He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. — Genesis 32:13-15
Jacob sent gifts of cattle to his brother Esau in hopes of appeasing him so that Esau would no longer seek revenge. The number of animals that Jacob ended up giving to Esau was exactly ten percent of all that he had. This was no accident—in fact, those animals did not really belong to Jacob anyway.
When Jacob left his father’s home, he pledged to give ten percent of his earnings to God (Genesis 28:22). However, Jacob had not followed through. Now, instead of giving away his earnings to God for helping others, Jacob ended up losing his property to Esau—a far less attractive cause!
We all know that we should be charitable and share our earnings with others. But that’s not always so easy to do. The typical thinking goes, “It’s our money, after all. We should use it to help ourselves.” But God reminds us otherwise: “The silver is mine and the gold is mine” (Haggai 2:8). Nothing that we have actually belongs to us; rather everything belongs to God, Who gives to us graciously and expects us share with others.
Indeed, knowing who the true owner is makes all the difference!
