We have now reached that point in the narrative of Genesis where the patriarchal focus has shifted to Jacob, and we must begin to follow the gradually emerging picture of this third of the patriarchs. He was a complex person, and we will see much in him that we do not like at all. His name Jacob would eventually be changed by God to "Israel," which would become the name of the kingdom that descended from him. That kingdom too was God's chosen instrument, and yet at time behaved in very unattractive ways. So the Bible's picture of Jacob in many ways is an appropriate preview of the nation that bore his name.
What are we to make of this strange behavior on the part of three members of a dysfunctional family: Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob? Esau is perhaps the least problematic, since no one is tempted to make a hero of him, although he does seem to have been victimized. His main fault is that he saw no value in the birthright that he sold to his brother, and therefore portrays the attitude typical of unbelievers in the gospel today: perhaps a fairly decent person, but with no belief in or interest in God. But the others (Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob) will continue to be regarded as founders of God's people Israel. How should we evaluate their behavior here? Is it something to be emulated?
A statement typical of one side of the debate—blaming Rebekah and Jacob, and exonerating Isaac—is the following:
What Jacob did in deceiving his father and thereby cheating Esau out of Isaac’s deathbed blessing is condemned as blameworthy, … indirectly, by the … narrator of the present story, who makes the reader sympathize with Esau as the innocent victim of a cruel plot, and shows that Jacob and his mother, the instigator of the plot, paid for it by a lifelong separation from each other. The story was told because it was part of the mystery of God’s ways in salvation history — his use of weak, sinful people to achieve his own ultimate purpose.
Those who take the opposite view assume that Rebekah had told Isaac of what the Lord had said to her about the two babies in her womb, and despite this, Isaac was trying to outwit God by secretly blessing Esau. Of course, there is no explicit evidence for this assumption in the text. Yet, admittedly both interpretations are possible. But either way, very few of the characters in the story come off looking completely honest.
Without assigning total blame on either side, it is possible to appreciate the consummate literary art of the passage and to see how it adumbrates events in Jacob's and Israel's future. Another author has written:
The chapter, a literary masterpiece, is the third and climactic wresting away of the blessing of Esau. Rebekah manages the entire affair, using perhaps her privileged information about Jacob’s status (25:23); Jacob’s only qualm is that, if his father discovers the ruse, he will receive a curse instead of a blessing (vv. 11-12). Isaac is passive (passivity, see p. ? ) as he was in chaps. 22 and 24. The deception is effected through clothing (Jacob wears Esau’s clothing), which points ahead to a similar deception of a patriarch [this time Jacob himself deceived by his 11 sons] by means of clothing in the Joseph story (37:21-33). Such recurrent acts and scenes let the reader know a [single, relentless] divine purpose is moving the story forward even though the human characters are unaware of it.
27:1-4
When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. 3 Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. 4 Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”
At the outset of the story we are informed that Isaac's has become blind. The ancient rabbis came up with all kinds of imaginative explanations for this blindness: When Isaac was bound on the altar, and his father was about to slaughter him (Gen 22), the heavens opened, and the ministering angels saw and wept, and their tears fell upon Isaac’s eyes. As a result, his eyes became dim (Gen. Rabbah 65:6), or the idolatrous wives [p. ? ] of Esau were making so many sacrifices of animals and incense to their gods that the smoke caused his blindness. On the literary level, his blindness must be mentioned at the outset so that Rebekah's plan makes sense. But behind that, on the level of the actual event itself, Isaac's blindness explains why he chose this time to give the 'final' blessing on his son before he died (v. 2). He saw his blindness as a precursor of his death. He might die at any time, without fulfilling all that was required for the "passing of the torch" to the next generation. Jacob himself would be blind in his final years, when he gave his final blessings to his twelve sons (Gen 48–49).
Isaac's concern to finish preparations for his death parallels Abraham's concern in Gen 23 to provide a family tomb in Hebron for Sarah and eventually himself, and in Gen 24 to secure a bride for his son Isaac, who would be his primary heir. It also suggests that Isaac here regards Esau (not Jacob) as his primary heir. It is possible that at this point Esau has not yet married local girls and embittered his father (26:34–35). We are not told that Rebekah had divulged to him the content of the revelation she received from God (Gen 25:22-23) about that "the older shall serve the younger" (וְרַ֖ב יַעֲבֹ֥ד צָעִֽיר) nor that Jacob had informed him of Esau's oath conveying to him his birthright (Gen 25:27-34), which he finally divulges in angry tears after he discovers that Jacob also has received the blessing. Readers are aware of these events, but the character Isaac may not have been. His possible ignorance of these two matters allows us not to see him as deliberately opposing God's will for Jacob. He can be regarded as doing what in his ignorance he thought was his duty.
