And They Were a Grief of Mind..

02 Nov And They Were a Grief of Mind..

It’s been several years since Isaac met and fell in love with his wife Rebekah, and they have been blessed with two sons, Esau and Jacob.

Esau is married, Jacob single.

Esau has two wives named Judith and Basemath.

And, we are reliably informed, the two women are a grief of mind..

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If you recall, dear reader, sometime back Abraham had gone to great lengths to acquire a bride for his son Isaac, and this is how the beautiful Rebekah had come to be in the family.

Now, however, the couple’s son Esau had bucked tradition and married two women from a community other than his own.

Their names were Judith and Basemath.

And they were Hittites; descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, the son of Noah.

A little digging, as I read this story, tells me that the Canaanites had very strange religious rites and worshiped the false gods Baal and Asherah, unlike Abraham’s family who believed in one God.

Perhaps this was the reason for the grief of mind, I wonder?  Alien religious practices, at odds with those of Isaac and Rebekah?

But that’s beside the point.

What’s on my mind right now is this;

All we know of these two women is that they were a “grief of mind” to Isaac and Rebekah.

That when the author of the family records got down to writing, he summed up the two Missus’ thus – they were a grief of mind.

Granted, there is a little bit about the children they bore to Esau, but nothing more about their character or accomplishments, other than these six unflattering words.

Not a very admirable legacy, I’d say.

This story causes me to reflect on a few other women I’ve come across in the Bible.

I remember Ruth, an admirable widow who stuck with her mother-in-law, quite literally through thick and thin, even though her husband was dead and she was free to live with her own community.

I think about wise Abigail, who rescued her family from certain annihilation by a furious David, after a foolish decision by her supremely unwise husband.

Rahab, a prostitute who, despite her rather unorthodox occupation, showed greater wisdom than several of her countrymen combined, during a time of great national calamity.

Beautiful Queen Esther, who rose to a most terrifying challenge, risking her own life to save that of her people, as they languished in exile in Persia.

I personally would be delighted to have such accomplished fore-bearers in my family tree!

But what about my own legacy, I wonder?

What am I doing today that will be remembered tomorrow?

How will my children, grand-children and great-grandchildren remember me?

Will there be tales of great and admirable accomplishments – remarkable exploits worth several generations of family pride?

Or will I simply be another twig in the family tree? And a rather unmemorable one at that?

The thought gives me considerable pause.

How about you, dear reader?

Have you considered your own legacy? How your family will remember you, in fifty or one hundred years to come?

Let it not be, dear reader, that we will someday be remembered by a handful of unflattering words.

Words such as these – they were a grief of mind to.. (insert sundry relatives and friends).

Watch the Video – And They Were a Grief of Mind.

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When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah. Genesis 26:34-35