Jamin Bradley

The poor relationship between Denethor and Faramir in The Lord of the Rings is startling. How could a father so deeply care for one son while despising the other so much? Clearly, Tolkien was overplaying his hand here while trying to create drama for his story.

Except we’ve read this story before, for Jacob’s family is one big mess when it comes to playing favorites. His parents played favorites, and he played favorites. When Jacob introduced his family to Esau, he organized them in order of his favorite wives and their children (possibly to give his favorite family members a chance to run if Esau ended up being murderous). When his favorite wife gave birth to his favorite two children, he decked one of them out with prestigious clothing to mark their importance.

That favorite child didn’t help the situation by tattling on his brothers and sharing his dreams of grandeur and destiny with them, as though he was playing right into the favoritism and lording it over them. His brothers hated this younger brother for all of these reasons, and they eventually turned on him. Just as they had murdered in the past, they decided to murder again—though the plan evolved along the way.

Jacob’s family suffered deeply from the generational sin of favoritism as his relationships were one big chaotic mess, leading his children to do some very messed up and very dark things. Without saying it directly, the Bible is often clear about the faults of Biblical characters, so we will learn what not to do. It’s important to notice this, or we will take away the opposite lesson when we read such stories—and people do this all the time, especially with the Old Testament.