I don’t know why I have never noticed this before, but the story of Jacob’s reunion with Esau sounds strikingly like Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son.
After Jacob dishonestly and unscrupulously takes Esau’s birthright and blessing, he goes off into another land. After that situation gets bad enough, he decides to leave it and head back home. When we get to the story of the actual reunion, Genesis 32 and 33 goes out of its way to show that Jacob is putting as many of his livestock, children, and even his wives between him and Esau (that is, Jacob is a long way off when Esau starts coming to him). Here is how the reunion goes in Genesis 33:
4But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept….8Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.” 9But Esau said, ‘I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” 10Jacob said, “No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand. For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. 11Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” Thus he urged him, and he took it.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son begins in the same way, where the son horrifically asks his father for an early inheritance (the equivalent of wishing the father were dead), and he goes into a foreign land. When the situation gets bad enough, he comes back to his senses and decides to leave to be a servant to his father. Notice the links in Luke 15 to the other story:
20And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
I’m not completely sure what the implications of this might be, but I find it very interesting. I’m wondering if Jesus might have been saying something a little deeper to his fellow Jews surrounding him than is usually suggested in the standard Prodigal Son sermon.
I recently told that parable to the 3-5 year olds in Children’s Church, and then spent a long time reflecting on it looking at Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son in Winter Palace. I think there are some similarities between the two stories, though I tend to think Jacob was being a pansy when he sent his livestock, wives, children, etc. in front of himself. I wonder if the prodigal son were able, would he have tried to bring gifts of penance or a peace offering to his father? Or would he have come as he did, bringing nothing but himself (and that even being a shabby presentation, in the state that he was)?
I think that you are on the right track, Lindsey. To push things a little bit further, I would note that the story of Jacob and Esau’s reuniting follows immediately after the story of where Jacob wrestles with God and gains the name Israel. I am trying to work out the possibility of thinking that the Parable of the Prodigal Son has more to do with Israel’s national identity than it does with individual sinners or individual “older brothers,” at least in its primary meaning.
So, my hypothesis right now is that the point of the parable is meant to: (1) remind Israel of their history of needing grace, since the parable is essentially the story of their forefather, Jacob/Israel; (2) depict to Israel what they have become in the older brother, being absolutely incapable of extending grace to the prodigal individuals and nations (the Gentiles–ironically, Esau, who became the father of the Edomite nation, has an opportunity to adopt the older brother mentality, but actually plays the part of the gracious father in the story); and (3) offer to Israel a choice as to which path they will take, whether to throw themselves on the grace and mercy of God (which has been their only hope from the very beginning) or to throw a childish fit in the near future when God, in Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, throws the doors of salvation open to the wretches of Israelite society and to the “dogs” of the nations.
So who is the older brother representing, if Israel is the younger one? Is Israel is the older and younger brother?
Jacob,
N.T. Wright says basically the same thing in one of his lectures (I don’t recall which.) He talks about how Jesus often retold familiar stories in new ways, and that his Jewish hearers would have immediately made the connection to the Jacob/Esau story, identifying themselves with Jacob. The twist is that this time, as you said, Israel is the older brother, being resentful of God’s grace to the nations.
Hopefully that’s (a) encouraging because you’re developing interpretations on par w/ an Oxford scholar rather than (b) discouraging because your idea isn’t completely new. (Although I should hope that no biblical exegesis would be completely new. 🙂
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Y’all, check out all of the books by Kenneth Bailey on the Prodigal Son and on the comparison of the Esau/Jacob encounter and the son’s return to the father. He provides an in-depth analysis of both stories. All of his books are at Amazon.