Jacob Gets Esau’s Blessing. So he went to his father and said, “My father.” And Isaac said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”
Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done what you told me to do. Now please, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.” Gen 27:18-19
INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
II. GOD AND THE CHOSEN FAMILY, Genesis 12-50
2. The History of Isaac and Jacob, Genesis 25:19-35:29
48. How did the spoken lie follow the acted one?
ISAAC BLESSES JACOB
So he (Jacob) went to his father and said, “My father.” And Isaac said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”
Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done what you told me to do. Now please, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.”
Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found the game so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the LORD your God caused it to come to me.”
But Isaac [wondered and] said to Jacob, “Please come close [to me] so that I may touch you, my son, and determine if you are really my son Esau or not.”
So Jacob approached Isaac, and his father touched him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”
He could not recognize him [as Jacob], because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him.
But he said, “Are you really my son Esau?” Jacob answered, “I am.”
Then Isaac said, “Bring the food to me, and I will eat some of my son’s game, so that I may bless you.” He brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine and he drank.
Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come, my son, and kiss me.”
So he came and kissed him; and Isaac smelled his clothing and blessed him and said, “The scent of my son [Esau] Is like the aroma of a field which the LORD has blessed;
Now may God give you of the dew of heaven [to water your land], And of the fatness (fertility) of the earth, And an abundance of grain and new wine; [Gen_27:39; Deu_33:13, Deu_33:28]
May peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you; Be lord and master over your brothers, And may your mother’s sons bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, And may those who bless you be blessed.”
JACOB GETS ESAU’S BLESSING
It is better not to attempt to justify Jacob in this act of treachery; but we may learn the deep and helpful lesson, that if God were able to make a saint out of such material as this, He also can take our poor lives with all their sin and failure and make something of them for His glory. Notice how one lie led to another! Few who enter on a course of deception stop at one falsehood; and how terrible it was to add blasphemy to lying, as when he said that God brought him his quarry in the hunt. Luther wonders how Jacob was able to brazen it out, adding, “I should probably have run away in terror and let the dish fall.” Rebekah kept her son’s garments well perfumed with the aromatic plants of Palestine, and their odor awoke the sleeping poetry and fire of the aged father. He compared them to a field of Paradise, filled with the sweet presence of God. Let us see to it that we carry everywhere the fragrance of Christ. See 2Co_2:15.
Comments by
WILLIAM MACDONALD
Believers Bible Commentary
On
Genesis 27:18-29
II. THE PATRIARCHS OF ISRAEL (Chaps. 12-50)
C. Jacob (27:1–36:43)
1. Jacob Cheats Esau (Chap. 27)
27:1-22 Approximately thirty-seven years have passed since the events of the previous chapter. Isaac is now 137, his sight has failed, and he thinks he is about to die, perhaps because his brother Ishmael had died at that age (Gen_25:17). But he will live forty-three more years.
When Isaac craved some venison from Esau, promising a blessing in return, Rebekah plotted to deceive her husband and to get the blessing for Jacob, whom she loved. Her trickery was unnecessary because God had already promised the blessing to Jacob (Gen_25:23 b). She cooked goat’s meat so that it tasted like savory venison, and put the goat’s skins on Jacob’s arms to impersonate the hairy Esau. Isaac made the mistake of trusting his feelings; the hairy arm “felt” like Esau’s. We should not trust our emotional feelings in spiritual matters. As Martin Luther observed:
Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving;
Our warrant is the Word of God; naught else is worth believing.
Although Rebekah planned the deception, Jacob was equally guilty for carrying it out. And he reaped what he sowed. C. H. Mackintosh observed that:
. . . whoever observes Jacob’s life, after he had surreptitiously obtained his father’s blessing, will perceive that he enjoyed very little worldly felicity. His brother sought to murder him, to avoid which he was forced to flee from his father’s house; his uncle Laban deceived him. . . . He was obliged to leave him in a clandestine manner. . . . He experienced the baseness of his son Reuben . . . the treachery and cruelty of Simeon and Levi towards the Shechemites; then he had to feel the loss of his beloved wife . . . the supposed untimely end of Joseph; and to complete all, he was forced by famine to go into Egypt, and there died in a strange land. . . .
27:23-29 Isaac blessed Jacob with prosperity, dominion, and protection. It is interesting that the blessings spoken by the patriarchs were prophetic; they came to pass literally because, in a real sense, these men spoke by inspiration.
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