of you have a syndrome.

Yeah. That explains a lot about Zach's issue. Who's the favorite of Willie and Corey's story? This is interesting. You know, true, I was trying to think of it. And truly, I don't think my dad has a favorite, or they have a favorite. But then I was like, if I don't know who the favorite is, does that mean it's not you? Is me or it's not me?

Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty good. After we had Willie's 50th birthday party where we did a roast, and they roasted a big pig. And a bunch, I say a bunch. Willie's closest. Are you talking about me?

Yeah. Huh? Are you referring to me? Because I felt like a roasted. pig after Willie's roasting of me. He was brutal on you. I was back in my full weight back then. I was actually surprised you didn't go harder on him than you did.

I thought I was very nice. But he was so hard on me that poor Bella steps up to the microphone says, Uncle Island, we love you. She had to provide some balm on my scorched flesh. But the only two people of all the people out there that really roasted Willie or you and me. Uh-huh. Yeah. You went for the jugular.

I was like, whoa, he's going deep. I went all out on that. You did. Yeah, you did. I don't know if that's elevated or less of my status. Yeah. I don't know. He appreciates that, though.

He did. He likes a good rest. Well, he told me later, he said, man, thank y'all for, like, coming after me. I wanted more if some of the other, some of the other guys didn't deliver. I only made fun of his, like, hair dues through the years. I was very neutral. I tried to attack his character. Right.

I didn't go for that. Let's just go all that. His weight. Because I think one of my lines is Willie's gained and lost 1,236 pounds. But it's actually the same 50 pounds, just 25 times, which I can relate to that. He has the best come. He's not a fun person to try to get in the – because he'll always take it the step further.

Yeah, he'll never stop. So who's the favorite in yours? You never said. I'm not sure who the favorite of my parents, you know, I'm not really sure. That's it. I would probably say I was my mom. mom's favorite. And then probably Melissa is my dad's favorite because she takes like does everything

for him. You know what I mean? In my family, though, with my kids, I tell my kids, well, you know, when we adopted Ruth, I was super nervous about adoption because I thought, can I really love an adopted child like my own? Like I, I struggle with that. I mean, Jill was called to adopt a long time before God, I put that on my heart. And I tell my kids now, like, like, actually.

actually the truth is once now that I've adopted Ruth, I actually love her more than the rest of my kids. So she's actually my favorite by far. Yeah. And I tell my kids he's the chosen one. Well, and that's kind of a joke. I say that tongue in cheeks. I mean, like I set that, I set that joke up more. The way, normally I set it up, it's like, and I'm here to tell you that I don't only love her as much as I love my kid.

I love her more. I love. Y'all didn't laugh. So I didn't deliver the joke well. I was laughing on the inside. But Ruth's my favorite right now. She's the least destructive, at least from my perspective, your boys, you know. Well, we had favorite Fred.

It was favorite Fred. We called him Favorite Fred for a while. So I think, but now it's, I mean, Ruth runs the show, rules to Roos. But sibling rivalry is a real deal. I mean, I think we've all experienced that in our life. Well, and that's why in our family is interesting because when you watch the show, it's very evident that Willie and Jace had the biggest rivalry. Out of the four brothers, they had the biggest rivalry because they were the closest in age.

and they're both middle children, which middle children have issues. And, you know, present company included. It's because a middle child doesn't get any of the tension, so you're left. Well, you don't get that little youthful favoritism, and you don't get the responsibility if they're old. So you're just somewhere in the middle.

Survivors. Exactly. Grit. They call it grit. Exactly. So those two were like that in our family, so they obviously had the biggest robberies. But when you were watching the show,

you actually, a lot of the stories that are told there were stories that included, it may have been me and Willie in real life, that we were retelling through Jason Willie's robbery, which made it really an interesting show, and the stuff was funny because it really was all about our childhood. You know, the show is an adult version of our childhood. That's what it is. And all the things and exploits that we did to one another and to our cousins who would come and visit.

Oh, you guys were ruthless. Oh, yeah. Your dad was the worst, man. I mean, he was, he still is ruthless. But I have no resentments that. Well, you're my favorite cousin. And I was like, I'm just saying because, you know, you come up with ways to enrich my life in many, many ways.

So I'm just saying that. In many ways, spiritually, monetarily. You're just you enrich me in many, many ways. Everything's transactional, guys. Wow. Okay. So let me recover from that a little bit. And that leads right into Jacob and the East.

It really does. It actually does. I mean, you, it was hilarious. He got the last podcast. He kept saying. and you're referencing our commentary, which, by the way, we all have our commentaries now. We have the five books of Moses, and then we also have just the Genesis commentary here. This is the ones that Dr. Jackson uses in the course that we're in right now.

Yeah, Robert Alter is the other. Robert Alter. So if you are going in deep with us and you've already signed up for Unashamed for Hillsdale.com, you can get these commentaries as well if you really want to go deep with us, which I would recommend. I think if you can sit in the content and incubate in it, it just has a way of it's kind of like, I don't know, for me it's been great just to sit in it.

And then we can process together. But you were reading out of the commentary, but you kept saying, instead of Ishmael, you kept referring to Esau, because they're so similar. It's so similar. Esau and Isaac. Yeah, Esau and Isaac.

