Jacob prepares to meet Esau

Childrens and Shorter

3 Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau, to the land of Seir, which is the territory of the Edomites. 4 He gave them this command, ‘Say to my lord Esau: “Your servant Jacob declares, I have lived with Laban and have stayed until now. 5 I have oxen and donkeys, flocks and male and female slaves, and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may win your favour.” ’ 6 The messengers returned to Jacob with the report, ‘We came to your brother Esau, even as he was coming to meet you with four hundred men.’

7 Then Jacob was greatly alarmed and worried. So he divided the people that were with him and the flocks and the herds and the camels into two parts 8 and said, ‘If Esau comes to the one and attacks and destroys it, then the other which is left can escape.’

9 Jacob also prayed, ‘God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, Lord who said to me, “Return to your country, and to your relatives, and I will do well by you,” 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and all the faithfulness which you have shown to me, your servant. I passed over the Jordan river with only my staff, and now I have these two groups, 11 deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear that he will come and attack me and kill the mothers and the children. 12 Remember your promise to make me prosper and my descendants as many as the sand of the seashore, uncountable.’

13 After spending the night there, Jacob took from his livestock as a present for his brother Esau, 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty milch camels and their young, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten young donkeys. 16 These he put, each drove by itself, in the care of his servants and said to them, ‘Go on before me and leave a space between the droves.’

17 He gave those in front this command: ‘When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, “To whom do you belong? And where are you going? And whose are these before you?” 18 then you shall say, “To your servant Jacob; it is a present sent by him to my lord Esau; and Jacob himself is just behind us.” ’ 19 Jacob also commanded the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, to make the same answer, 20 and to say, ‘Jacob himself is just behind us.’ For he said to himself, ‘I will please him with the present that goes before me, and then, when I meet him, perhaps he will welcome me.’ 21 So he sent the present over before him; but he himself spent that night in the camp.

22 Later that night he rose up and took his two wives, his two slave-girls, and his eleven children, and sent them over the river Jabbok.