Genesis 25:23

Two nations. An angel revealed to Rebekah something of the future of the two sons soon to be born (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 177). Already, it seemed, they were struggling for the supremacy. The angel’s prediction was fulfilled in the later history of Esau’s and Jacob’s descendants, the Edomites and the Israelites. These two brother nations were ever enemies, Israel usually proving to be the stronger of the two. David subjugated the Edomites (2 Samuel 8:14; 1 Kings 11:16), and King Amaziah later defeated them (2 Kings 14:7; 2 Chronicles 25:11, 12). The Hasmonaean king John Hyrcanus I finally brought their independence to an end in the year 126 B.C., when he forced them to accept the rite of circumcision and the law of Moses, and to submit to a Jewish governor. God’s insight into the respective characters of Esau and Jacob and His foresight into their future made possible His selection of Jacob as inheritor of the birthright and progenitor of Christ even before his birth (Romans 8:29; 9:10-14).