And even when you're corrected, you still said it. But I thought it was funny because it's like, but there is this pattern. Right. You see this pattern kind of repeated over and over and over again of sibling rivalry. So we've already talked about, you know, the birth of Isaac. Well, Ishmael first, because Ishmael is kind of like the circumventing of the promise. We're going to help you accomplish this, God, you know, coming from the perspective of Abraham and Sarah, and God's like, no, that's actually not how this is going to work.

And so then Isaac comes up on the scene, but there is that tension there. There's that rivalry there. Well, now we've found out which one the actual promise is going to go through. it's going to go through Isaac. Then we enter into Genesis 22, which we did last time, which is lecture four. And we're like, oh, now we're going to kill this guy. We're going to have you kill the one that the promise is going to come through. Well, then God provides a substitutionary sacrifice atonement, foreshadowing the substitution

atonement that we received through Jesus. So now we know that Isaac's the guy. It's coming through Isaac. The offspring are coming. And then the two offspring that arrived through Isaac are Jacob and Esau. And so that's where our story... But didn't you find it interesting that these rivalries seem to be birthed out more from the parents than anything else, which Dr. Jackson mentions that? It starts out, in other words, with the rivalry between Sarah and Hagar that happens as a

result of kind of circumventing the plan of God. But then it goes right into this too. You know, then all of a sudden we've got, you know, Rebecca, her favorite is Jacob, you know, and then I Isaac, you know, is favoring Esau so that the parents are making these decisions. And then when we go to the next level, which we'll get into in the next podcast, you see that now times four because you've got four different moms with 12 different sons. And this idea of these rivalries really start. To me, it's almost like a generational thing that seems to be going forward. And then it just picks up and it becomes almost warlike, you know, between the siblings.

And they don't learn. Like Jacob emulates his father Isaac, Isaac emulates Abraham, and they keep having the same problems generation after generation. They're not, they don't learn, they just repeat, which I think is there's a nuance here, I think, with Christ and with God. I was thinking about while listening to the video and reading the commentary, is it reads in the New Testament, I can't remember the verse, but there are no favorites.

It talks about Jesus saying with God, there's no favorites. that all are equal. There's no favor to them. All are equal. I think Peter said that, yeah. And I think what is happening early on with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of them, is that they are thinking that the roles that God is giving them equates to favoritism when it doesn't. Right.

They're saying, oh, God is giving me a purpose here, or, a specific role, that means I am his favorite. When actually God's not choosing them as like they're better, because God's also blessing Ishmael. He's also blessing Esau. He's also blessing everyone else around them in this thing. It's not God saying like, okay, I'm choosing him because he's better than this one or that one. It's God saying, I'm giving you a specific role in history and in the story. I mean, there's a lot of controversy in what you just said. I would agree with you by the way, though, but there is a lot of controversy in that that I want to unpack in a second.

Yeah, what was that verse? Yeah, because... Well, you were in, I think, first or second, Peter, I was in Acts 10, this is right after Peter and Cornelius. So, Acts 1034, says, then Peter replied, I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. Yeah. This is after the dream.

I was in Acts 10. It was Peter and Cornelius. This is Acts 1034. It says, then Peter replied, I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. And then this is right after the dream. Yeah. And then Peter rises up with the...

So Peter did say it, and it was in the moment that the first Gentiles were ushered into the kingdom. Well, I think about what had just happened around this time period is a sheet comes down from heaven, and you have all the unclean animals on the sheet. And what does he say? Don't call anything unclean that I've called clean. Yeah. And it's not about catfish and pigs. Right.

What it's about is Jew and Gentile. And so what I think this is to the point you made, this is where the controversy emerges. And I fully believe that we have to read this story of Jacob and Esau through the lens of a word called eschatology. We have to read this through what is God ultimately accomplishing in this story? Because this whole idea of, wouldn't it, why is Abraham even on the scene? Why do we even need Israel? I mean, Israel didn't happen and didn't come into play until Genesis 12. This is right after the Tower of Abel.

So God creates, got to go back to that. We talked about the previous episode, but in Genesis 11, God creates nations for the very first time. So we have to understand this whole story in the context of the fall. Because if you try to understand this without that context, then you get into these weird things about favoritism. And, well, he clearly has a favorite. I mean, he's choosing a bloodline. And he's choosing, I mean, Jacob got some blessing that Esau didn't get. So that's there.

Then you get to like Romans 9, which clearly says, Jacob, I love, Esau I've hated, actually quotes, Romans 9 actually quotes the text today. Our anchor text was Genesis 25. I think if we're viewing like Romans 9 as an argument, for example, if you're viewing that through the lens of God arbitrarily chose the person of Jacob over the person of Esau. I think that you've missed the text. I don't think he's talking about that at all. I think he's talking about two nations here.

And here's why, because he actually quotes in Romans 9, he says, the older, just as it is written, the older will serve the younger. That was the Paul's kind of argument of why he's making this case in Romans 9, which I think he's fairly talking about Gentiles being grafted into the faith of Israel. But let me read the text here,

because this is the birth of the rivalry of Jacob and Esau. and what you're going to see is it actually happens in the womb before the twins were born. Did it have done anything good or bad? Which is interesting because I had said before that a lot of the rivalry is coming from the parents, but it is interesting in this case.

