Isaac Blesses Jacob

Genesis 27 begins in an old man's tent. Isaac is “old and his eyes were so dim that he could not see” (27:1), and he thinks he may die soon. Isaac's plan. He calls Esau and asks for “savory food, such as I love,” and then “my soul may bless you before I die” (27:4). It is a private plan. Isaac does not call Jacob, and he does not seem to remember what God said before the twins were born: “the older shall serve the younger” (25:23). His favorite son and his favorite food are steering him. Rebekah's plan. She overhears, and she does not go to Isaac or to God. She makes a plan of her own: two young goats, Esau's best clothes, goat skins on Jacob's hands and neck (27:9, 15-16). She may have believed God's promise, but she does not trust God to keep it His way. Jacob's worry. Jacob's only objection is practical: “Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him” (27:12). He is afraid of being caught, not of doing wrong. And Rebekah answers, “Let your curse be on me, my son” (27:13). It is a terrible promise for a mother to make, and one she cannot really keep.

In 27:1-17 two people make two plans, and neither one asks the Lord. Isaac's blessing. In the ancient world the blessing of a dying father was a serious word that could not be taken back, and Isaac means it for Esau. He asks for game “that my soul may bless you before I die” (27:4). Isaac should have known better. God had said the older would serve the younger (25:23); Esau had sold the birthright (25:33); and Esau's Hittite marriages had been “a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah” (26:34-35). Once again Isaac's appetite is leading him, just as in 25:28. Rebekah's plan. Rebekah has God's promise on her side, but she reaches for it by deceit. Three times she tells Jacob, “obey my voice” (27:8, 13, 43). Her costume turns the twins upside down from 25:25-27: smooth Jacob is made hairy, and the man of the tents is dressed in the hunter's clothes. Jacob's worry. In 27:12 Jacob says, “I shall seem to be a deceiver (metaate'a, say: meh-tah-teh-AH, one who mocks or deceives) to him; and I shall bring a curse on myself.” He is worried about being caught, not about doing wrong. Rebekah's reply, “Let your curse be on me,” is a vow she has no power to keep. Before the chapter is over, every one of them will pay for the lie.

This family had two secret plans. Isaac's plan was to bless Esau. But God had already said Jacob would lead. And Esau had sold his rights for stew. Isaac seemed to forget all that. Rebekah's plan was a trick. She wanted Jacob to get the blessing by lying. Jacob was only worried about one thing. He did not say, “That would be wrong.” He said, “What if I get caught?” Nobody in this family stopped to pray. Nobody asked God what was right. When we have a big choice, we can stop and pray first. God is always ready to help us.

Isaac made a plan to bless Esau. Rebekah made a sneaky plan for Jacob. Nobody asked God what to do.

When Jacob walks in, Isaac asks a simple question that matters more than he knows: “Who are you, my son?” (27:18). Three lies. “I am Esau your firstborn” (27:19). Then, asked how he found the game so fast: “Because the Lord your God brought it to me” (27:20). Then, asked again, “Are you really my son Esau?” — “I am” (27:24). The second lie is the worst. Jacob uses God's name to cover his deceit. Isaac is uneasy. “The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau” (27:22). Isaac's ears tell the truth; his hands and his nose are fooled. He feels the goat skins and smells Esau's clothes. One lie needs a disguise, and the disguise needs more lies. The blessing. Isaac blesses him with “the dew of heaven” and “the fatness of the earth,” and with rule: “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you” (27:28-29). The last line repeats God's promise to Abraham: “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be those who bless you” (compare 12:3). Jacob receives exactly what God had promised. But he gets it in the worst possible way, and it will cost him dearly.

In 27:18-29 the big question is who Jacob really is. “Who are you, my son?” (27:18). Jacob answers with his brother's name. Much later, at the Jabbok, the One who wrestles with him will ask, “What is your name?” and Jacob will have to answer truthfully (32:27). God was patiently bringing Jacob to the place where he would stop pretending. Deceit with God's name. “Because the LORD your God brought it to me” (27:20) is the first time Jacob speaks of the LORD, and he does it in a lie. He says “your God”: Jacob does not yet speak of the LORD as his own. Isaac's senses. Isaac cannot see (27:1); he hears Jacob's voice (27:22); he feels the skins (27:23); he smells the field on Esau's garments (27:27). Only his hearing told him the truth, and he ignored it. The blessing itself. 27:28-29 is poetry. It promises good harvests (“dew of heaven… fatness of the earth… grain and wine”) and leadership (“be master over your brethren”). The last lines repeat God's promise to Abraham from 12:3. Hebrews 11:20 says “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.” Isaac's words really did carry God's promise forward, but that does not make Jacob's lies right.

Isaac asked a simple question. “Who are you, my son?” And Jacob lied. “I am Esau,” he said. Then he lied again, and used God's name! “The Lord your God helped me find it.” Isaac was not sure. “The voice sounds like Jacob,” he said. But the hairy hands fooled him. So Isaac blessed Jacob. One lie led to another, and another. That is what lies often do. Jacob got the blessing. But he got it in a wrong way. God did not need Jacob to lie. God had already promised to bless him.

Jacob told his dad, “I am Esau.” That was a lie. He even used God's name in his lie. Isaac was tricked and blessed Jacob.

“Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father” when Esau comes in (27:30). He missed his brother by only a moment. Isaac trembles. When Esau says, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau,” Isaac “trembled exceedingly” (27:33). Then he says something surprising: “I have blessed him — and indeed he shall be blessed.” Isaac does not try to take it back. Perhaps at last he sees that God's word in 25:23 has come true, in spite of his own plan. Esau's cry. “He cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me — me also, O my father!’” (27:34). Then: “Have you only one blessing, my father?” (27:38). Esau's grief was real, and it is right to feel sad for him. A lie always hurts somebody. Esau's blessing. Isaac gives him a harder word: he will live “by your sword,” serve his brother, and one day “break his yoke from your neck” (27:40). Edom did later throw off Judah's rule (2 Kings 8:20). Esau's complaint. “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times” (27:36). He is partly right and partly not. Jacob did trick him today. But Esau sold the birthright himself.

In 27:30-40 we see how deeply the lie hurt Esau. The trembling. The Hebrew charadah gedolah (say: khah-rah-DAH geh-doh-LAH) means a great trembling: literally “Isaac trembled a great trembling, exceedingly” (27:33). This was more than surprise. When Isaac says “and indeed he shall be blessed,” he seems to see that God's word in 25:23 has come to pass, and he gives in to it. Esau's cry. 27:34 and 27:38 are some of the saddest words in Genesis: “an exceedingly great and bitter cry,” and Esau “lifted up his voice and wept.” Hebrews 12:17 remembers these tears. Esau had treated the birthright lightly, but his pain here was real. A play on Jacob's name. 27:36 plays on Ya'aqov and the verb aqav, to overreach or supplant: “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times.” Esau also plays on bekorah (birthright) and berakah (blessing). Esau's blessing (27:39-40). The Hebrew word min can mean “of” or “away from,” so the line can be translated two ways: NKJV has “of the fatness of the earth,” the ICB “far away from the best land.” Either way it is a lesser word: “By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother,” with the promise that Edom will one day “break his yoke” (fulfilled in 2 Kings 8:20-22).

Jacob had only just gone out. Then Esau came in with his food. “Who are you?” asked Isaac. When Esau said his name, Isaac shook all over. He knew what had happened. But Isaac did not take the blessing back. “He will stay blessed,” he said. Esau cried a loud and bitter cry. “Bless me too, Father!” His heart was broken. Isaac gave him a smaller blessing. It is right to feel sorry for Esau here. Esau had made a bad choice with the stew. But now he had been tricked by his own brother. Lies always hurt somebody, sooner or later.

Then the real Esau came in. Isaac shook all over. Esau cried, “Bless me too, Father!” He was very sad.

By the end of the chapter, the family is broken. Esau's hatred. “Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing… and Esau said in his heart, ‘The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob’” (27:41). A family that started with favorites now has a brother planning murder. 1 John 3:15 says, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.” Anger like Esau's grows when it is fed. Rebekah's last plan. She tells Jacob to “flee to my brother Laban in Haran” and stay “a few days, until your brother's fury turns away” (27:43-44). She hopes to “send and bring you from there.” But Jacob will be away for twenty years (31:41). As far as Genesis tells us, Rebekah never saw her son again. The cost of a lie. Jacob gets the blessing and loses his home. Rebekah gets her way and loses her son. Isaac's plan fails, and Esau is left bitter. Later Jacob himself will be tricked by Laban (29:25). “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). And yet God. “There are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless the Lord's counsel — that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21). God did not need the lie. But He did not abandon His promise because of it. In the next chapter, He meets Jacob on the road.

In 27:41-45 the family is broken apart. Hatred. 27:41 uses satam (say: sah-TAHM), “to bear a grudge, to hold hostility.” Esau's plan waits only for “the days of mourning for my father,” and Isaac in fact lives on for many years (35:28-29). 1 John 3:15 teaches that hatred in the heart is murder in God's eyes. Rebekah's “few days.” Yamim achadim (27:44), “some days,” becomes twenty years (31:41). Her cry, “Why should I be bereaved also of you both in one day?” (27:45), shows she feared losing Jacob to murder and Esau to judgment or flight. Genesis never tells of her seeing Jacob again: it mentions only her nurse's death (35:8) and her burial (49:31). The deceiver deceived. Years later Laban gives Jacob the older daughter instead of the younger in the dark (29:23-25). Then Laban says, “It must not be done so in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn” (29:26), and Jacob feels what he once did to Esau. Galatians 6:7 states the principle. God's plan still stands. Proverbs 19:21 says human plans are many, “nevertheless the Lord's counsel — that will stand.” God's purpose from 25:23 came true, but God never approved the lie. At Bethel God Himself confirms the blessing to Jacob (28:13-15), with no disguise at all.

Esau was full of hate now. He planned to kill Jacob after Isaac died. Rebekah heard about it. She told Jacob to run to her brother Laban. “Stay a few days,” she said. But it was not a few days. Jacob was gone for twenty years. The Bible never shows Rebekah seeing Jacob again. The lie cost everyone something. Jacob lost his home. Rebekah lost her son. Esau lost his brother. But God did not leave Jacob. God still kept His promise.

Esau was so angry he wanted to kill Jacob. Jacob had to run far away from home. Lies hurt the whole family.