And the LORD said unto her, “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger”. – Gen 25:23.

Esau cared little about the promise of God as he did not have faith in the promise of God about the Seed. God calls Esau a fornicator or a profane person, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. – Heb 12:16. This is the reason why God continues in His word Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. – Rom 9:13.

Jacob was a plain/mild man – Gen 25:27. Jacob was a contemporary of Abraham. By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: - Heb 11:9. At least the first fifteen years of Jacob’s life could have been with Abraham. http://www.history-perspective.com/timeline_flood_to_egypt.html . And Abraham, true to God’s trust in him, should have taught Jacob about the gospel in the stars and the promise of the Seed. For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. – Gen 18:19.

Jacob was true to his name – "To heel"– even from his mother’s womb. After a struggle in the womb of his mother, he took hold of the heel of his elder brother when he was born. While “supplanter” could be another (widely accepted) meaning of the name, one of the meanings of this term is, "to follow with good intent," whether as a slave (compare our English "to heel," of a dog) for service, or as a guard for protection, hence, "to guard" (so in Ethiopic), "to keep guard over", and thus "to restrain" –James Oscar Boyd, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, 1915, Wm.B.Eerdman’s Publishing Co. For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth; - Rom 9:11.

Jacob was a believer in the word of God unlike his elder brother Esau. Jacob might have wanted to be in the plan of God and be a part of God’s purpose. So, Jacob won a double whammy against his elder brother.

First, he made Esau sell his birthright to him in exchange for a bowl of red pottage. Then, in the disguise of Esau, he usurped all the blessings of the firstborn from his father Isaac, who was dim in his eyes and could not see. The latter was purely the idea of his mother, but Jacob executed the plan to the tee.

Now Satan knew without a doubt that Jacob is the person in the plan of God. He wanted to remove him from His-story. So, he began to put the idea of murdering Jacob in the mind of Esau. And, Esau being already the weapon in the hand of Satan, started hating Jacob.

And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, “the days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob”. – Gen 27:41. Coming to know about this plan of Esau, Rebekah instructed Jacob to flee from Esau to her brother’s house in Haran / Aran (refuge).

While this might seem to be a mitigation plan by Rebekah, God had included all these in His original plan. In Haran, Jacob would marry two of Laban’s daughters (and also two of their maids). Jacob was renamed Israel. Children would be born to him. Israelites came into being. Of the twelve sons (and a daughter), the name of Judah who was born to Leah the elder of the two is noteworthy. Also of importance is Joseph, born to Rachel, the younger.

Jacob was on his way to his maternal uncle’s house. He rested for the night at a certain place. God gave him a dream. “Behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it”. And behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac– Gen 28:12. The Lord also added And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Comparing this to the New Testament scripture, we now know that the Lord had been speaking of Himself in His-story. And He saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. John 1:51. Jesus would be the “ladder” that would connect heaven and earth. He would be “the Way”. No man comes to the Father but by Me. – John 8:14. The man Christ Jesus would be the one Mediator between God and men, – 1 Tim 2:5.

Here was the affirmation of the promise that God gave to Abraham and Isaac. In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. – Gen 28:12. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. – Gen 28:15. The Seed of the woman is coming.

And Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. – Gen 28:18. Satan was watchful of this. He perverted this incident and twisted this into an abominable practice. He made people believe that even Jacob worshipped a phallus (as was the practice during the times of Nimrod and Babel as we saw earlier). This phallus worship was instituted by Murugan of the Thamizh people making them believe that the phallus had the power of procreation and so is the reason for all human life on earth. (See the chapter Nimrod in His-story).

Ruben was the eldest son of Jacob. Satan thought Reuben is a threat. So, he spawned him. He became the seed of the Serpent. He committed the sin of incest with Bilhah, Jacob’s wife/concubine (like Ham, to show domination even over his father?) which was an act of abomination to the Lord. But Reuben was not in the line of the believing descendants. Judah was. He was the fourth child that Leah begot for Jacob. Shuah bore Judah three sons. Er was the firstborn. Satan spawned him too. He was the seed of the Serpent and so, became a wicked man. Judah took a wife named Tamar for Er. The Lord slew Er, we know not how and when. Eventually, Judah begat Pharez through Tamar who tricked him to lay with her (without his knowledge while she was in disguise). Tamar conceived. (After the truth was revealed, Judah acknowledged Tamar a righteous woman and he no longer took her to be his wife. She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more – Gen 38:26). Again, there was a struggle in the womb. Zurah’s hand appeared first but God had intended that Pharez would be born first. He would be in the lineage of the Seed of the woman.

It was a custom in those days that if a husband died without producing an offspring, the widow was to be married to her deceased husband’s brother (if he had one and he was of a marrying age). After Er’s death, Onan, his younger brother was given in marriage to Tamar. But Onan knew that the seed should not be his – Gen 38:9 and so, cheated her in bed. The Lord was displeased with his dishonest act and slew him also (for his dishonesty, of course, though this was still as per His plan). Now, it was the turn of Shelah, the youngest, to be married to Tamar but Judah was afraid and didn’t want to lose another son peradventure he too died post the marriage. (Superstition?) So, he cooked up an excuse that Shelah was not yet of age to marry Tamar and advised her to stay in her father’s house as a widow until the right time arrived. Tamar knew that she was being duped by Judah. When she smelt an opportunity, she disguised herself as a harlot, met Judah (a widower himself by then), and conceived through him.

The Old Serpent’s attempt to put an end to the plan of God was thwarted again. Satan would now focus on killing the entire family of Jacob – numbering seventy by that time. A mass murder was in the making. This required a famine in the land where the entire family was dwelling. And it can’t be caused all of a sudden.

Slowly and steadily Satan started making his moves. But the Lord was executing His plan, and nothing would deter Him from going ahead. His-story was happening as originally planned.