Having debuted in 2006, Psych is the USA cable network’s longest running original series. It is set in Santa Barbara but for reasons having to do with production costs and trade unions, the series is filmed in Canada. The scenery is recognizably coastal British Columbia, which my family and I know well from our summer boating trips.
The hero, the son of a diligent police officer, solves mysteries that baffle the police (of course) using what everyone believes to be his psychic ability. In truth his secret is the remarkable observational skill his detective dad trained him to develop from the time he was a small child. Shawn spots what everyone else ignores; the laundry receipt on the floor or a smear of paint on someone’s shoe.
Like Shawn, we can and all should develop our ability to see – no really see – everything, especially when studying Bible. For instance, consider this apparently unimportant verse:
And Esau was forty years old when he married Judith
the daughter of Be’eiri the Hittite…
(Genesis 26:34)
Do we really need to know the name of Esau’s wife and father-in-law? After all, we know very few of the names of the wives of the twelve tribes of Israel. Furthermore, who cares how old Esau was when he married?
It’s time to polish our observational skills and really see the facts that will help solve the mystery. First, the name of Esau’s father-in-law is “Be’eiri”. It helps to know that the Hebrew word for a well is “Be’eir.” Second, the name Be’eiri appears only one more time in Scripture, in the first verse of Hosea.
Furthermore, while the word Be’eir, meaning a well, a source of water, appears fewer than thirty times in all the Five Books of Moses, over twenty of these mentions are found in Genesis. What is more, they are all found within a few chapters clustered around our mysterious verse – Genesis 26:34. Both Isaac and Jacob meet their brides at a well. One of the additional mentions is the well at which Moses meets his wife (Exodus 2:15).
In Torah, water is a metaphor for true, God-centered knowledge. Thus, a well in the context of marriage implies that the couple is bound by a common commitment to the eternal knowledge of God. Ancient Jewish wisdom explains that by seeking out a woman connected to a well, even if this association is only her father’s name, Esau is saying, “Me too! I am just as connected to God as my father.”
By marrying the daughter of a “well-guy”, Esau is attempting to depict himself to be better than he really was. Without truly clinging to Isaac’s core beliefs and principles, he wants the credit for doing so. He even chooses to marry at exactly the same age as his father did, mistaking this type of external similarity for substance. The atypical inclusion of his age when marrying tips us off that this fact reveals important insights. On the surface, Esau looks good; his inside doesn’t match his outside. Though easy for the casual reader to miss, all these seemingly innocuous details in Genesis 26:34 combine to depict someone trying to paint himself as more worthy than he really is.
In contrast, the Book of Hosea opens by identifying the prophet as a “well-guy”- a Be’eiri. Hosea isn’t pretending to associate with true knowledge; it is actually part of him. Though he is soon to marry very unsuitable women, Scripture is disclosing that he is acting upon God’s direct instructions. On the surface, he doesn’t look good; yet he is following Divine wisdom.
It is easy to miss signs that should alert us to someone’s poor character. We see what a date, employee or employer want us to see, missing what is beneath the surface. Training ourselves carefully to observe details is vital. We may not be psychic, but we can notice easily overlooked clues.
Our lives today are impacted by Esau and his spiritual descendants. Perhaps we, ourselves, want to turn away from a poor family legacy and start an upstanding new one. Whether we want to understand what is happening in the explosive Middle East or in our private lives, examining Scriptural clues surrounding Esau is vital. Our 2-audio CD program, Clash of Destiny: Decoding the Secrets of Israel and Islam does just that. It is on sale right now, by instant download or mail, full of insights that will change the way you see the world and interact with it.
CLASH OF DESTINY: DECODING THE SECRETS OF ISRAEL AND ISLAM