It actually started even before they came out. Yeah, this one started in the womb. And I think what we'll see in this, though, this is not necessarily. I think that Jacob and Esau, the individuals serve as a prototype for two different nations. One of those nations is going to be called Israel,

and the other one of those nations is going to be called Edom, the Edomites. So the verse says this. So the Lord says to Rebecca, the children struggled within her, and she said, if it is thus why this, if it is thus, then why is this happening to me?

She went to inquire of the Lord, and this is what the Lord says to her. Two nations, are in your womb. And two peoples from within you shall be divided. Clearly, God is expanding the understanding of Jacob and He sought to beyond just individual people. He's talking about two different, like, actual nations and people groups.

The one shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So the older nations shall actually serve the younger. He did say there was some ambiguity with that. though, didn't he? He said there was different, like you could read it two different ways. In terms of the, in what way? Oh, yeah, of who was serving him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he did say that. I don't know if I, I didn't do a deep dive into that side. I thought that was an interesting point. Yeah. So in that ambious, but you certainly see ambiguity in how it plays out. Well, at the end, to your point, Christian, at the end of the story, you know, you see just the way, the opposite,

happened from what it said here in the fact that Jacob does bow down as the servant and says your servant, Jacob, your servant. Remember when they have the big reunion at the very end of the story? And Jacob's the younger. The Jacob's the younger, which is in the order, right, exactly. But at the same time, not really because he's representative of Israel, which is the other. So you see a little bit above it. Well, Edom ends up serving Israel later on and kind of the whole story. And there's a whole reason why, even that wasn't arbitrary. Like they wanted to pass through their land and they eat it and he might be like, no, we're not letting you pass through. God gets angry.

So there's even a reason beyond that. Yeah. But it is interesting that you see a way it plays out is Jacob actually calls Esau Lord and serves him. He calls your servant, your servant repeatedly. And verse 23 is so interesting because Dr. Jackson didn't talk about this, but like some scholars, it's kind of like a debate, but like some scholars believe that Rebecca never told Jacob what God told her. Rebecca never told Isaac what the Lord spoke to her, which is interesting. Because it never says,

it never says that they had any dialogue after this. There's a lot of hiding going on. So it's weird. So God tells Rebecca, you know, maybe the younger, the older will serve the younger, but it never says that Rebecca told that to Isaac. Well, probably because Isaac,

he was, I mean, I'm sorry, Isaac favors Esau And then But this was before that though Well we find out later though That he that I'm saying that he Yeah Well I guess you're right yeah

Because this is before they were born Yeah Because in the next verse says And then when the time came to get birth She discovered that she had twins But yeah it's interesting Yeah And ever elusive the fact that

To your point And it really shows that We've always sort of given Rebecca a pass Because it's like Well she got a word from the Lord That seemed to be unique of how things were going to go. So it's almost like it props up her favoring of Jacob,

even though he was a deceiver. Yeah, it kind of spurs her on. Yeah, because she's like, well, God's already told me this, but you're right. She doesn't say that in the text to anybody else, but she knows something nobody else knows, which is big, you know? I mean, explains a lot. Does it explain then, therefore,

that they would pull off this whole major deception? I mean, even Jacob was uncomfortable with it. We see that in the text. He's like, oh, I don't know. too far. Yeah. I mean, like,

I don't want to be like this way for dad. So just remember if you want to do this, unashamed for Hillsdale.com,

you could sign up for this free course that we're taking and loving. And we're in, what are we on? Lecture 5 right now. So we've got one more

lecture in this. In reading the whole deception, because we definitely could talk about that, whenever Isaac or Jacob deceives or Esau with the,

um, selling his birthright, that I thought Dr. Jackson made a good point and like that really wasn't a deception like pretty straightforward transaction pretty just like Esau said it Jacob did the thing

but I don't think that in that scenario Esau was really thinking that was a real transaction because later Esau goes in for the blessing and also is trying to get the birthright yeah so and Jake and Isaac is giving Esau

trying to give Esau the birthright in the blessing as well. Right. So, Esol is like he made their transaction with Jacob, but he's trying to circumvent that later and get it back, which is a little deceptive on his part too. Right. It's almost like if you and Sadie had, when you were kids, had made some thing with each other.

And then later in Laisadie was to come back and say, well, you know, you promised me this when we were seven. And you would be like, yeah, I was, you know, I don't know what else. Yeah. I mean, it's like, what are you talking about, right? And so I hadn't thought about that, but you're exactly right, because he seemed very flippant. But he was hungry. Right.

He was like, yeah, I need some reds too. Yeah, I mean, I've heard commentary about how, like, he gave him the birthright, and then he got the blessing, and it was just like kind of like whole scheme and everything. But it doesn't really seem like Esau thought in that moment he was really giving away the birthright. Right. And Isaac didn't acknowledge that to be real. Well, it was very evident who among these two brothers was thinking the whole time about all this. And it wasn't. He was strategic.

I was like, in the moment, feed me, Seymour kind of thing. Like, I just want to eat. Yeah. And which is interesting, because that's one of the parallels of this color of the stew, which the text that the, the, I don't know what translation they were using, but it said, red red red red. Red red stuff. Yeah, red red stuff. Yeah, that's funny. That sounds...

