Rune Marie Nielsen
One day as a hungry, growing teenager, I walked into the kitchen in dire search of a snack. Immediately I smelled the glorious, heavenly scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. My twin sister, Lisel, had just laid out the last batch on the cooling rack. I desperately asked for some to sate my sweet-tooth appetite. Lisel gave her permission, provided that I would accept one tiny request: to give my elder sibling birthright to her. I suddenly remembered that I was in fact one minute older than Lisel. I readily agreed and chowed down on warm, gooey cookies. All I had to do to uphold my end of the deal was tell anyone who asked that Lisel was born one minute before me. Those cookies were so darn good! No regrets here.
It would be an immense understatement to say that sibling dynamics in the Old Testament do not work this way. In Genesis 25, we read about Isaac’s twin sons, Jacob and Esau, who were raised in a culture that favored the oldest child to the extreme. When one twin gave up his status as the elder brother, it wasn’t a matter that only affected small talk. It was a decision that shaped his life in drastic ways. Esau surrendered his birthright as the eldest in exchange for some lentil stew his twin brother, Jacob, offered him. Esau felt he was starving and thought only of the present moment. Years later, their father, Isaac, was at the end of his life, and he only had one blessing to give away, a blessing that could not be shared between them.
A blessing wasn’t mere words—it was God’s favor that could change a person’s destiny. It was everlasting and irrevocable. Isaac maintained just one blessing, intended for the eldest. However, Jacob finds a way to seize the blessing meant for Esau. With the help of his mother, Jacob tricks his father into thinking he is Esau. Jacob has not only taken Esau’s birthright but has also swindled him out of his firstborn blessing. When Esau finds out, he is driven to rage so intense that he plans to murder Jacob.
I’m no stranger to twin angst. Growing up in church, my twin sister and I were made acutely aware of the Jacob and Esau ‘lesson’ for twins like us: hatred between biblical twin brothers almost led to a bloody deathmatch. Sunday school teachers ended the story with warnings like: So, don’t argue with your sister, okay? Don’t get mad at each other. You might end up like Jacob and Esau! Nonetheless, context complicates the sibling relationship. It’s very clear that Jacob and Esau’s twin struggle stemmed from a social system that demanded one sibling be treated as more valuable than the other. However, for Lisel and myself, our primary challenge was asserting our individuality in a world that told us twins should be inseparable, dressed-alike best friends. Lisel and I resolved that we would be neither enemies to the death nor—even worse in our eyes—the do-everything-together twins stereotype. Lisel could have claimed the sun was hot and I would have argued that the sun was cold, just to be different.
In my cookie scenario, I would probably trade more seemingly random information with Lisel to taste more delicious homemade sweets. Whether I’m the older twin or the younger one, life is mostly the same for me. However, I imagine Esau probably avoided lentil stew the rest of his life.
Even before the lentil stew birthright incident, the twins Jacob and Esau were already at odds with each other. Genesis 25:27 informs us that, from childhood, Jacob is his mother’s favorite and Esau is his father’s favorite. Patterns such as these still continue for many families today. As my twin and I entered our teenage years, Lisel was interested in pursuing a career in engineering like our father, while I enjoyed artistic endeavors like my mother. High school classmates who confused me for Lisel would ask me for help with their science homework. Classmates who confused Lisel for me would ask why I was obsessed with weird manga comics.
Similarly, Jacob did Jacob things and Esau did Esau things. Jacob liked to stay indoors in a quiet atmosphere. Esau liked to roam the wild and hunt. Each had their space. When Lisel and I were living apart, like pen pals communicating from afar, we flourished. But in person, conflicts arose quickly. If one of us didn’t return a DVD she borrowed, or if one of us said something awkward at a party that embarrassed the other twin…that was brutal.
In the third year of my undergraduate studies, I transferred to the same university Lisel attended. It was a huge campus of over 20,000 students. When I informed Lisel of my plans, I was relieved she did not view my relocation as an intrusion on her territory. She said, “I think this campus is big enough for both of us.” It wasn’t. We bumped into each other more often than should have been possible. Sometimes we smiled genuinely at each other and other times we greeted each other with a tone that meant “Oh, it’s you again.” We openly judged each other for being different while also ironically expecting us both to be as unlike from each other as we could. I jokingly referred to Lisel as my archnemesis. It was as though we were each herding our own flock in a vast desert, stumbling upon the same ground we didn’t want to share with the other’s livestock. After all, we thought sharing was for twins who wanted to be the same.
Jacob and Esau chose to stay separate from each other most of their lives. In Genesis 25, the brothers are even described from before birth as “two nations” in their mother’s womb. Lisel and I don’t have any grand prophecy about ruling territories, but in a manner, we are twins of different countries. I traveled in northern Europe and lived in Hong Kong for several years. Lisel traveled in southern Europe and made the United States her home base. Brief visits from Lisel were fun. But when I moved to the American town Lisel lived in, we began to meddle in each other’s business again, finding out who was doing what and expressing loudly why each of us disapproved of what the other was up to.
It took moving a couple more times for me to appreciate my sibling relationships once more. I still had something new to learn from the tribulations of Jacob and Esau who went their own ways. Years after Jacob flees from Esau’s wrath, Jacob decides he will attempt to reconcile with him. Jacob sends hundreds of goats and sheep to Esau as a present and Esau kindly declines the gifts, claiming that they are not necessary to make their relationship amicable because he already accepts Jacob as a brother again. When I heard the story as a child, I didn’t understand why their reconciliation was necessary. Wasn’t distance enough to keep the peace? However, as an adult I realize that the reconciliation means their competitive intentions are gone. They have walked different paths and wronged each other, but they finally see each other as equals.
Now more than ever Lisel and I understand our sibling dynamic. We realize it’s okay to have some things in common, especially our love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will inevitably have more quarrels big and small, but we also want the same outcome: to appreciate and lift up one another regardless of all our past (and future) disagreements.
Lisel and I have a Bible verse we selected together that describes our relationship. Proverbs 27:17 says “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.” Arguments sharpen wits, but so does joking about those same arguments. We laugh together, get irritated with each other, and after some more time passes, we laugh about the past irritation as well. We know our patterns. Loving my twin doesn’t mean I need to understand her, mimic her, or spend a lot of time around her. For me, loving my twin means accepting my twin, seeing new humor in past quarrels, and appreciating the banter she can dish back to me when I tease her.
Perhaps there are some stories in the Bible that have shaped one of your relationships, whether they are tales of caution like Esau’s relationship with Jacob or ones of harmonic unity like the story of Ruth and Naomi. The Bible is full of people learning to deal with other people, and their experiences can help us find common ground with friends and foes alike.
