BRAGADAYJAH 122

At the very beginning of this survey, we said that a specific reason why God called the Jewish Nation was that they should become the Royal Line through which Messiah would come; so not surprisingly we see the hand of God leading and guiding Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, cutting out here, and including there, approving here, disapproving there, and leaving a distinct path through all the twists and turns through the wilderness. Accordingly we see that God hated Esau, and we are told that Esau is Edom, the father of the Edomites. So then who were these Edomites? Well we see them as a people who worshipped Baal and other false gods; we see them, making human sacrifices, that is to say burning their children in pagan rituals upon pagan altars; and perhaps even more reprehensible before God, indulging in the eating of human flesh. So it is not hard to see that these practices were some of the very things that God hates. So a wider explanation of “God hated Esau” could be, God hated the Edomites, and more particularly their evil practices. Now, as we have seen, by this time the descendants of Abraham were many and well established. Ishmael had multitudes of nations and Esau, Edom, also had multitudes; but Jacob, Israel had his twelve sons, the eleventh of whom was Joseph, the first son of his late beloved Rachel, born to him in his old age. Now Joseph was seventeen and greatly beloved of his father, and undoubtedly he loved his father very much also. Today, his evil brethren might well have called him a little snitch; but if one ever had a father whom he loved and admired, one would understand why a loving son, especially at seventeen, would report to his father anything amiss he thought his father should know. Anyway Joseph told his father what was going on, on the farm. Perhaps his brothers were stealing and selling off part of the herd, their father being old; but what ever Joseph saw Joseph told; and this among other things, did not endear him to his brethren. More