Rebekah Plans To Cheat Isaac. So now, my son, listen [carefully] to me [and do exactly] as I command you.
Go now to the flock and bring me two good and suitable young goats, and I will make them into a savory dish [of meat] for your father, the kind he loves [to eat].
Then you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before his death.” Gen 27:8-10
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
47. How was the aged patriarch deceived in his own house-hold?
ISAAC BLESSES JACOB
Now when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his elder [and favorite] son Esau and said to him, “My son.” And Esau answered him, “Here I am.”
Isaac said, “See here, I am old; I do not know when I may die.
So now, please take your [hunting] gear, your quiver [of arrows] and your bow, and go out into the open country and hunt game for me;
and make me a savory and delicious dish [of meat], the kind I love, and bring it to me to eat, so that my soul may bless you [as my firstborn son] before I die.”
But Rebekah overheard what Isaac said to Esau his son; and when Esau had gone to the open country to hunt for game that he might bring back,
Rebekah said to Jacob her [younger and favorite] son, “Listen carefully: I heard your father saying to Esau your brother,
‘Bring me some game and make me a savory and delicious dish [of meat], so that I may eat it, and declare my blessing on you in the presence of the LORD before my death.’
So now, my son, listen [carefully] to me [and do exactly] as I command you.
Go now to the flock and bring me two good and suitable young goats, and I will make them into a savory dish [of meat] for your father, the kind he loves [to eat].
Then you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before his death.”
Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Listen, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth [skinned] man.
Suppose my father touches me and feels my skin; then I will be seen by him as a cheat (imposter), and I will bring his curse on me and not a blessing.”
But his mother said to him, “May your curse be on me, my son; only listen and obey me, and go, bring the young goats to me.”
So Jacob went and got the two young goats, and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared a delicious dish of food [with a delightful aroma], the kind his father loved [to eat].
Then Rebekah took her elder son Esau’s best clothes, which were with her in her house, and put them on Jacob her younger son.
And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.
Then she gave her son Jacob the delicious meat and the bread which she had prepared.
REBEKAH PLANS TO CHEAT ISAAC
This chapter narrates a sad story of the chosen family. Esau is the only character which elicits universal sympathy. Isaac appears to have sunk into premature senility. It seems hardly credible that he who had borne the wood for the offering up Mount Moriah, and had yielded himself so absolutely to the divine will, would have become so keen an epicure. He could only be reached now through the senses. Perhaps this was due to the prosperity and even tenor of his life. It is better, after all, to live the strenuous life, with its uphill climb, than to be lapped in the ease of the valley. The birthright had been already promised to Jacob, and there was no need for him to win it by fraud; and Rebekah was truly blameworthy in that she deceived her husband, showed partiality toward her children, and acted unworthily of herself. Who would have expected that out of such a family God was about to produce the religious leaders of the world! Pharaoh would one day crave a blessing from those kid-lined hands!
Comments by
WILLIAM MACDONALD
Believers Bible Commentary
On
Genesis 27:1-17
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. . . .
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