“But I will strip Esau bare;
    I will uncover his hiding places,
    so that he cannot conceal himself…”
Jeremiah 49:10a (NIV)

If you’ve followed my writing or my social media posts for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m my family’s resident historian. In fact, right next to my desk is a stack of letters, photographs, and ephemera that my dad gave me. They were keepsakes my mother had in her possession when she died a few months ago.

Family is an interesting thing, and what’s ironic in my self-appointed role of family historian is that neither my maternal nor paternal families are particularly close. I can at least say that my maternal family has had a number of reunions that I can remember over the years, though it’s been quite a while since the last one. My paternal family has never had a reunion. Were it not for Facebook, I’d probably not have any meaningful connection to them.

“Blood is thicker than water” is the idiom we use to express the importance of family over everything else in life. But I’ve equally observed that bad blood runs deep. Along my life journey, I have observed a number of families in which bad blood ran so deep that it divided siblings and cousins for generations until no one knew why their family was so distant and never spoke to one another.

Today’s chapter is the continuation of short, one-off prophetic messages that the prophet Jeremiah gave during his career. There are five short messages in today’s chapter aimed at small towns and people groups in the region. The one that resonated with me as I read it was God’s message to the Edomites, whom the prophet refers to as “Esau.”

The Edomites were descendants of Isaac’s son, Esau, who was also known as Edom.

The Israelites were descendants of Isaac’s son, Jacob, who became known as Israel.

Jacob and Esau were brothers. They were twin brothers. Their story is told all the way back in Genesis. Esau foolishly sold his birthright as the eldest male child to his younger twin brother for some soup. Jacob then deceived his own dying father to give him the blessing of the eldest child. Esau fled to the east of the Dead Sea and took up residence in a mountainous region known for it’s cliffs and caves.

Today’s chapter and Jeremiah’s message takes place about a thousand years later. The descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob have been feuding for a millenium.

Bad blood runs deep.

That simple fact is what I found myself mulling over in the quiet this morning. It’s tragic when family become sworn enemies. It’s even more tragic when later generations continue feuding after the original grievances are long-since forgotten.

When Jesus said that His followers were to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, there was no exemption made for feuding family members. Bad blood may very well make them the most difficult enemies to forgive, love, and bless.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.