The very vitals of Rebekah are stirred, though the child is a long way from birth and there is no breath of air. Behold, the twin offspring struggles in the womb of their mother, though there yet is no sign of the two nations. We might regard as prophetic this struggle of the two infants, who are at enmity even before they are born, who show animosity before animation, for their restlessness disturbed their mother. When, however, the womb is opened, their number known and the symbolic implications of their condition made manifest, we see clearly not only the separate souls of those children but even then the beginning of their rivalry.
So therefore also now it is related of Rebekah: “She departed to inquire of the Lord.” As we have said, she should be considered to have departed not by the steps of her feet but by the advances of her mind.You also therefore will be said to have de-parted “to inquire of the Lord” if you have begun to contemplate not those things “which are seen but those which are not seen,” that is, not carnal but spiritual things, not present but future things.
Tear yourself away from your old manner of life and from the fellowship of those with whom you have lived shamefully and notoriously. Associate yourself with honorable and religious actions, when you shall have been searched for among companions of shamefulness and shall never have been found in crowds of the guilty. If so, then it will be said also of you: “He departed to inquire of the Lord.”
So therefore the saints depart not from one place to another but from one life to another, from beginning instructions to more advanced instructions.
“God blessed Isaac,” and Isaac prayed for Rebekah, who was barren. After twenty years God heard him, and she conceived. Her sons struggled together within her womb. She went to inquire of the Lord, and it was told her, “Two nations are in your womb,” that is, the Edomite and Hebrew nations. To whom did she go to inquire? It was to Melchizedek that she went to inquire, as we mentioned above in the genealogy of Melchizedek. She returned quickly because of the pangs that were striking her, and she gave birth to Esau and Jacob.
They were wrestling in the womb of their mother, and it was said to Rebekah, when they were wrestling there, “Two peoples are in your womb.” Two men, two peoples, a good people, an evil people; but still they are wrestling in one womb.How many evil people there are in the church! And one womb carries them until they are separated in the end. And the good shout against the evil, and the evil shout back against the good, and both are wrestling in the bowels of the one.
Almost everyone accepts the fact that blessed Isaac represented a type of the Lord our Savior. Therefore Isaac prefigured Christ and blessed Rebekah the church, because although like the church she remained sterile for a long time, she conceived through the prayer of blessed Isaac and the Lord’s gift. Now the children struggled in her womb, and not tolerating this annoyance, she said, “If this be so, why am I pregnant?” Then the Lord replied to her, “Two nations are in your womb; two peoples shall stem from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” Indeed, as the apostle says, dearly beloved, “All these things happened to them as a type, and they were written for us.” Therefore Rebekah corporally conceived of blessed Isaac, because the church was going to conceive spiritually of Christ. Moreover, just as the two children struggled in Rebekah’s womb, so two peoples continually oppose each other in the church’s womb. If there were only wicked or only good persons, there would be just one people. In the church, so much the worse, good and bad people are found, two peoples struggling as in the womb of the spiritual Rebekah—the humble, indeed, and the proud, chaste and adulterous, meek and irascible, kind and envious, merciful and avaricious.
[AD 220] Tertullian on Genesis 25:22