I had to have some cayenne pepper in there. I was like, when I saw red bread stuff, I was like, is that? What kind of translation is that? Well, this is Robert Alter's translation. This is his translation. Okay, so that they're using. So that's what he's... So that's what he's reading that.

So it's like a Hebrew scholar. Right, and he translates it more literally than other versions. And that's kind of what he talks about in the commentary on this. But what it was, it was just red stew. It was a red soup that... was made. I'd have some red bell pepper in there,

maybe a little bit of tomato, some red meat, and some cayenne peppers. It was the red red red stuff. Making me hungry. Good. Yeah. I do.

I do give away my birthright. I personally think that, I think Esau gets a bad rap, though. You know, because, like, he gets to see with the birthright, which is bad, but then when you see the blessing, it seems like he genuinely wants the blessing,

and then when the 20 years go by, then Jacob comes back. Esau's very gracious and loving towards Jacob. So, I sort of sometimes think Esau gets a little bit. Oh, yeah, totally. No, he got, he got hosed on this deal. Yeah, he did.

For sure, I did. But I like this because it kind of puts that context back into the nations in verse 30 of 25. Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew or or that red red stuff. For I am exhausted. I'm famished. I'm hungry. I need something to eat. Therefore, his name was called eat them.

So actually the name, Edom, comes from this Red Stew story and this moment of when he sold his birthright. He was so caught up in the moment. And so Edom actually becomes like a nation. And you see this multiple times. I read the Al, there's like a ton of references moving forward that when the Bible refers to Esau or Edom moving forward, it's kind of like it's the same thing. And then Jacob gets a name change as well.

And his name gets changed to Israel. So when you see Jacob and Esau in like Romans 9, for example, you really probably should be thinking Esau, I mean, Edom and Israel. So he winds up having to, because of all these things that happens, he steals, he doesn't steal the birthright. He's given the birthright. He steals the blessing. There's no doubt about that because that was total deception.

And then Esau, in response, becomes so angry that he makes a vow he's going to kill him. And so now we're down to vengeance. And so Rebecca sends him away to her brother, which I find interesting because Dr. Jackson doesn't, he can't in one lecture go through the whole story. But if you go back and read that whole story, that's one mixed up family. I mean, you know, and Dr. Jackson made the point. He goes back to where she was. Maybe that's where she got that deception. That's where it came from because it's a cuckoo for Cocoa Puffes back home at the Hacienda where he's going.

Because then we got all sorts of deception going on. We got the lion eyes and the this one and that one. He does mention that he ends up sleeping with one of the daughters in the dark as a trick. That was such a good point. But think about who else was blind. Well, Isaac was blind whenever Jacob deceived him. Jacob is duped by blindness just like Isaac. That is such a good point.

I didn't think about that. Yeah, he, Lavin plays the same trick that Rebecca plays on, on Israel as, wait, I'm getting the names mixed up again. Who are we talking about here? Who are we talking about?

Wait, yeah, Rebecca plays the same trick on Isaac in the dark that her brother plays on her son. Yeah. Which is interesting because doesn't that in a, in a meta narrative, doesn't that show you that deceivers typically always get deceived at some point? In other words, when that becomes your makeup and you're running with deceivable people, that ultimately you're going to get deceived. I mean, it's just the nature of it. You know, when someone is trying to say your stuff big time and you kind of feel that oily

feeling when they're doing it, you're like, this person has been burned and will be burned again because you know, they're living by deception. We have Blake Cook on the podcast a while back, and, uh, Jill and I had dinner with him that night after we had, we had on the podcast. So one of the things he said, he says, hurt people, hurt people. But it's kind of the same thing with deception. Yeah, deceive people, deceive people. But I think what you're seeing in this, you are seeing this pattern emerge of both,

even on God's righteousness, that's one pattern that continues to emerge, that God is going to be righteous every time. He's going to be faithful, and then that we're going to kind of be deceitful. And so the patterns keep flowing. down. I was thinking about this. Dr. Jackson didn't mention this, but I was thinking about this when I was reading through the text, and then I got the, really, we'll get in this next episode about Joseph, but how often in the entire scriptures does God actually choose the wrong person, like from our perspective? Obviously they're not the wrong person, but it's never like the person

it's supposed to be ever. Like, it's never the firstborn. It's always, it wasn't Esau, it was Jacob. You know, it wasn't even Ishmael. It was, it was Isaac. It was not, uh, yeah, it wasn't Rubin. It was, it was Joseph and maybe Benjamin. It's, uh, it's just, and then maybe even Judah, but it's never the one that you think

that it's supposed to be. You know, it wasn't Saul. It was a little shepherd boy named David, who's the worst guy on the planet that you would ever possibly imagine to pick the fight Goliath, the giant, right? It was, it was Moses with a speech impediment, not the guy you want leading the charge, and the guy can't even speak publicly. Not your guy. How would you choose him? And a guy who had totally been rejected by Egyptians to begin with, and here he is going back in to somehow exert power. And then ultimately, a baby in a manger, who was a carpenter, not born in no bird? Who was from the wrong side of the

tracks up and to redeem the sins of the world. So I think that the picture here, there is a picture here of something happening. And I wonder if some of this plays into that Paul's language in Romans, which we've mentioned before of how the gospel would come to the firstborn, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. So I wonder if some of that plays into this, this idea that there's this, this, this, God is doing something in human history where he is going to bring all nations to himself, all peoples to himself, that he's going to be, he's going to sit on that mountain, Zion, he's going to sit on the top of that mountain, Isaiah 2, and all the nations are going to start to flow up hill to

