Genesis 25:23 (WEB)
The LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples will be separated from your body. The one people will be stronger than the other people. The elder will serve the younger.”
Fathers and councils · 21
Tertullian
“See how the bowels of Rebecca are disquieted, though her child-bearing is as yet remote, and there is no impulse of (vital) air.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 22, 23.
Read the whole comment“For thus unto Rebecca did God speak: “Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy bowels; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the less.”” — editor's note: See Gen. xxv. 21–23, especially in the LXX.; and comp. Rom. ix. 10–13.
Read the whole comment“…Christian with the elder, and the Jew with the younger son, “according to the analogy of faith,” if the order of each people as intimated from Rebecca’s womb permitted the inversion: only that (in that case) the concluding paragraph would oppose them; for it will be fitting for the Christian to rejoice, and not to…” — editor's note: Comp. Rom. ix. 10–13; Gen. xxv. 21–24.
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Irenaeus of Lyons
“…Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people are in thy body; and the one people shall overcome the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Rom. ix. 10–13; Gen. xxv. 23.
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Jerome
“We are informed that Rebekah went like a prophet to inquire of the Lord, and was told, “Two nations and two peoples are in thy womb,” that Jacob served for his wife, and that when Rachel, thinking it was in the power of her husband to give her…” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment“In Isaac and Rebekah we see an early example of monogamy: it was only to Rebekah that the Lord revealed Himself in the hour of childbirth and she alone went of herself to enquire of the Lord.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 22, 23.
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Hippolytus of Rome
“Rebecca is full of the Holy Spirit, as understanding the word which she heard before she gave birth, “For the elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
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Ambrose of Milan
“…Jacob, who whilst yet hidden in the secret chamber of his mother’s womb supplanted his brother, had not been appointed and ordained, ere ever he was born; let them show that Jeremiah had not likewise been so, before his birth,—Jeremiah, to whom the message comes: “Before I formed thee in thy mother’s womb, I knew…” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
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Augustine of Hippo
“Since “the elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23; Rom. ix. 12.
Read the whole comment“Among all nations is the elder, among all nations the younger; but the younger is in good Christians, elect, godly, faithful; the elder in the proud, unworthy,…” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment““Israel;” the true Jacob, and the true Israel, that younger, to whom the elder was servant, shall himself exult, for he shall himself understand.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment“Let us search more diligently: for perhaps he is saying this, because God hath foreknown men that are to be sinners even in the wombs of their mothers.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23. [Here foreknowledge precedes predestination. See Clement, vol. ii. p. 497, A.N.F.—C.]
Read the whole comment“Therefore the former city is greater by age, because first was born Cain, and afterwards Abel: but in these the elder shall serve the younger.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment“Because ye also belong to Jacob: yea, ye are Jacob, the younger people to which the elder is servant.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment“Thus also in the case of Esau and Jacob, we find the elder worshipped by the younger, though it is written, “The elder shall serve the younger;” so when you see it unfulfilled in those two brothers, you look for two peoples in whom to discover the completion of what God in His truth deigns to promise.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment“For ye know that it was said with this hidden meaning, “That the elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 33, 23.
Read the whole comment“Let us therefore here recognize the two nations, who were striving even in Rebecca’s womb; when it was said to her, not from works, but of Him that calleth, “The elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 22, 23; Rom. ix. 12, 13.
Read the whole comment“And when she was troubled by this struggle, and inquired of the Lord, she received this answer: “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall overcome the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
Read the whole comment“…of Esau, nor the Christian nations but rather the Jews who came of Jacob’s; for the type holds only as regards the saying, “The elder shall serve the younger”), so the same thing happened in Joseph’s two sons; for the elder was a type of the Jews, and the younger of the Christians.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
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Leo the Great
“Behold thou, the greater servest the less, and by the reading of that covenant which thou keepest in the letter only, thou becomest the slave of strangers born, who enter into the lot of thy heritage.” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
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Cyprian of Carthage
“In Genesis: “And the Lord said unto Rebekah, Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy belly; and the one people shall overcome the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.”” — editor's note: Gen. xxv. 23.
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Cross-references · 16
Cited together in Exegetical Fragments §4.
Cited together in Exegetical Fragments §4.
Cited together in Exegetical Fragments §4.
Cited together in The City of God XVI.42.
Cited together in Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews I.20.
Cited together in Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews I.20.
Cited together in A Treatise on the Soul Chapter 26.
Cited together in A Treatise on the Soul Chapter 26.
Cited together in A Treatise on the Soul Chapter 26.
Cited together in A Treatise on the Soul Chapter 26.
Cited together in A Treatise on the Soul Chapter 26.
Cited together in The City of God XVI.35.
Cited together in The City of God XVI.35.
Cited together in The City of God XVI.35.
Cited together in The City of God XVI.35.
Cross-reference given by the World English Bible's translators.