Hebrew Word Study – Goodly Garments –  Bigad Chamadath    בִּגְדֵ֨ חֲמֻדֹ֔ת  Beth Gimmel Resh  Cheth Mem Daleth Taw

Genesis 27:15,27: “And Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau, which [were] with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: 27 And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son [is] as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed:”

Everyone remembers the story from Sunday School how Jacob was a momma’s boy, a real whooze who hung around the house doing girly things like the laundry (which reminds me of a chore I have to do today) and  his brother Esau, his daddy’s favorite, the real man, the hunter, the hairy beast who was rough and tumble,  the man’s man. Now, I don’t know if it was God’s divine plan all along that Jacob received the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant or not. That birth problem of grabbing the heel of the other, the pot of stew, the identity theft, I will leave it to the theologians to figure that out. The custom was to give the eldest the entire inheritance and the elder was to be responsible for his siblings to make sure they were never in want. Esau was the declared eldest and by custom the rightful heir.  This was a big responsibility and the way I heard the story Jacob couldn’t have handled it at all, he was just too much of a weakling. Anyways, that is how I got the story in Sunday School.

In fact the Hebrew, Talmud, and Jewish tradition taught me something entirely different about Jacob.  He was far from being effeminate.  He was, in fact, the real man of the family. The one more capable of carrying out God’s plan and the one most worthy to bear the responsibility of the Abrahamic covenant.  I suppose in a real knock down drag out Esau could have taken Jacob but not so much for his strength as for his brutality.  Jacob was a man who loved God with all his heart and sought to follow after God’s desire.  

There is the story in the Talmud that tells of Leah going to the well to get some water and she overheard a couple women talking. One was saying how Isaac had two sons who would marry the daughters of Laban.  Leah asked what the sons were like and she was told that the eldest, Esau, was a brutal, heartless man who was a murderer (he killed Nimrod).   The other, Jacob, was a kind man who loved God with all his heart, he was a caring man who loved and protected his mother and treated women and dumb animals with respect.  Leah fell to the ground weeping because she knew her destiny was to marry the eldest, Esau.

Anyway, Jacob and his mother Rebekah figured they were going to bamboozle the blind old man Isaac by making him believe Jacob was Esau and tricking him into giving the blessing to Jacob rather than Esau.  One way to accomplish this was to give Jacob Esau’s best clothes so Isaac could smell the fields where Esau hunted.  I think he smelled something else in those clothes.

One problem with this story is that people in those days did not have a closet full of clothes in fact that usually had only one set of clothes. However, it was not unheard of that someone would have an extra set of clothes, maybe inherited or used for barter purposes.  So, I’ll grant, maybe this was Esau’s spare pair, his meeting’ duds.  Another, more troubling problem is the word in Hebrew used for clothes, it is not your usual word for clothes and in fact is not a word for clothes at all.  It is the word  begad which is really the word for treachery and deceit.  Ok, I know Semitic storytelling is filled with metaphoric language  and it is most likely begad is used metaphorically for clothes worn for deceitful purposes like stealing a birthright.  But, hear me out, I think there is evidence in ancient literature that begad is used to express something different. These were not Esau’s garments but garments Esau obtained through a treacherous act, that is the killing of Nimrod.  In fact the Mishnah Rabbah teaches that these were the garments stolen from Nimrod when Esau ambushed him in the field.  But why steal his clothes?  

Ah, I am so glad you asked that question. The last visit I made to the University of Chicago’s library wasted a whole afternoon reading an ancient book called the Book of Jasher. The book of Jasher, it is not part of the canon nor is it inspired Scripture and may just be a book of urban legends, however, many Jewish rabbis will attest to a degree of historical accuracy. 

In the book of Jasper the 27th chapter we see some gaps in the story of Esau being filled.  It is believed that as the story of the creation was passed down orally, the original garments that God gave Adam to wear still existed and were in Nimrod’s possession.  Apparently, as the legend goes,  the garments given to Adam by God were given to Enoch which were given to Methuselah who  handed them down to Noah who gave them to his son Ham and eventually worked their way into the hands of Nimrod. By this time legend grew up that these garments contained some mystical powers.  I also wouldn’t out it past some pseudo ancient archaeologist to fabricate a few reasonable facsimiles of Adam’s garment and make a few drachmas. 

Ridiculous, of course.  We are much more sophisticated today.  I mean if the Shroud of Turin were to be proven authentic I am sure no one would pray to it, be near to it when they pray thinking God will hear them better or seek to touch it with the hopes of being healed or blessed, such ideas are only for the unenlightened ancients.  But suppose the garments of Adam did survive until the time of Esau or someone put together a garment and called it Adams garments.  It would be easy to convince someone it had special powers. Who needs to convince, they would assume it anyways.  It is believed that Esau coveted these garments and with the blessing of his father Isaac sought to steal them and in the process got into fight and Esau ended up murdering Nimrod and taking off with Adam’s alleged garments. Of course it would be these garments he would wear when he was to receive the blessing from Abraham.  Surely, with the garment of Adam God would double and maybe triple His blessing. Of course now that Jacob was planning his coup, what better way to ensure God’s blessing than to wear the sacred, blessed garments of Adam.  Now  you get the Adamic covenant, Noahic covenant and Abrahamic covenant all wrapped up in one. 

To be honest, I don’t know where I am going with this. Maybe I am just trying to convince myself that I didn’t waste a perfectly good afternoon studying the writings of some ancient storyteller trying to build a platform with a  lot of myth.  But you know what, the whole idea of relics having mystical powers and people killing others to possess these relics is not an ancient one.  Hitler kill thousands of people in his quest for the Spear of Destiny, because he actually believed that if he possessed it he would be invincible.  Some years ago a movie called the Raiders of the Lost Ark spurred the imagination of millions of Christians over the thought of recovering the lost Ark of the Covenant and the powers it might contain. It’s a box, for crying out loud,  just a box. It would have great historical and archaeological significance but that is all. 

People want to see what they worship.  They need an idol, a relic, a thing that they can touch and see.  They want a preacher to pray over them because they can see the preacher.  They want a beautiful church building because they can see it.  Before long they begin to believe that the preacher has special powers or that God will surely bless them more if they attend church in a building designated for worship. I remember as a pastor I had a person ask for prayer.  I was in his home and I immediately reached out to pray and he stopped me and said: “No, no, let’s go to the church to pray.  I want this to be a good prayer.”  I’m thinking: “Good prayers are all I got buddy.” 

My point is, we worship God with our  hearts, not our eyes.

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