worship him together. That's where I think the favoritism part comes in, where there's no favoritism with God in the end. Well, and again, to advance the story, so during this whole time with Laban, which Dr. Jackson doesn't have time to get into, this is now going to correlate over four wives and 12 kids. And the one he loved the most, which was Rachel, which started the love affair. He loved her deeply, couldn't have children. And so she doesn't have blessings of children to the very end. She has the last two, Joseph and Benjamin. And now we've got four times the robbery. I always say when I describe the family of Jacob, we talk about blended families, you know, in our

culture. This was a family and a blender. I mean, you talk about massive rivalry times four. We got now we got 12 kids with four different moms and everybody's trying to jockey into their position, which is very powerful. Yeah, by the way, go to Unashamed for Hillstel.com. You guys can sign up for free and take this course with us. And we're in lecture five, but we want you to start back at the bin, get the commentaries to you, by the way. But go sign up because, I mean, honestly, I think it's going to give a lot more meat and texture to our conversations. If you're you're doing the courses with us. I would encourage you guys to do that.

But yeah, your point is what you call it a blender? Yeah. Blended family in a blender. Because, I mean, this thing is. It gets nasty. It gets nasty. But, you know, in that process, I think all this drives Jacob. Because the whole storyline, he jumps ahead to then the moment where he's going to meet

Esau for the first time after all these years. And so now it's like the moment, right? And his assumption is because Esau had promised to kill him. you know, decades earlier, that it's only festered. It's not going to eat better. But all this has somehow sort of reshaped Jacob into his own deception, I feel like, because now he's lived through all this, and he sees the results of it. And he's very fearful to face his brother. Oh, he knows. He messed up, and he knows that Esau is going to destroy him. My fair part is still, it's still the deception of Esau coming. He still sends Leah and I'll live ahead of it.

Yeah. Go up there. Y'all go ahead and... Let's see what happened. Well, to be fair, though, I think what we see, we see a repetition or kind of the blessing that goes to both Esau and Jacob in some version. We see the blessing that goes to both Ishmael and Isaac. But we also see that, like, all these characters also share equally in kind of like the sin. So, like, yeah, Jacob deceived him.

But Issa did, I mean, and Dr. Jackson points us out, I mean, he did sell his inheritance. for a bowl of the red, red stuff. Right. I mean, that is a sin. Right. And he mentioned that in kind of that, in that particular cultural framework, that this actually was a very egregious sin to sell your inheritance in this way. Well, they're going back to it because even, because even, you know, for like this podcast,

we've talked a lot about it through the eyes of an Eastern reader to where today, if, it'd be like if Jace cut his beard and Phil, when Phil was super sick and, and, you know, hypothetically, Jace got the birthright, and then if Phil found out of his Jace, you'd be like, no, like, that's not going to happen. But here, it's like their words... If all of a sudden, Jason became cool like me. Yeah, yeah, I'm so true.

But like the words, like, Isaac couldn't take back what he told to Jacob. But to us, it'd be like, if I tricked my dad into whatever... Yeah, they'd be like, now you deceived it. Yeah, no one void. Yeah, he would just roast me. He'd be like, yeah. Okay, well, let's take it back.

Then he would just banish you, you know. To be fair, Al could not, Jace could not have done that until recently. I know. If he'd have tried that like eight months ago, he'd have been like, nah. He was actually looking at a picture of us on the screen near the pike as you look it up and he was like, Alex, you're near than me. It was shocking for him, you know. It was good.

It was good. It was a moment. Okay, wait. As we get to the end, I want to bring up this question. This is a disgusting question from the study guide and to get your thoughts. So what is the significance of Jacob saying to Esau? have I not seen your face as one might see God's face? And that's Genesis 3310.

That's a good one. I wrote that down. Yeah. I think that, okay, so think about this, nobody can see the face of God. I mean, the scripture is pretty clear about that. You can't see the face of God because he's too holy. But when he sees him, he says it's like seeing the face of God.

I think this is another part of until the redemption has occurred, until there's been like restoration, we can't see God. And so in that moment that he says that was that that was actually the moment of restoration. Right. So I think that's also a future reference to that we can't see the face of God until we're reconciled, until we're restored. I kind of took it as like he, Jacob is seeing Esau, as the emulating God in the sense of like forgiveness.

Yeah. Like where Jacob was deceitful and thought he was going to get, have to be judged and have the consequences of his action to be killed, Esau took on the role of God to say, no, I forgive you. And like you can live. Plus I think the sequencing of him wrestling with God, then and him coming out of that injured, in other words, not hold because when you wrestle with God,

that's what happens. you realize God's God and you're not, that then prepared him to finally for the first time fully submit himself to his brother and say, I can do nothing to fix what I messed up. And then he's totally at the mercy of Issa. If Issao wants to take out his sword and kill him, that's what he's going to do in the moment.

