By Judge Anna von Reitz | Big Lake, Alaska

Over the past few months I have been receiving tons of mail from apparently well-intentioned people talking about a supposed eternal fight between Jacob and Esau, his older brother, whom Jacob defrauded.

They are picking this up from reading the Book of Esdra, which is a book of scripture that was not included as part of the Bible.

According to Esdra, Esau and Jacob and all their respective progeny are at eternal war with each other, and we are stuck in the middle, choosing sides.

Oh, and did I tell you that Esau is the Bad Guy in this drama? This is where “blame the victim” got its Big Start, folks.

You will remember that I told you that there are two (2) Gods in the Bible, and especially in the Old Testament, you must attune your ears to recognize their very different “voices”, in order to discern which one is speaking at any given time.

This is a case in point. In the official canon of the scripture which is included in the Bible, we have God Number Two saying, “I have always hated Esau…. but Jacob I have loved…..” Okay?

Well, let’s take a look at the two brothers. Esau, the oldest, is red-haired and bullish and strong, a hard worker, who goes out and hunts and works the farm and tends the animals and gets things done. He’s a practical, down-to-earth type, not given to daydreaming and intangible things. In today’s world, we would call Esau a man of action.

Jacob, Esau’s younger brother, is dark-haired and handsome, more like the rest of the family, and he is much more effeminate, much more the Momma’s Boy, who is allowed to stay home with Mom and be pampered and not work the hard jobs.

Obviously, within the context of the story, Esau suffers what too many children suffer — parental favoritism, where a parent favors one of their children over the others, and thereby harms all of them.

Esau is harmed for lack of maternal love, and Jacob is spoiled by too much of it. He also bears the burdens of the older son and heir apparent — all the hard work and responsibility of taking care of the estate and the herds and needs of the family from an early age.

But getting back to the story, his own Mother actively plots against Esau to defraud him of his birthright that he has worked hard for all his life.

Think about that? The true God ordained that Esau be born first, because that’s what happened in real life, but a scheming Mother decided to promote the younger son over the older son, and fool her elderly husband, Isaac, into giving his blessing to the younger son.

And Jacob doesn’t resist. He follows along in lock-step with his Mother. They devise a way to make his arms feel hairy like his brother’s and being blind, Isaac gives him the blessing intended for Esau.

They try to defend their actions and claim that Esau “sold” his birthright for a bowl of porridge, but that, too, is based on deceitful contracting practices in breach of trust. There’s no full disclosure. No reason for Esau to take his younger brother seriously. This entire story is about fraud and deceit, unlawful contracting processes, and worst of all, betrayal of Isaac and disrespect for the True God.

If we are to believe this, the entire foundation of the Chosen People is based on fraud. And lies. And betrayal of trust.

And who is the Father of All Lies? If we don’t recognize which “God” is speaking about how he hates Esau and loves Jacob, we get the impression that our God loves liars and deceivers and con artist Momma’s Boys, because that is what Jacob is.

Yet throughout the Bible and in our own experience, our Father hates lies and liars and gossips. They are on his Top Ten list of Despicable-Creations-I-Have -Allowed-to-Exist, because I gave them freewill to hang themselves.

Are we supposed to think that he, our Creator, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, just up-ended his eternal decision and nature, and made an exception, suddenly loving a Liar and Trickster over a truthful man? Not.

In the actual Bible, Jacob returns to his home country after many years away wandering around in Egypt and other places, and he is in dread of meeting his brother, Esau, who stayed home and was blessed in his own way, with many children and abundant herds and possessions.

What will Esau do? Will he take his superior forces and fall upon Jacob and his family, take whatever they have, and maybe kill them all in vengeance? No.

In the actual Bible, the two brothers meet, make peace about the past, and Esau helps Jacob find a place and settle down. That’s what the actual Bible says, and the actual Bible should be believed, if only because it shows the power of forgiveness, the strength of brotherhood in good men who honor their God-given responsibilities, and the Way of Peace, which doesn’t spoil the present because of the past.

It’s Esau who makes this happy resolution possible. And the True God? The True God blessed Esau abundantly, and saw him well-settled and happy on the land of his Fathers, at peace, and doing what he loved to do.

Jacob was stuck wandering around like a lost sheep in a storm, facing one horrible conflict and loss after another, selling his beautiful wife’s favors for his own advantage, losing his favorite son (or so he believed for many years), wrestling with the Devil at Bethesda and losing ten of his sons and their tribes to Baal worship…..losing Rachel, never properly valuing his first wife, Leah — let’s face it: Jacob was a mess. Drama was his middle name.

Esau was blessed, despite Isaac’s mistake. And if Jacob was blessed, it would have been Big News to him, because his whole life was one big learning session after another.

So let’s read the whole story as the actual Bible tells it, with discernment, and realize that no, Esau and Jacob were reconciled within their own earthly lifetimes. It is extremely unlikely any ill-will continued between them, much less extended into the far future of today; and, there are certainly other Biblical explanations for the conflict that is ever-present among us.

For example, the conflict between Cain and Abel. Clearly, this gave rise to two completely different mindsets and kinds of people, and clearly, the two brothers were so opposed that their conflict ended in murder.

And once again, we have an unidentified “God”, protecting a wrong-doer by placing a special mark or sign above his head. Would our Father, the True God, protect and condone a murderer and egotist who could do such a thing and shrug and say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

This is “God Number Two” at work again, putting in a cameo appearance in the rest of the narrative— Satan protecting his own.

What happens to Cain? He went to the Land of Nod (forgetfulness: he forgot about killing his brother, didn’t even consider what he’d done) and built cities. And what do we find today?

Hordes of city-dwellers who are under the sway of the money delusion, cut off from the Earth, encouraged to be selfish and materialistic and thoughtless and politically correct.

Many have the same exact thought and attitude as their Father and when asked, will look at you like dumb animals and say, “What’s it to me?” They never heard the answer to their question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” because the True God didn’t speak to them.

Now, please, take away a worthy lesson — the Bible is a tricky book. You can read it many ways and it is up to you to see what you see in it, but being forewarned that you should take nothing for granted, read it with discernment, so that you can distinguish between the two “Gods” who speak from its pages, and find the truth in what it reveals.