Go now to the flock, and fetch me from there two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savory food for your father, such as he loves:
Read Chapter 27
Hippolytus of Rome
AD 235
On the one hand, Rebekah, who bears the image of the church, already prefigures the future events that would be accomplished through her younger son. She says to him, “Go to the pasture of the sheep, and fetch me from there two small, tender and beautiful young goats.” Esau is sent to the plain as if he lived abroad in the world; but Jacob is sent [to the pasture] of the sheep, in order that the words of the Lord, “I have been sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” might come true. On the other hand, by saying, “Fetch me from there two small, tender and beautiful young goats,” she signified the two calls that appear to have been addressed by the Gospel. In fact, even though we are originally goats, because we are all sinners, through obedience we become tender and beautiful, justified by faith in Christ. No more [are we] like condemned goats but like sheep in pure sacrifice, in “sweet savor,” offered to God and made nourishment for the Word, who gives similes their full accomplishment by saying to his disciples, “I have food to eat that you do not know.”