Or his family, or his kids and his wives and everything, but he doesn't. Instead, he receives forgiveness. I think your point is right on time. And Dr. Jackson brings this up. When Isaac blesses Esau, because you mentioned that Aesol got the blessing as well because he went in there basically

is there any blessing like Jacob stole the blessing and the birthright now he's taking my blessing too is there anything you can bless me with and one of the things that as Esau's like I don't know nothing left you know but he does come up with a few things

and one of the things he says is when you rebel you shall break off his yoke from your neck and this imagery of the neck it takes on a new significance This was a big statement. Yeah, when Esau falls upon Jacob's neck and kisses it when they reconcile. Yeah.

And to me, I think when you see the face of God, isn't that what we're experiencing? We know that we've deceived God. We know that we've stolen what was, we didn't actually steal it because we can't steal from him. But we tried to grab what was his and make it our own. It's kind of the very nature of sin. We talked about that in Genesis 1 when they ate from the tree of the garb. We try to do it alone, to dying alone. And if you think about this idea of the face of God, which Dr. Jackson brought up in the very first podcast,

as being kind of the central piece of this. We talk about this on the Unashamed podcast a lot, and not yet now, me and Jill do, that we read the Bible through the lens of God's presence. I mean, that's the primary purpose of the whole thing is God's presence with his people. And so atonement, the atonement of Christ actually becomes a means to how we get into the presence of God. What does it mean to say the presence of God? All that means is I can see God's face. When I'm in Jill's presence, what does it mean? I see her face. I look into her eyes. We love each other. We're here. We're having dinner together. It's a community, communion, union. It's face to face. And here's the thing. You can't be face to face without God if you are unwilling to dine with him, which was the original sin. And so then to come back into restoration is actually to repent and to say, I actually don't want to dine alone.

I want to dine with you, God. And then God, he comes down and breaks that yoke on us. And that's how we get back into relationship with him. Yeah, I thought that point about the yoke was so interesting because I've never heard anyone to kind of articulate it this way. He was talking about it from the idea of like when Isaac is giving Jacob the blessing, thinking it's, Esau, like in that moment, Jacob has to be realizing that there was really going to be nothing left

for him. I've never thought about that. When he's giving, when he's given the blessing and then, you know, Jacob's tricking Isaac into thinking he's Esau. Because he's playing fake Esau. Yeah. He has to be thinking like, there really was going to be nothing left for me. I hadn't thought about either. I've never thought about

that. I mean, you know in your mind oh, he's tricking him, he's getting the blessing. But I had never thought the blessing was for Esau and Jacob is hearing what Esau would have gotten, which was every day. And what he would not have gotten. So every time he tells him, he thinks he's done

and Jacob starts to get up and he's like, no, no, no, there's more. And he's like, he's like, yeah, so it's kind of be like exhilarating in one way because you know you're getting all this, but then also like you're depressing. Depressing. Like I get, I wasn't going to get any inheritance or any real blessing in the end. Wow.

But I like, I love you, dad. I like how God always looks ahead because Dr. Jackson doesn't deal with this, but there's a huge moment when Jacob is on the run, because he's now shaping the life he's going to be. You remember when he lays down out there on that stone, and he has that vision of the ladder going up to heaven and that picture that he really, I'm sure, doesn't fully understand,

but the idea is there's a bridge being built. Temple motif. Exactly. And so when you get to John 2, Jesus says, when he's talking to Nathaniel, who just said, Rabbi, you're the son of God, you're the king of Israel. You believe because I told you, I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.

And I love it to the idea that Jacob gets this glimpse of greater things than himself in the moment. Because then Jesus says, I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man, talking about himself. But he's describing the picture that Jacob saw all those thousands of years. ago still stewing in his own dishonesty and deceit and all of it, I love how God gives us a glimpse in a vision of something greater than ourselves because he knows. When Jacob exposed his neck to his brother, that could have been a neck of death. Instead, it was a kiss of forgiveness.

And that's exactly what we can all expect from God, is the beauty of that moment. I think about Jesus, when he was standing in the Garden of Gassimony and Judas comes up to betray him, what is he given? A kiss. A kiss. And that meant to be the kiss of death, but what Judas didn't realize is, you're not taking my life, I'm giving my life. So I just, I love the imagery, and that's the beauty of these stories, is they show you that bigger glimpse. Like you were talking about Jacob and Esau are more than that. It's Israel and Edom, but it's also everybody that's ever live with the opportunity. It's also us and Christ, us and God, and you see that pattern play out

throughout the entire scripture. This is a key text to that. I love that you brought up that Jacob's ladder portion as well, because that ladder was the connection, again, of heaven and earth. And heaven and earth coming together. That is the place that we occupy, for good or bad. We kind of, when we're rejecting the dominion that God gave us, because if you go back to the beginning of Genesis,

he said, be fruitful, multiply. Here's what it's right made you. Be fruitful and multiply. Subdu the earth, have dominion over. In other words, take the Garden of Eden and expand this throughout the entire globe. And so where the sin comes in is to abdicate that responsibility, and then you take the God-given dominion, the dominion that God gave us, and you hand that over to the idols. So instead of us having dominion over creation, we allow creation to have dominion over us,

which is the shirt. I actually wear that shirt. Worship the creator, not the creation. Yeah, Maine. Real quick, just go to Unashamed. If you guys want to be a part of this with us, do want to encourage you to actually take the course because it's really good.

