Genesis 33:1-2

"And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost."

What was the reason for Jacob's arrangement of these divisions in his family, divisions that surely separated them in the order of his love for them? Two reasons have been suggested: (1) he did this to provide greater safety for Rachel and Joseph, or (2) he had in mind the order of their being presented to Esau, intending to present them in ascending climactic order. Either reason, or both, might easily have motivated Jacob's action.

"With him four hundred men ..." Previously, we referred to these men as "armed," that being the almost unanimous opinion of scholars, but it should be pointed out that the text does NOT say that. And the widespread notion that Esau was approaching Jacob with a "small army," intent on destroying him, is more consistent with the guilty fears of Jacob than with anything in the Bible.

There is no evidence of this alleged hostility. There is no proof that the four hundred men with Esau were armed. There is every proof that he acted toward his brother with all openness and candor, and with such a forgetfulness of past injuries as none but a great mind could have been capable of.[3]

Despite this, the question persists that, "If they were not armed, what were they for?" They were not herdsmen, because the text makes it clear that they were capable of swifter travel than was Jacob with his flocks. They were not members of Esau's family, or else they would have been introduced as were Jacob's. Could they have been some kind of a "welcoming committee" gathered by Esau to welcome his long absent brother? We are left with the strong suspicion that, after all, they were soldiers.