Genesis 36:43 Duke Magdiel, duke Iram: these be the dukes of Edom, according to their habitations in the land of their possession: he is Esau the father of the Edomites
Recently I was reading a PhD about what we can learn about history through DNA. If you trace how he came to have interest in this, you come to words like “questions,” “unsatisfied,” “gaps in the timeline,” “a big blank slate.” All of which equal curiosity. I’m not surprised this man has learned what he has because he has been driven by curiosity.
When you come to Genesis, you have a lot of questions raised and a lot of questions answered. At the very least, you realize that the questions you do not have answered are not answered because it is a big world and there is a big picture that oftentimes you do not see. In Genesis 36 you get a little clue to the big picture of the world that has been and the world that will be.
Genesis 36:1 says, “Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom.” Verse 8 says, “Thus dwelt Esau in Mount Seir, Esau is Edom.” Then in verse 43 you read, “He is Esau the father of the Edomites.” You are reading in this chapter a little bit of a big picture. You get the gist of the timeline of how the world has grown. You find the beginning, the expansion, the history and largely the explanation of the world we now see.
Verse 12 for instance talks about Amalek, who at that time was a person and later became a tribe and a nation that was oftentimes the enemy of the nation of Israel, which was named for the man Jacob whom God renamed Israel. One thing you learn from reading this account of the chiefs and tribes and families that grew from Esau is that it is impossible to see the big picture without patience and humility. Really, those are different words of faith, at least if you add them together. It is impossible to see the big picture without patience and humility.
I don’t know what is going on in your life today, but there is no way you can learn all there is to know or see all that God sees. To the extent that you can see it, you will see it because of patience and humility. Perhaps this is part of the reason for this inclusion in the Word of God.
First, it takes patience to know that your time will come. Verse 31 says, “And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.” These verses show Esau was prospering. There were chiefs and kings long before Israel ever had a king. Genesis 37:1 says, “And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger.” Jacob was in line as a patriarch from which the Messiah would come. Esau was not. He did not receive the birthright or the blessing. God chose the younger and not the elder in this case, yet Esau was taking things over while Jacob was still a stranger. It takes patience to know that your time will come.
Have you ever waited in a line? Maybe you have gone to a theme park or a restaurant and asked, “How long will the wait be?” The reply is, “It will be a forty-five-minute wait.” Who enjoys waiting? Who wants to wait in line? No one I know of, yet if you are going to have the big picture in life, it takes patience to know that your time will come, that God has a purpose.
My pastor recently preached from Ecclesiastes 7. Verse 8 says, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” Notice that there is a contrast between patience and pride. If I am proud, I am almost by definition not a patient person. If I am not a patient person, that indicates there might be some pride injected into the way I am feeling and living. God had given a promise to Abraham and his descendants. So, you take the promise and add it to a time of waiting and that equals faith. Faith looks a lot like patience. So, it takes patience to know your time will come
Second, it takes humility to know that your time will go. Verse 33 has a phrase that is frequent in the Bible. It is talking about a descendant of Esau and the chiefs that came from him and so on. The Bible says that one chief died and another “reigned in his stead.” That is the first mention of that phrase in the Bible and there are many more mentions of that exact phrase. It takes humility to know that your time will go. There is history, future, and there is humility. You are not the first to come and you won’t be the last.
You and I are precious to God, which is amazing. We are just a link in a chain that has gone on for millennia. I don’t know what will follow us, but it takes humility to realize we are not the only people on this globe and there is a much bigger picture. The grace of God is that as small as we are, just specks in the physical and historical world, we are loved by God, the Creator. We are put here by design on purpose. It would take an infinite God to even keep track of all that, all the elements, time, people, and geography. God sees a big picture that I could never see.
That is what faith is, realizing I know God and God knows everything. It is impossible to comprehend an infinite God with anything less than faith. You can study, look, learn and you should, but it is impossible to comprehend an infinite God with anything less than faith. And it is impossible to see the big picture without patience and humility, which are two elements of faith. That is the life God would have us to live.