A Neglected Text on Marriage (Genesis 26:34-35)

Today, we are going to look at one of those small passages of Scripture that most of us tend to just skip over in our daily Bible readings. In fact, most of the commentaries don’t even talk about these verses. Maybe it’s because they come at the end of a chapter and don’t seem to fit in to the rest of the narrative. No matter what the reason for their neglect, in order to have a proper understanding of the Lives of Jacob and Esau, we need to give these verses their due.

Please read Genesis 26:34-35.

These seem like two simple little verses, but they carry huge significance. Esau married two Hittite women. These marriages “made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.” This could be a personality issue, in that maybe these women were annoying to Rebekah. After all, we have all heard stories about how difficult some in-laws can be, especially when there is a personality clash. But the larger issue is that Esau was rebelling against God’s design, and against his family’s design for marriage in two key ways.

First of all, both Abraham and Isaac have modeled a monogamous marriage between one man and one woman for life, in accordance with God’s original design in Genesis 2. While Abraham slept with Sarah’s handmaiden, this was culturally understood to be different from marrying her. In practice, both Esau’s father and grandfather remained faithful to their one wife for all the days of their life. Esau is upsetting the boat by marrying more than one wife. Some people today are unfortunately trying to follow Esau’s example by having numerous sexual partners, and even trying to legalize polygamy as an acceptable form of marriage. However, this is not only sinful, but unhealthy and will lead to much strife in the family.

Secondly, Esau is violating God’s and his family’s design for marriage by marrying outside of his people. Do you remember just a few chapters earlier how many hoops Abraham was willing to go through so that his son would marry a woman from his own family? The longest chapter in the book is dedicated to the story of Abraham’s servant finding a wife for Isaac from their family line! Yet, Esau doesn’t seem to care about how important and significant marriage is: he just goes and grabs some local girl to marry, and then another. Being that these women were Hittites, they would not have worshipped the One True God. They would have followed after the false gods of the land, and they would try to lead their new husband even further astray.

The person whom you marry probably has more influence on your spiritual journey than any other person on this earth. I praise God that He has blessed me with a godly wife. She has been an incredible source of strength for me in my walk with the Lord. I hope that you can say the same.

What’s more, I praise God that He taught me from a young age how important it would be to remain faithful to my wife, to love only her, and to be sexually active with only her. Our world would be much better off if our young people understood that God designed marriage to be a covenant relationship between one man and one woman for life; that marriage was designed to make each other holy and to glorify God.

Instead, our culture has followed after the way of Esau: we don’t hold exclusivity of the marriage bed in high esteem and encourage a multiplicity of sexual partners; we don’t think that relationships need to be between two people of likeminded religious beliefs but encourage pluralism. And we are reaping the punishment for our actions as we witness countless relationships fall apart and countless consequences of sexual infidelity inflict our young people.

When you think about it, it’s almost as if God doesn’t give us restrictions to hurt us, but because He knows what’s best for us in the long run!