27:4
The bit in v. 4 about the delicious wild game (מַטְעַמִּ֜ים כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר אָהַ֛בְתִּי) that would put Isaac in the mood to bless Esau seems crass or even pitiful to us. It should not be required that someone be put in the mood with a dinner of tender venison or pheasant before he can pronounce God's blessing on another, especially since the effectiveness of the blessing lay in the Lord in whose presence it was pronounced. But in partial defense of Isaac, it should be noted that solemn rites of testament in the ancient Near East often involved a meal [BKMK]: and we can see this custom reflected the Lord's last meal with his disciples, on which occasion items of food and drink—bread and wine—were central elements in inaugurating the New Covenant. Later Jewish traditions imagined that the two kids Rebekah had slaughtered for the meal were analogous to the two goats used in the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Lev 16; see in Jewish Encyclopedia and in ISBE).
27:5-17
Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father say to your brother Esau, 7 ‘Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I may bless you before the LORD before I die.’ 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you. 9 Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes; 10 and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” 11 But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. 12 Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.” 13 His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.” 14 So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved. 15 Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; 16 and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.
Rebekah's response to overhearing Isaac's plan reminds us of what we were told in 25:28, that Isaac favored Esau, while Rebekah favored Jacob. The parents were opposed to one another, as were the twin sons. As Kenneth Mathews (391) observes, " Partiality for a child was a recurring feature of all three patriarchal households (e.g., 22:2; 25:28; 37:3-4; 44:20)." Since preferment of a son implied conferral of primacy in the inheritance, when God declares Jesus to be "my beloved (ἀγαπητός) Son" (Mt 3:17; Mk 9:7; 2 Pet 1:17; cf. p. ? ), it expresses his status as the 'preferred Son, the Heir', the "heir of all things" (κληρονόμον πάντων Hebr 1:2), the Crown Prince of Heaven.
Rebekah will now prove that she is more clever than her husband, just as in ch. 25 Jacob proved that he was more clever than Esau. Of course, Rebekah has the advantage over her husband of not being blind, and by deceiving a helpless blind person she may have violated the law of God. Leviticus 19:14 reads "You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am Yahweh." If Rebekah had told Isaac of God's revelation to her during pregnancy, and he did not believe her, this may have been her only recourse. In which case, by deceiving him she was not causing him to stumble, but kept him from doing so. But we have no way of knowing that she had told Isaac. If she didn't, then by choosing this means of securing his blessing on Jacob she was showing that she did not trust or fear the Lord to be able to carry out his promise without her taking advantage of her blind husband. And in Deuteronomy 27:18 the following words appear in a list of curses which the entire people of Israel were to swear: "‘Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen: Let it be so!’" This is probably why Jacob feared to do what Rebekah commanded him to do, lest he be discovered (vv 11-12). Apparently, Rebekah believed that, since she was trying to make the promise of Jacob's primacy come true, no curse from God would befall them, and it would only be Isaac—not God—who would curse them. But surprisingly, Isaac pronounced no curse, when he discovered that his wife and younger son had deceived him. Perhaps this was because he suspected that he had been prevented from blessing the wrong son: that God had worked his will through Rebekah's unkind method.
That Rebekah was a consummate deceiver, we cannot deny. She thought of everything. The meal she prepared from the meat of two young goats apparently was delicious enough to fool Isaac into thinking it was his favorite wild game. And the clothes of Esau which carried a residue of his body odors and the hair goatskins on his hands and the smooth of his neck were enough to simulate Esau's hairy body. One wonders if Esau always smelled like a goat! Jacob, the arch Deceiver, may have inherited his ability to trick people from Rebekah—certainly not from Isaac, who couldn't deceive Abimelech into thinking that Rebekah was his sister (Gen 26:7-11).
27:18-29
So he went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?” 19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.” 20 But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the LORD your God granted me success.” 21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 22 So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23 He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. 24 He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.” 25 Then he said, “Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. 26 Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” 27 So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed. 28 May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. 29 Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”
Isaac is described in the opening verses of the chapter as old, with at least one of his senses having become dull, his vision. But as an old man myself I can testify that he was probably also hard of hearing, which made it easier for Jacob to impersonate Esau's voice. And although Isaac thought his sense of taste was as keen as ever, prompting him to ask for tasty game from Esau, the fact that Rebekah's goat stew could deceive him suggests that he underestimated also the loss of his discriminating taste!
It is remarkable that, when Jacob himself became old, his eyesight deserted him too, but he overcame it in order to reverse the firstborn right of Manasseh and give it to the younger Ephraim (48:9-14).
As if the plan of Rebekah "on paper" already didn't look pretty sleazy, when Jacob actually has to execute it, we see at each turn how blatantly he must lie, even when it seems that his father has recognized him. Three times Isaac essentially asks Jacob, "Are you really my son Esau?" and Jacob must lie three times. It reminds us of Peter's threefold denial of Jesus in the house of the High Priest. That Isaac still has doubts is shown by his words, "The voice is Jacob's but the hairy hands are Esau's." Rebekah's goatskins were working!
