Antwan

The terms to the covenant of Jacob and Laban is that Jacob won't take anymore wives (leaving his daughters with their prominent position in his family and preventing anymore family rivalries than already existed) and that neither would cross the point of covenant (where they were; they marked the place for the covenant's sake) to harm one another; they used God as a witness to make sure each kept their word (that's the meaning of the word "mizpah").

I think Jacob realizes that it is God manuvering the outcome of his and Laban's dealings when the conditions are constantly changed and the result still works out in favor of Jacob. The danger in increase and wealth is that the person who is acquiring the wealth forget that it is a blessing of God and begins to take credit for acquiring it by their own means.

God allows Laban to trick Jacob to teach him how it feels to have someone do him the way he did his father and brother; it's amazing, God could have just told Jacob to depart from his deceitful ways and given him the reasons why, but God doesn't work that way. He has to let Jacob go through some things to purge him of things not pleasing to God. To me, in Jacob experiencing the deceit and betrayal by his uncle, he learns first-hand how it feels, and maybe grows more empathetic towards the victims of such. This is the starting point of him being purged from his manipulative ways.

For Jacob to set up the stone and anoint it meant to set the place he was in apart to God (sanctify it); it could also mark the place the Two met and the covenant the Two made to one another. Jacob promises God that if He protects and provides for him, and see him safely back to his father's house, Jacob would make Yahweh his God, and give Him a tenth of all his earnings.

Right now, I see myself in Esau and Jacob. In Esau, I see how I do indulge in fleshly desires that I should not and know that I have to give up. In Jacob, I also see I also have an interest in things of God and spiritual things and sense God calling me. I see in myself ways that God is working on me--an attitude changing towards the way I look at Him and different situations. He is humbling me, though there is still a long way to go, so I have to be patient with myself, and stop worrying about God giving up on me; I have to realize that if He gave His Son to die in my place and gave His own life for me while I was ungrateful and hateful towards Him, He won't cast me away now and will complete the work He is working in me.

Jealousy is produced when one child senses that their sibling, or siblings, is (are) favored over them. It could also produce bitterness. I did have a similar thing happen to me growing up. I was raised by my paternal grandmother, and although I don't doubt that she loved me deeply, I felt that she favored one of my cousins to me and the rest of her grandchildren (I and that cousin were the closest to her and around her more than the rest). It produced bitterness growing up, towards both; but something amazing has happened. Since my grandmother has passed away, I love that cousin because my grandmother loved her; she is cherished by me because of my grandmother's love for her; still, do I think her favoring her over me is right, no, but God says He can use good and bad to work out for the good of those who love Him and called according to His purpose.I don't advocate favortism, but as a human, I know sometimes we can't control how we may feel about someone or something, though we may know it is wrong; so, if parents do have their picks, I say that as much as possible, they should try to distribute their love fairly and equally.

The blessing could not be reversed once Isaac blessed Jacob for two reasons. One reason is because God had already declared that Esau would serve Jacob, so it had to happen. For God's own purposes, He chose to bring the plan of salvation about through the line of Jacob instead of Esau. Another reason, in my opinion, being that since we are created in the Image of God, and God can create and bring things into existence by merely speaking, we also have this ability (to an extent; there is life and death in the power of the tongue, which should teach us to be more careful about what we say and declare). Once something is said, it can't be retracted or changed because we didn't mean it or want to call it back.

I believe that Rebekah--no matter what good she was trying to bring about--is wrong for her plan of tricking Isaac into blessing Jacob. What God declares, He will bring about, with no help from humans (unless He tells us what to do to bring it about, which in this case He didn't). When we try to intervene to MAKE God's plans come true, there is always trouble. Another example of this is when God promised to open Sarai's womb so she could conceive Isaac. She didn't believe it, and tried to make the prophecy come true by having Abraham beget a son by Hagar, and up comes Ishmael, which in their family caused jealousies, contentions, and sibling rivalry. It also produced issues that lasts to this very day over who has right to the promised land, the descendants of Ishmael or Isaac. Jacob is just as responsible for the deception as his mother, because he didn't have to go along with the plan.

The Bible supports the fact that Rebekah was a spiritual woman, because it says she inquired of the Lord why the twins within her moved around so much. Isaac is also proven to be spiritual, because he seeked the Lord on behalf of his wife when she couldn't conceive. It is hard for me to say who was more sensitive spiritually; I want to say Isaac, since his father Abraham was who God revealed Himself to; Isaac was probably brought up in the ways of God, and I believe God may have had more favor on Him, making him more sensitive to the Spirit, or spiritual matters, since he was the child of promise and the one whose line salvation, through the Messiah, would come through. The only spirituality I see in Jacob at this time is that he sees the significance of the birthright, which can be seen as a spiritual blessing; however, we see that he also has a fleshly side, because he stoops to manipulation to get what he wants; Esau isn't really that spiritual; he sacrifices the spiritual to satisfy the temporal appetites of the flesh.

I believe the author of Hebrews condemns Esau for the selling of his birthright because he gave up something sacred and longer lasting to fulfill something temporal and fleshly, and it is a warning to us not to do the same. What Esau's actions say about him is that he is more willing to live in the here and now; he is lead by his flesh and not by the Spirit. He doesn't think of the consequences of his actions. Jacob is no better at this time. Although he thinks a little more about what lies ahead in the future, he takes advantage of the weakness of his brother to gain what he wants. Although God chose him to be the line through which the world would be blessed, he took it upon himself to go out and claim that right through ill-gotten gains.

The virgin conception shows us that Jesus is of a divine origin, seeing as there is no human man that impregnated Mary. He is both human and divine, although it is beyond our capacity to explain and understand; He is the Son of God, yet He is also God in the flesh, yet there is only one God; so mysterious, yet it is. The virgin conception is one of the most important of the Christian message, because it points to the fact that Jesus is more than just a mere man who was pious and morally upstanding; it shows that He is divine, in addition to His humanity; it is His divinity that makes it possible for Him to live a sinless life and take our sins upon Himself. Without having God as His Father literally, He would be just another human who, even if pious and moral, would not be able to live a sinless life, and would not be a satisfying sacrifice for the sins of the world.

It is believed that Mary, unlike Zechariah, asks her question out of awe and merely wants to know how the subject of the message is to be accomplished. Zechariah, however, doesn't believe the message that is proclaimed to him, and is therefore struck dumb. Mary believes that the message proclaimed to her is true, while Zechariah doesn't believe the message proclaimed to him, maybe because he feels it is too good to be true.

The angel Gabriel tells Mary that she is to become pregnant (by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit), and that her Son will be the Son of the Most High; also, He is to be the promised Messiah that the Jews have been awaiting. He will one day reign forever on the throne of David, for he is a descendant of King David, as well.