Footnotes

1. Genesis 27:41 Here began a feud that was to cost countless lives throughout succeeding centuries. Esau’s descendants, the Amalekites, were the first enemies to obstruct the flight of Jacob’s descendants from Egypt (Exod. 17:8); and the Edomites even refused to let their uncle Jacob’s children pass through their land (Num. 20:17-20). Doeg, an Edomite, all but caused the death of Christ’s chosen ancestor David (I Sam. 21, 22). Bloody battles were fought between the two nations in the centuries that followed. It was Herod, of Esau’s race (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14:1, Section 3), who had the male infants of Bethlehem slain in an effort to destroy the Christ Child (Matt. 2:16). Satan needs no better medium for his evil plans than a family feud, a “mere quarrel” between two brothers.