Isaac’s twin sons Jacob and Esau were in many ways the opposite of each other and were destined by God to follow different paths because of it. When their mother Rebekah had conceived, it says in Genesis 25:22-23:

The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,

“Two nations are in your womb,
    and two peoples from within you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
    the older shall serve the younger.”

The division between Jacob and Esau began when the older twin Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of stew (Genesis 25:29-34). Later, Jacob tricked his father into giving him Isaac’s blessing (Genesis 27:1-29). After that, Jacob had to flee his home to avoid his brother killing him (Genesis 27:41-28:5). Many years later, the brothers were reunited, but the conflict between them was never really resolved (Genesis 33; 1 Samuel 14:47; 2 Samuel 8:13, 14).

God pronounced judgment against the descendants of Esau, who were known as the Edomites, through the prophet Ezekiel. God referred to the Edomites as Mount Seir, the place where they lived. God said, “Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand against you, and I will make you a desolation and a waste. I will lay your cities waste, and you shall become a desolation, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Because you cherished perpetual enmity and gave over the people of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of their final punishment, therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you; because you did not hate bloodshed, therefore blood shall pursue you. I will make Mount Seir a waste and a desolation, and I will cut off from it all who come and go. And I will fill its mountains with the slain. On your hills and in your valleys and in all your ravines those slain with the sword shall fall. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities shall not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 35:3-9).

The prophet Obadiah was given a detailed account of the reasons for Edom’s punishment (Obadiah 1:10-14). The main issue that led to their demise was a false sense of security. Obadiah 1:2-4 states, “The LORD says to Edom, ‘I will cut you down to size among the nations; you will be greatly despised. You have been deceived by your own pride because you live in a rock fortress and make your home high in the mountains. “Who can ever reach us way up here?” you ask boastfully. But even if you soar as high as eagles and build your nest among the stars, I will bring you crashing down,’ says the LORD” (NLT). “The Edomites felt invincible because of the narrow rock canyons that limited access to their land” (note on Obadiah v. 3). The Hebrew word that is translated rock in Obadiah 1:3, sela (sehˊ-lah) is also the name of the Edomite capital (H5554).

God said the Edomites’ false sense of security was a result of them being deceived by their own pride (Obadiah 1:3). This is a theme commonly found in the Bible. Pride leads to self-reliance rather than reliance upon God. The Israelites fell into the same trap. “The Israelites, in their spiritual confusion, were imagining that because ‘the LORD’s Temple’ (Jeremiah 7:4) was in the center of their capital, Jerusalem, God was actually living in it and therefore they were invulnerable to outside attack” (False Security, p. 830 TSGB).

Paul told the Philippian believers they should follow Christ’s example of humility to avoid developing a false sense of security. Paul said, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:3-8). Paul said even though Jesus had the same nature as God, he did not seek equality with God, meaning to rely on himself, because he was also human. Jesus had to trust and obey his Father just like all of us.

Pride and humility were the distinguishing characteristics between Esau and his younger brother Jacob. Jacob made many mistakes throughout his life and did not always do what was pleasing in God’s sight, but he was never so foolish as to try and make it through life on his own. Jacob knew he needed God’s blessing to prosper and was willing to go to great lengths to get it, including wrestling with God himself (Genesis 32:22-30).