Go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. You can sign up for free, and you can take the course with us. We really want you guys do that. We're in lecture five. We're finishing up here. Then we're going to move into the last lecture in Genesis. I want to bring up because we were running out of time,

but Dr. Jackson had a really interesting point. I never thought about it before. You remember when they were born, of course, Esau is first, so he's the oldest, but they're twins. And so, you know, first is a matter of seconds or minutes, right? And so there's this idea of the grasping of the heel. Remember, because, like, he comes out and Jacob's grasping his heel as he's going out. At the beginning of the rivalry. So it kind of shows them.

In the womb. He's like, right. He's like, hang on. Hang on, get back in here. I'm coming out. And later, when they're at this pivotal moment, moment of forgiveness, he says, Jacob says, remember he points out, he says that he says, you know, I'm just going to, you go ahead, I'm going to take my time here, I'm just,

which is very un-Jacoblike. And he says he was grasping the heels of the livestock, the children, the idea there, that same imagery was used. Like a leisurely stroll. Exactly. Type of. Compared to a strife, yeah. Yeah, like I'm not grabbing your heel to pull myself up. I'm just kind of strolling from behind, watching the family. role. Exactly. And so you kind of see that.

The fruit of that. And I thought that was interesting. I'd never thought about that point. Yeah. And how the imagery plays itself back out. Because it's kind of a picture of rest, you know, we're called into rest. I mean, Hebrews talks about this, you know, we're actually enter into the day of God's rest.

And I think that that's a picture of what that rest looks like. It's not a striving to be first and grab the inheritance to grab the blessing. It's a sitting back and enjoying the blessing that God's giving you. Yeah, I think that's cool too. I think that's the, and that's always a lesson I've heard with Jacob and Osah is, you know, when God choosing Jacob versus Esau, it's, you know, that idea of God can do more with someone who's passionate, even if it might be misdirected at times versus someone who's maybe kind of more lethargic, because you have, you know, it's the birthright, and then it's the blessing, and then it's working for Rachel, and then he has to work more years, and then it's

the wrestling with God. So there's always, it talks about how he has the, like, Hutzpah, which is just this grit and this tenacity. And kind of just the picture of,

you know, God can do more with someone who's on fire for something, even if it might be misdirected at times, versus someone who's just, you know, not going to want to put in the work for it. That's great.

I told Max this recently. Max, my oldest son, which I raised, I've realized recently, that I have zero, like, passive children. They're, like, all, like, extremely, like, like, I have to tamper down the ambition. You know what I mean?

But I was telling him, it was like, I mean, honestly, I'm thankful that you are so amped up. Yeah. It's annoying at times, and it drives me nuts. And, like, we got, like, you need to work on this. But, man, I'd much rather have that. I'd rather bring you down than I'd have to be like, hey, come on, buddy, let's go, let's go.

And I think that's kind of the point that you're making. But I do like, the idea of the name change, which was really big. And because in essence, we all go through that, right? I mean, we go through the idea when we take on the name of Christ that we become a Christian, we become a follower of Jesus. And so in essence, all our names change, right? Yeah.

When we become like him. And so I like that idea here and that he was the deceiver. And he says, you're going to have a new name after that whole wrestling match that he has. And I've thought about this before because so my parents, You always wonder, you know, how you got your name, you know, how did you come up with this? And sometimes it'll be a family name or, you know, different things. You're named, I guess, after both of your grandfathers. Right.

And so each of us had, well, so I'm like, you know, I'm the kid that's like, well, you know, everybody has a name. Jason Silas, you know, that makes sense. Willie E. Zell, you know, Willie was after, you know, mom's dad. Where did Marshall Allen come from there? They're like, we don't know. We just, you know, we like Westerns. Yeah. I was like, well, that doesn't, I mean, that sounds very.

random. Like, you're named after two Western, like we like Marshall Dillon and we liked out on a it. It didn't give you the thing you were looking for. I mean, I was like, it just felt so anti-climatic. I was like, so I'm named after like Western people. There's no significance there. None. It's just like, we like Westerns. And I was like, huh, that was very deflating for me. You know, I thought wanted something like a cool family name, something. And so I realized that, you know, like in my childhood, it was like, well, that just seemed too random to me. but I've learned later that it doesn't matter because ultimately the most important name that I have

was the last name, which was the one we all enjoy in family and what we're doing and what we're trying to advance forward. When they talk about the Roberts and Family, they don't go into our specific names. And so I like that idea here that God is saying, when you go through this wrestling match of your own life, and in Jacob's case, it was all these things from childhood forward,

the rivalries all of it. When it's laid out on the table and it's an honor, and I don't know about y'all, but I've had some wrestling matches with the almighty, some version of it in my own mind or whatever. And at the end of the day,

I come out not on top, but totally on my knees saying, all right, God, I trust you. And that's usually when the right name is added. That's when I finally had submitted myself to him. So I've always loved this picture. When we grew up, we love wrestling. you know, we were wrestlers, you know.

We'd watch it on TV, then we'd put a quilt on the floor. Figure fours and then we would do all the DDTs, and we were doing them. And when the cousins, like Jacks, showed up, they were just fresh fodder. You know, they were cannon fodder for all of our moves. Because they didn't know what we were going to pull. We all knew to be defensive. But we learned. But you learned quickly, right?

