"So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made. He went to his father and said, "My father." "Yes, my son," he answered. "Who is it?" Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing." Isaac asked his son, "How did you find it so quickly, my son?" "The LORD your God gave me success," he replied. Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not." Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. "Are you really my son Esau?" he asked. "I am," he replied. Then he said, "My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing." Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, "Come here, my son, and kiss me." So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, "Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed. May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness – an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and people bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed."
(Genesis 27:14-29)
The game succeeded. Jacob received the blessing that normally would have gone to the firstborn, Esau. Yet, in actuality, that blessing had long ago been transferred to Jacob by divine order.
Recall the LORD's words to Rebekah as recorded in Genesis 25:23 in which He tells her that "the older will serve the younger."
The prophecy had already been spoken directly by the LORD to Rebekah. AND Esau had signed over his birthright to his younger brother. Thus the firstborn's blessing no longer belonged legally to Esau anyway.
Was Isaac ignorant that Esau gave his birthright to Jacob for a pot of beans? Had this somehow been hidden from him by the rest of the family? Was he ignorant of the prophecy spoken to Rebekah by the LORD while the twins were still in her womb? Or did his great love for his elder son, and perhaps the frailty of his faculties at 137 years of age, prompt him to attempt to give that blessing anyway to one who no longer had the right to it?
As to Isaac's faculties, in addition to his blindness, the senses of taste and smell often alters considerably in the elderly. Such must have been the case with Isaac, who though he loved the flavors of the wild game that Esau typically brought to him, believed the goat he was served to be wild game. I have eaten wild game (such as deer, elk and boar) and I have eaten goat…they are not similar. It is hard to imagine that in normal circumstances, even all the spices Rebekah used could distort the flavors enough to deceive one used to the taste of wild game.
But, in this case, it did deceive. Although all was almost lost since Isaac's hearing was still in good shape and he recognized immediately that the voice was that of Jacob and not Esau.
Nevertheless, were the methods of Rebekah and Jacob sanctioned by the LORD? Certainly there would be a price to pay by both of them before it was done.
Or did the LORD actually use Rebekah to thwart Isaac's plan, in order that His Word would be fulfilled instead? Certainly, Rebekah never forgot the words the LORD spoke over her twins. And so she set about to bring those words to pass in her own efforts. Would the LORD have found another way to fulfill His own word without Rebekah's deception? I think so.
The blessing itself spoke of prosperity: the dew of heaven (critical to farming in such arid regions as Isaac's family lived in) and a bounty of harvest provided by the richness of the earth (both grains and wine as vineyards were prevalent in the area as well). And prominence among the nations.
Although Esau himself never comes under Jacob's rule, Jacob's descendants in the generations to come will have prominence over Esau's descendants. And eventually, Jacob's descendants will form their own state, known as Israel.
3 comments:
This story, like so many in the Bible, do not follow our logic. Esau should have received his father's blessing after it was removed from Jacob. An immediate correction was in order. But God allowed the results of men to continue. I wish he had sometimes in order to punish Jacob and set an example. Instead, He let the results continue. God often does not get in the way and let's us make mistakes. Although God still maintained his blessing to Abraham and the nations afterwards. That's why God is in charge.
1 agree that Jacob’s does not go unpunished for his deception, regardless if it was to fulfill God prophecy. I don’t think the ends justified the means in this case. The bible fails to mention that either Rebekah or Jacob ask for God’s guidance in how the transfer of the blessing would be removed from Esau and placed on Jacob. I believe this failure in asking God of his plan, and the deception of Jacob to his father was punished as we will soon see. Soon, Jacob will be on the receiving end of a deceptive game played Laban, the father of the Rachel. I wonder when he discovered the deception of Laban if Jacob remembered what he had done to his brother Esau?
I believe that the Holy Spirit would bring to Jacob's mind his sins of the past, as those sins are revisited upon him by his uncle. The Holy Spirit certainly does that to us, doesn't he? That's how we learn best sometimes.
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