Genesis 34

v1-24: The cause of God “is never more harmed” when God’s ordinances are used with intentions that are malicious.

v25-31: “Children should be the joy of their parents, but wicked children,” by their misbehaviour, “bring grief to them.” Though “Jacob’s children were circumcised, were well taught, and prayed for, and had good examples set for them,” they were troublesome. This a reminder that “grace does not run in the blood.”

Genesis 35

v1-5: “Those whom God loves, he reminds of neglected duties, using one way or another,” whether that be “by conscience or by his providence.”

v6-15: God is all-sufficient. He is able to keep His promises. The two promises here “have a spiritual meaning of which we may suppose Jacob himself had some idea,” that they pointed to Christ as “the promised seed,” and heaven as “the Promised Land.”

v16-20: God’s people are not immune from “the common troubles of all humanity” in this life.

v21-29: Don’t think that you can keep your sin secret. In the end it will be discovered.

Genesis 36

v1-8: God determines the appointed times and the boundaries of where people live, and it was God’s plan for Jacob’s family to be in Canaan, and not Esau’s. God used Esau’s recognition that there was not enough room for both of them to continue to prosper, to bring this about.

v9-19: Why do we not know much about the history of Esau’s family? It is because “it is the church that Moses keeps the records of, not the records of those outside the church.”

v20-30: Because Esau and his descendants the Edomites abandoned God’s people, they are “justly numbered with,” and “stand on the same grounds as” those “who were never in it.”

v31-43: “The children of this world have everything in their hand, but have nothing to hope for in the future; while the children of God have everything to hope for, and next to nothing in their hands.” Israel had to wait for God to give them the Promised Land while slaves in Egypt and wandering in the wilderness. During this time they would have heard about “the pomp and power of the kings of Edom.” But “all things considered, it is better to have Canaan as a promise than Mount Seir as a possession.”