27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau his older son and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Behold, 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 and prepare for me delicious food, such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.”
5 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 speak to your brother Esau, 7 ‘Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.’ 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. 9 Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. 10 And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” 11 But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. 12 Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” 13 His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me.”
14 So he went and took them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious food, such as his father loved. 15 Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. 16 And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.
18 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, that your soul 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, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 22 So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23 And 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 near to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it near 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 Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said,
“ See, the smell of my son
is as 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!”
30 As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting. 31 He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me.” 32 His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” 33 Then Isaac trembled very 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 he shall be blessed.” 34 As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my 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?1 For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” 37 Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for 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 but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.
39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him:
“ Behold, away from2 the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be,
and away from3 the dew of heaven on high.
40 By your sword you shall live,
and you shall serve your brother;
but when you grow restless
you shall break his yoke from your neck.”
41 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 Esau her older son were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said to him, “Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. 43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban my brother in Haran 44 and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— 45 until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day?”
46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I loathe my life because of the Hittite women.4 If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
28 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. 2 Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. 3 God Almighty5 bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” 5 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.
6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, 9 Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.
Section Overview
Jacob was promised the Abrahamic blessing while still in the womb (25:23), just as Abram was promised offspring and a land before leaving Ur of the Chaldeans (12:2). However, both men found it hard to wait over a lengthy period for what God had promised to give them, and both fell into the temptation to attempt to seize through their own efforts what God had promised (chs. 16; 27). Indeed, both found that the source of such temptation came from within their own families: in Abraham’s case from his wife, Sarah (16:2), and in Jacob’s case from his mother, Rebekah (27:6–10). Both found that these “shortcuts” resulted in years of pain and family brokenness. Trusting God is hard, but failing to trust God is even harder.
At the core of this chapter is a family in which each member is going his own way, without reference to God. Isaac seeks to pass on the family blessing to the eldest son, his personal favorite, Esau, while Rebekah endeavors to ensure it will go to the youngest, her favorite, Jacob. Rebekah has God’s oracle to support her (25:23), but the method she chooses is the opposite of godly honesty. Esau does not care about the spiritual dimensions of his birthright, which he earlier had been willing to trade away for a mess of pottage (25:29–34). Meanwhile, Jacob’s only concern over his mother’s plan is his fear that the deception might be discovered by his father and earn a curse rather than a blessing (27:11). It is clear that God can accomplish his holy purposes by using not merely unholy people but even the unholy actions of those he has chosen.354
The narrative comprises contrasting scenes that highlight the transition that takes place within it. The blessing story begins and ends with a scene involving Isaac and Esau, in which the blessing is promised and ultimately not delivered (vv. 1–4, 30–40). In between are scenes involving first Rebekah and Jacob (vv. 5–17) and then Isaac and Jacob (vv. 18–29), in which Jacob literarily and literally supplants Esau. Finally, after a scene involving all four members of the family (vv. 41–46), in another scene between Isaac and Jacob the latter finally receives his father’s blessing honestly, without further dissembling (28:1–5).
Section Outline
IX. The Family History of Isaac (25:19–35:29) . . .
C. Jacob Steals the Blessing (27:1–28:9)
Response
Genesis 27 paints a tragic picture of a family at war with itself. No one comes out of this chapter with any credit, and the “life lessons” are mostly negative ones. Yet Isaac, for all his sinful motivation in seeking to pass the blessing on to his favorite son, is still commended in Hebrews 11:20 for his faith in blessing Jacob. That may seem strange, since Isaac sought to counteract the revealed will of God and bless his other son. Yet, although Isaac’s faith was mistaken in its direction, it was well founded in its heart. Isaac believed God’s word that one day the promise given to Abraham would bear fruit in the lives of his descendants; it is in those terms that he gave his blessing.
That was no small faith on Isaac’s part, especially when you consider how little progress toward that goal had been made in his lifetime. Many years had passed since the death of Abraham, and to human eyes Isaac seemed as far from possessing the promised blessing as his father had been. In light of the promise of numerous descendants, two children in place of one is not much progress, especially when one of them has no interest in the spiritual dimensions of the promise. The land was as firmly under the control of the Philistines and Canaanites as ever. However, although the visible horizon was empty, Isaac still had his spiritual eyes fixed firmly on the city to come, and so he blessed Jacob by faith.
Yet the negative lessons of this passage are perhaps stronger. Once again in Genesis, we see the real and devastating consequences of human sin. Sin does not pay, even when it gives what you thought you wanted. The sins of all the participants in this drama would come back to haunt this family for the rest of their lives, especially Rebekah and Jacob. Rebekah’s plan might have won the blessing for her favorite son, but it also resulted in his exile from their home forever. As far as we know, Rebekah never saw Jacob again after his enforced departure from the family. What is more, Jacob might have been blessed by his father with every material blessing, but he soon found himself leaving home with nothing other than the clothes he wore and the staff he carried. It would be a long, hard road before Isaac’s words of blessing over Jacob saw any fulfillment. In the meantime, Jacob would find out from his own experience what it was like to be deceived, and he would return a humbled, chastened man.
Despite sin upon sin by the patriarchs—and the bitter fruits that such sin brought in its wake—God’s purposes to bless his people were nonetheless secure. God would bring his promised Redeemer, not from a perfect family but from a long line of sinners. This Redeemer was also to be found dressed in clothes that were not his, but in the case of Jesus the clothing he wore at the climactic moment of his life was not the stolen finery of Esau but a purple robe on loan from the Roman soldiers (Mark 15:17–18), followed by a shroud borrowed from Joseph of Arimathea (Matt. 27:57–59). Jesus took that path not in order to steal someone else’s blessing for himself but rather to take upon himself our curse. In the most remarkable reversal of all Jesus graciously says to us what Rebekah rashly said to her son: “Let your curse be on me” (Gen. 27:13).
The words Rebekah said so carelessly Jesus said to us knowing the full depths of what he was saying. The curse that you and I earn for ourselves every day by our many sins was laid upon him, so that the Father’s blessing that was rightfully his might be given to us, his undeserving people. Jesus wore the shroud of the cursed death that we deserved so that we might be clothed lawfully in our elder brother’s garments, the spotless robes of Christ’s righteousness, and be welcomed to receive the Father’s blessing as his beloved children.Genesis 27:1–28:9