Family Blood Fued
A blood feud raged in 1863-1891 between the Hatfields of West Virginia on one side of the Tug Fork River and the McCoys of Kentucky on the other side. The catalyst was a pig that Randolph McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield of stealing. After four decades of feuding, a dozen lives were lost, and the matter was finally curtailed by the governors of Kentucky and West Virginia, and the US Supreme Court itself.
Over the course of the following century, the tension between the families became something of American folklore, the stuff of legends, though it took on a less sinister hue. Today both families make money off the tourist route that commemorates their feud. There are monuments raised in places where Hatfields or McCoys lost their lives, complete with commentary available on audio CD for a self-directed driving tour.
But it wasn’t until 1979 that the two families faced off again. This time it was all in good-natured fun.
The TV game show called Family Feud features two teams each week who challenge each other to answer trivia questions, solve puzzles together, and otherwise compete for the weekly cash prize. The rule is that everyone on each team must be related. In a risky promotional stunt to boost ratings, the game show arranged that the descendants of the Hatfields and the McCoys would rival each other in a week-long series of five shows. The families competed for cash, and—I kid you not—a live pig, which was kept on stage the entire tournament!
The results were potentially disturbing. The McCoys won the series, three games to two, but the Hatfields cleared more money, $11,272 to the McCoys’ winnings of $48,459. To prevent another feud the producers decided to even out the winnings. Do you know what the McCoys did in retaliation?
Nothing… yet. But if history is anything to go by, the story is far from over. Again, I have no idea what happened to the pig.
What I do know is that not even the space of a hundred years is enough to bring peace between feuding families fueled by decades of bad blood.
A LONG STORY OF A FAMILY FEUD
JACOB & ESAU
Obadiah 1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom…
Meet Edom, Israel’s evil twin. Edom was different from other Gentile nations in that God considered them family, albeit a toxic withered limb of the family tree. By the time of Obadiah, God steps in and says it’s time for Edom to be exterminated, but not at the hands of Israelites. The notorious rivalry between Israel and Edom began as a bitter family feud between twin brothers at each other’s throats, literally from before they were born.
God covenanted with Abraham that his descendants would be a mighty nation, that they would occupy the Promised Land of Canaan, and that from his line all the families of the earth would be blessed. We know the Messiah would be a Jewish Savior. So, the line of promise was very important. Abraham’s firstborn was Ishmael, but the promise didn’t apply to him and his descendants, it was passed on to his younger half-brother Isaac. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau, and the promise would go through one of them.
Which son would Isaac choose to bless with the promise? Simple, the firstborn. But…
Gen 25:21 And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 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. 23 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.”
In other words, there was a family feud brewing in Rebekah’s womb.
As the story unfolds it seems at times as if God’s plan is not going smoothly. If God wanted Jacob to be the recipient of the covenant, why wasn’t Jacob born first?
Because God was showing that he was in control of who got the blessing. It was by his election, not just the normal course of events.
You remember the story in Genesis 25:29 – 34 where Esau, in a moment of hunger and weakness, sells his birthright as the firstborn to his younger brother Jacob for some lentil stew. The deal was technically legitimate. There was a verbal contract entered into with consent from, and consideration for, both parties. Jacob gets the birthright; Esau gets some stew. Talk about a raw deal.
But this event was significant. The fact that Esau was willing to even joke about how useless his birthright was showed that he didn’t value the covenant God had made with Abraham and Isaac. That’s a red flag.
But even though the trade was legitimate legally and before God, there was one more obstacle to traverse: dad.
So in Genesis 27, we read that Jacob and his mother conspire to deceive the old and blind Isaac. Isaac prepares a meal and disguises himself as the hairy Esau, and Isaac is deceived into giving him the blessing reserved for the firstborn. When Esau discovers this, we read that he planned to kill Jacob (Genesis 27:41) and so Jacob flees to Haran.
Many years, wives, and children later, their paths cross again. The brothers almost reconcile, but Jacob chickens out (Genesis 33).
Jacob (now called Israel) has twelve sons. They sell Joseph into slavery and he ends up ruling Egypt. A worldwide famine makes the Israelite clan move to Egypt. Joseph eventually dies, the Pharaoh dies, and a new Pharaoh comes to power. He notices the Israelites are taking over Egypt, sprawling over the country and becoming a threat to him. So, he enslaves them. Now we skip the scene, to 400 years later.
ISRAEL & EDOM
The Israelites, under Moses, leave Egypt, they sin by not trusting God and God sentences them to 40 years in the desert. We pick up the story in Numbers 20.
Numbers 20:14 Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardship that we have met: …17 Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or vineyard or drink water from a well. We will go along the King’s Highway. …” 18 But Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.” 19 And the people of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.” 20 But he said, “You shall not pass through.” And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force. 21 Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him.
Because they were close relatives, the Israelites were forbidden to hate the Edomites (Deuteronomy 23:7). However, the Edomites paid no attention to Deuteronomy, considering it not binding on them, so they regularly attacked Israel.
After the Israelites settled in the Promised Land, King Saul repelled the Edomites, and then later King David subjugated them, establishing military outposts in Edom. After the reign of Solomon, the Edomites revolted and had some freedom until they were subdued by the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser, according to Obadiah’s prophecy.
This was not the end of all Edomites, but the beginning of the end. In the 5th century BC, the survivors were exiled from their land by the Nabateans and settled near Judah, where they were again subjugated, this time by a Jew named John Hercanus in 163BC, who forced them to convert to Judaism. These half-Edomite-half-Jews were called the Idumeans. Herod the Great was an Idumean and tried to kill the king of the Jews.
In 70AD the Idumeans finally reconciled with the Jews and helped the Jewish Zealots defend the Temple against the siege of the Roman General, Titus Vespasian. But Titus was victorious, a million people were killed and 100,000 survivors were taken captive. In that one million, the Idumeans were all killed, none were taken, prisoner. There is no mention of Idumeans on the pages of history after that.
Today the land of Edom is called Jordan and its the capital city, Sela, is called Petra.
Edom was not an equal and opposite nation to Israel. Edom was an annoying evil twin that made cameo appearances in certain episodes, only to be killed off by God once and for all.
But, you may ask, why this is important for us?
This is important to know because we need to realize that only God’s people live under his covenant of protection. In the covenant we may experience trials and tribulations, we may undergo consequences of folly and punishment for rebellion, but there is no final condemnation.
The suffering within the covenant is always for our ultimate good. But for the people outside the covenant, the suffering is a warning to repent before it is too late. The prophecy of Obadiah is God getting blunt and direct with a nation that had chosen the wrong side to fight for.
Today God wants us to warn people that if they do not change teams, they face certain defeat.
Author: Cripplegate
