Lesson 1.5 God is God, Lord All of My Life: Jacob and Esau

Lesson for September 29, 2013

Previous Lesson

Next Lesson

Coloring Pages

Help with Memory Verses

Coloring Pages 

Rebecca was pregnant with twins.  They seemed to be fighting inside of her.   God told her that two boys who would be different nations (that is to say, their children would be) inside of her. The older would serve the younger.

Jacob and Esau were very different young men.  Esau loved to hunt, while Jacob took care of the garden and cooked.  Which one do you think is Jacob in this picture?  Which is Esau?  How do you know? One day Esau came home from hunting very hungry.  Jacob said that he could have some of his stew, but only if he sold him his birthright, the right of the older child to get a double portion of what the parents had to give when they died.  Esau agreed to the deal, not appreciating the birthright properly.

Part of the birthright was a special prayer of blessing that the father would pray over his first born son.  When Isaac got ready to pray this prayer over Esau, he asked Esau to go out and hunt, and then make him a meal with the animal that he killed.  After he ate this special meal, he was going to pray for Esau.  Rebecca told Jacob to trick his father into thinking that he was Esau.  Because he was blind they were able to do this.  Rebecca cooked a meal that would taste like it had been made from a wild animal.  She put fur onto Jacob (probably not quite as furry as the picture shows) so that he would feel more like Esau to Jacob.

The trick worked.  Isaac prayed for Jacob, thinking that it was his son, Esau.  When Esau came back, both Isaac and Esau were very upset.

Help with Memory Verses

This week, the key verse and the bonus verses are all from the same place.  The key verse is the first part of Psalm 23, which is also known as the "Shepherd Psalm" because it starts "The Lord is my shepherd."  The bonus verses are the second and third parts of the psalm. So you might as well work on learning the whole psalm.  If you only manage to remember the first part, then you'll have the key verse, and if you learn the whole thing you'll be in great shape.

Abraham worked as a shepherd, and we can assume Isaac kept sheep too.  Jacob kept sheep and his sons did after him.  The psalm is one that David wrote (or maybe a psalm that someone wrote about David--"of David," which is how the Bible describes the psalm can mean "written by David" or "about David."  I like to think that David wrote it when he was a young man taking care of his father's sheep.  We know that he prayed a lot in the fields when he was doing that, and we know that he had learned to sing and play the harp.  What is there in your life that you could sing a song about?

A lot of people have memorized this one psalm over the years.  Many of them memorized the translation of it that is called the KJV (or King James Version).  That has some very pretty but old fashioned ways of saying things, and you may want to learn it too some day.  But for right now, we're just going to learn a more modern version of the psalm.  But if someone tells you that you have it all wrong, or quotes something that sounds like something you didn't learn, that might be what has happened.

It still uses a few words that we don't use very often.  "Lack" means to have something missing.  So if I say "I lack nothing," it means that there is nothing missing in my life, nothing that I really need that I don't have.  The psalm says "you anoint my head with oil".  To anoint someone's head with oil means to pour or rub oil over their head.  It's something that they did to priests and kings to set them apart for God, but it's also something people did as part of being well dressed for a feast or something.  When you were in mourning, part of the way that you showed how sad you were was not to anoint yourself.  For us, oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and one of the things (not the only thing) that "you anoint my head with oil" means is that God gives us the Holy Spirit.  The last word that I think you might not know very well is "dwell".  To "dwell" someplace is to live there.  So part of what "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever" means is "I will always live in God's presence, through my whole life on earth and forever afterwards."

I have a couple of different versions of videos that might help you.  They're very similar, so read the descriptions.  You can decide which you like better.

This is just me reading through the psalm with pretty pictures.  By the way, one wonderful way to work on thinking through a piece of the Bible that you want to memorize is to make a PowerPoint presentation.  Or put together a book, with pictures.  If you do that, be sure to tell me about it, because I would like to see it.

This is a short version of the song I wrote for the psalm.  I like the song better with the chorus, but that makes it pretty long, and so I think some people will like this better.  Notice that there are some words that get repeated and a word or two that get added when it turns into a song.  You have to be smart enough to figure out which those are when you are reciting it and trying to get each word right to match the Bible version.  I'm guessing that you are smart enough to do that.

This is the version of the song that I like the best.  It has a chorus in between each verse.  I like long songs.  I sing them while I am working, or driving in the car, or doing something boring.  Not everybody is like me, so I gave you both versions.  Tell me which one you like best.