And so I just, I love the idea that this was a wrestling match for freedom, you know, which is ultimately what he did. Yeah, I was thinking about that in the name change and thinking about Israel being like those who struggle with God and just that whole idea. I camp this summer with the campers. This year, I normally do like a Bible lesson in the morning, but this year I took that morning lesson time and had the counselors like share their testimony. And our theme of camp was creation. And so it was, how has God made you a new creation? So the counselors did like 15 minutes of like, this is who I was before God, this is what God did my life, and now this is who I am now.

And the feedback I got from the campers, especially the high school campers, was we thought the counselors were perfect. Like we thought they had it all together, knew God this whole time. like we didn't know that they doubted or struggled or sinned or had repentance or or anything and they were feeling the campers were feeling thought that was so good for them and felt so good because they were like oh we can doubt but then also come back to god and i think that's like this idea here and i think as especially young christians we think like oh we've got to be perfect we strive for perfect, we see more mature people, Christians or people in general, and say, like, oh, like, they've always been like that, but they forget that, like, no, it's a whole struggle.

And that doubt and that struggle is part of your faith and your relationship. That's good. I think that realization and understanding is also not just a application from this. I think it's actually the metadata that runs through it. And what I mean by that is when it comes to these names, it comes to these people, I mentioned earlier that it's never the one you thought, right? You know, just look at the lineage and how kind of the bloodlines flow in here. Because in the next episode, when we talk about the last lecture, lecture 6, we're going to get into Joseph's story.

And a lot of people know that story. It's a very, very famous story of the Bible. But you think it's going to be, well, it could be like it's going to be a real. Rubin because he's first one, I mentioned this earlier. Well, then it's like, well, no, it's going to be Joseph or Benjamin because those were obviously the favorites, but it really wasn't even them. It was Judah. Jesus came through the line of Judah, which is a total curveball because you're thinking,

okay, I got the pattern established now. It's not the first point. It's going to be the favorite. Well, no, it's not even that. It's Judah. So what was that significance is that Judah was the one that really came to repentance. And so I think there's the idea. that God's going to move through the repentant.

And so Judah actually become, when they have to divide the kingdom later on, it's the 12 tribes, they all go their separate ways, and then you got Judah stand by itself. And so if you look at the kings, once Israel divides up with Israel and Judah, do you know how many good kings that Israel had once that happened?

I know you know, Al. Yeah. See you. None. None. And Judah had its own issues as well, but if there were any good kings post divide, they all came out of Judah. And so that's why we say, hell, hell, hell, the tribe of Judah.

You know, that's why Jesus came from the tribe, the lion from the tribe of Judah. And so you see that procession out is always, I think it's interesting. It's through the repentant. And so the repentant is not the people who have it together. It's never the people who have it together. It's the people who admit that they don't have it together and turn to the living God. say, God, they lift up the empty hands of faith. That's the act of passivity, I think, that we're talking about,

would lift up the empty hands of faith to him. God, help. Yeah, I mean? And that's the path he's moving. That's good. So, again, we're finishing up here. What we're doing is, join us every Friday. We're doing this every single Friday.

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That'd be a good one. They got the Federalist Papers. There's a bunch of them. So they have over 40 online courses that are taught by Hillsdale faculty on history, literature, theology, politics. We want you guys to be a part of it. So make sure you join us and kind of, and they're like, what, 20, 30 minutes long apiece? Some of them are a little bit longer. Probably average about 30.

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and then we'll come back and finish up our last part of Genesis, which will be the story of Joseph. Which, by the way, is half of the book of Genesis is this one story that we're going into. So it's kind of interesting that more chapters are dedicated to that particular story, because it really then sets up the whole idea of Israel going into Exodus. It all comes out of that last story.

So, yeah, one thing to think about is as you're listening to these, make a comment in the YouTube section of what course. Once you look on the Hillsdale courses, like you guys let us know what one you want to do next. Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. And then I'm going to, I want to do Exodus. Because I think it flows directly out of Joseph, right? It's like just like, it's just like a perfect thing.

But look on there. Well, I mean, I'm open to like, y'all vote and then what do you think? Yeah, that's cool. Leave it up to the. We can lead up to vote unless we just don't like the way that they hope. I think Exodus would be fun too. I do too. Well, I've heard it said that Genesis is the prequel to Exodus,

that Exodus is the story, and Genesis is this leading up to it. And so that Exodus seems like a natural one, but there are so many courses we'll get around to it eventually. It's hard once you know the narrative not to want to go there, because it's funny, Zach is preaching through Exodus at his church. I'm preaching through Joshua at our church, which is then the sequel to Exodus. You know, to Exodus, and there's so much good stuff in there.

And by the time we get the New Testament, all of it is a shadow of everything we see. Well, we call it the New Exodus language when we get. So I would like to do Exodus, but we're also, I think we're going to be able to keep doing these. We'll do several of them. Yeah, so like we just vote on the next one, shameless plug, Exodus, and then we'll pick out which one wins. Unless Christian wants to be a dictator and override. A dictator. Well, he's bigger than all the rest of us.

I will definitely do whatever you vote, unless it's not Exodus, then we will do Exodus. I've wrestled with God many times. I don't want to wrestle with Christians. I don't know what you think, though. So thank you guys. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamedforhillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose.

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