After all the plotting of Rebekah and Jacob, and the tense suspense of Isaac's hesitation, they finally win: the blessing is given to Jacob! But when it is all over, just what has Jacob gained in this blessing (27:27-29)? There is precious little in it to recall God's promises to Abraham and Isaac. What do you see that is missing? (1) Nothing about inheriting the land or (2) giving birth to kings or (3) being the channel of God's blessing on the peoples of the Earth. What did it contain? Material prosperity (v 28) and the domination of surrounding peoples (v 29) are all that it contained. See also v. 37.
27:30-40
As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau came in from his hunting. 31 He also prepared savory food, and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.” 32 His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your firstborn son, Esau.” 33 Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, “Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him?—yes, and blessed he shall be!” 34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, me also, father!” 35 But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” 36 Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” 37 Isaac answered Esau, “I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” 38 Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. 39 Then his father Isaac answered him: “See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. 40 By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck.”
In fact, even the "leftover" version given finally to Esau (27:39-40) contains only the same two gifts: (1) although Esau's descendants will not live an agricultural life with all the wealth of the land, they will live by the sword and will gain wealth from the caravan trades passing through their territory in the great north-south trade routes east of the Jordan River (v. 39-40a), and (2) although the Edomites will at times be subservient to the Israelite tribes, they will eventually break free and live independently (v. 40b). Neither the first or the second blessing relate directly to God's covenant with Abraham and Isaac. That will come by God's sovereign grace, without need of a blessing from a duped blind man or tricks from a devious mother. Applications? When we try to manufacture God's 'blessing' by clever advertisements and programs instead of focusing on God's Word and prayer, all that we come up with are the worthless and transient 'successes' that are exemplified here.
Rebekah's plan to capture the blessing for Jacob was no better than Sarah's stratagem in giving Hagar to Abraham. Both women should simply have trusted God to do the seeming impossible: it was God's plan for the older (Esau) to serve (i.e., be secondary in the order of inheritance to) the younger. God could have brought this about without all this chicanery. Isaac's selfish blessing in return for a meal was repaid by the humiliation of being tricked and thinking he was eating venison, when he was actually eating crow! His pseudo-blessing was worthless to both boys. Rebekah and Jacob all needed to learn better, but—alas—most likely they did not. For all her efforts Rebekah only earned the everlasting hatred of her older son, and forced isolation from her favorite for the many years that he fled from Esau and lived in Mesopotamia with Laban. As for Jacob himself, from Laban he acquired two wives, Leah and Rachel, who would bicker and fight constantly [see note 39]. And Jacob would learn the hard way the painful effects of deception. Laban would trick him with the wrong daughter in his bed on the wedding night (29:25; 31:19-42), while he too was blinded by darkness. And his two wives would use him like a chess piece in a bitter rivalry for his sexual affections, actually buying and selling nights with him in bed using for payment items of food (mandrake plants) that their children provided (30:13-17)! Poetic justice. What goes around, comes around. God was accomplishing his promises without help from the competition of brother against brother and husband against wife.
27:41-46
Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” 42 But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. 43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran, 44 and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— 45 until your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send, and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?” 46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the Hethite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hethite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
When you poke at a rattlesnake you have to be ready to run. Esau had been provoked once before when Jacob "bought" his birthright with a plate of lentil stew. But now for the second time he had cheated him out of the blessing of his father. This was enough to spawn a murderous plan by Esau which he would delay until after his aged father had died. What good would a birthright and a blessing be to a dead Jacob? Rebekah naively thinks that "a little while" (יָמִ֣ים v 44) will be all that Jacob will need to stay in distant Harran with her brother Laban. To her credit, when she asks the boys "Why should I be bereaved of you both on the same day?" she seems to realize that by Esau killing Jacob, he would be executed as a murderer, leaving her without any son at all. After losing the blessing to Jacob, Esau took wives from the local population (26:34-35)—the Hethites were a subdivision of the Canaanites—which made Rebekah fear that Jacob might do the same. So she sent him to her homeland, just as Abraham had sent his servant to get Rebekah for Isaac.
We have been confronted by a very dark picture of a family that God had chosen to be the channel of his blessing and salvation to the nations of the earth It cannot help but be somewhat depressing. But are there lessons for us to take away from this reading that are positive and helpful?
Applications
• Promises are promises: they only require action on the recipient's part, if the one who promises indicates a need for cooperation.
• Being clever is not the same thing as being godly.
• If you hurt or humiliate another person, expect that God may give you a taste of your own medicine.
• Expect God to surprise you in the way He fulfills his promises.
• What hardships God send to you to test or to discipline you are meant to lead you to repentance and to bless you in the end.
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