Genesis 27

         Verses 1-4: Isaac is now 137 years old and has gone blind. He decides that it’s time to pass on his blessing and birthright to Esau because he doesn’t know how mnay years he has left. He calls Esau into his tent and tells his oldest son that he’s ready to bestow upon him his birthright. But first Isaac asks Esau to take his bow and arrow and go hunt some wild game. Isaac wants Esau to prepare him some venison before he blesses him. Either Isaac is unaware that Esau had already traded away his birthright, or he is simply ignoring that past transgression. Not only that, given what we were told about how much Esau’s polygamous marriage to the Hittite women troubled his parents in the last verse of chapter 26, it seems especially odd here that Isaac still favors his eldest son so much that he’s willing to bestow his birthright upon him.
 
        Verses 5-17: Rebekah overhears the conversation between Isaac and Esau. Rather than trust God regarding His prophecy to her while she was pregnant (Genesis 25:23) Rebekah instead hatches a plot to deceive her husband into giving his birthright to Jacob instead. Just like Sarah, Rebekah was unwilling to wait on the Lord and have faith in His timing. She tells Jacob what she overheard and then orders him to fetch a pair of young goats which she then kills and prepares in a stew. When Jacob protests that his father will insist on touching his son’s arms and neck to make sure that it’s Esau he’s speaking to, Rebekah assures him that she’s already taken that into account and to just do as she commands.
        So Jacob obeys. Rebekah takes the goat skins, as well as Esau’s clothes, and dresses Jacob. She then gives him the bowl of stew and sends him into Isaac’s tent.
 
       Verses 18-27: Jacob goes before his father, and Isaac asks to now which son he is speaking to. Jacob says he is Esau, and that he has brought his father the venison he asked for. He bids Isaac to rise and eat and then bless him. Isaac is surprised that Esau has returned from the field so quickly and says so. “How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son?” (v.20) Jacob replies, “Because the LORD thy God brought it to me.” Isaac, still skeptical because he knows the voice is not Esau’s, asks Jacob to come closer so that he may feel and smell him. Jacob obeys and Isaac gropes his arms and neck, feeling the goat hair that Rebekah placed on Jacob. He even asks Jacob to lean down and kiss him so that Isaac might be close enough to smell whether or not it’s really Esau. Isaac recognizes the scent of Esau’s clothes that Rebekah put on Jacob. (v.27) Despite the voice not belonging to his eldest son, Isaac decides that he is, in fact, speaking with Esau, and so he takes the stew and eats it. He then blesses Jacob and pronounces upon him the birthright.
 
       Verses 28-29: “Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.” (Cross references for these verses: Genesis 47:27, Exodus 6:8, Deuteronomy 7:13, 33:28, Isaiah 45:14, 49:7, 60:12,14, Zephaniah 2:8-9, Hebrews 11:20)
       Notice that while every word of this blessing came true for Jacob and all his seed in the next several hundred years, this prophecy has yet to be truly, completely fulfilled for all of Israel. Only at the end of the tribulation, when Christ returns to establish His millennial kingdom here on earth, will God’s promise – spoken through Isaac – finally be fulfilled.
         As I do a close reading of verses 18-29, I have to wonder if Isaac actually knew, in fact, whom he was blessing? I’m just speculating – and I could be wrong – but I wonder if perhaps Isaac did, in fact, favor Jacob after all, and knew of Jacob’s earlier bargain with his older brother. If that were true, and given what we know of Isaac’s displeasure of Esau’s recent marriages to heathen women, it would make sense that Isaac would be reluctant to bless a son who had so carelessly forsaken his favored status as the eldest as well as the God in whom Isaac and Abraham had put so much faith and trust. Did Isaac know Rebekah was listening nearby? If he knew his wife as well as many husbands often do, he knew exactly what she would do, and thus, Isaac could have blessed Jacob while simultaneously absolving himself of any blame for the fallout. Once Esau learned of the deception, he would naturally be wroth with Jacob and not Isaac – which, of course, is exactly what happened.
         Surely Isaac would not have been so easily fooled by some goat hair and the scent of clothes, especially since he knew it was Jacob’s voice and not Esau’s. (v.22) But, then again, maybe his hearing was also not so good, and it’s also possible that Isaac wanted to bless Esau anyway, despite his lack of good judgment and his polygamous marriages. I also wonder if Rebekah had ever told Isaac of God’s prophecy to her regarding Esau and Jacob. If so, perhaps Isaac really did know exactly whom he was blessing, and he thought he was doing God’s will.
 
        Verses 30-40: No sooner has Jacob left his father’s tent than Esau comes in with a bowl of savory meat. He bids Isaac to arise and eat so that he might bless him. Isaac, of course, is confused and asks who it is that’s now before him. When Esau identifies himself, Jacob becomes visibly upset and tells him that someone else was just here with a bowl of venison and that it was he whom Isaac blessed. Esau becomes distraught at hearing this, and he implores Isaac for a separate blessing. But his father confirms that it was Jacob who stole Esau’s birthright.
         Esau again begs Isaac for a blessing, but Isaac tells him that it’s Jacob who will be Esau’s lord, and that all that Isaac has will be inherited by Jacob. Isaac has nothing left to give to Esau. (v.37) But Esau persists, again begging his father for just one blessing even as he breaks down and weeps. But all that Isaac can give Esau is a prophecy that he will serve his younger brother, and that he will live by the sword, and eventually he will break free of Jacob’s dominion. (v.39-40)
 
        Verses 41-46: Esau vows to get revenge on Jacob, and when Rebekah learns of just how angry he is with his younger brother, she tells Jacob to flee to Haran and take shelter with her brother Laban and all of his house. She will send for him once Esau has calmed down and forgotten this whole situation. She then lies to Isaac, claiming that she’s sending Jacob to Haran in order to get a wife from her side of the family so that he doesn’t make the same mistake in marriage that Esau did. (v.46)
 
       What this chapter clearly shows us is the consequences of selfishness, lying, deceit and what happens when we don’t trust and obey God. Rebekah should have left well enough alone. She should have trusted God to bring about His prophecy in His own time in His own way. Esau shouldn’t have been so irreverent and so foolish as to sell his birthright for a mere bowl of stew in the first place. Jacob shouldn’t have been so selfish and stood up to his mother when she came to him with her plan to deceive her husband. And Isaac shouldn’t have been so hasty in believing Jacob’s lie when there was reasonable doubt about his claim to be Esau. Perhaps if Isaac had waited and consulted the Lord first before blessing Jacob, the rest of the saga of this family and God’s chosen people might have turned out differently.
        However, as He always does, God incorporated the selfish, sinful choices of His children into His divine will. There is nothing that happened in this story and in the hearts of these four people that God hadn’t already known about ahead of time. God has always taken the worst of us – the deceivers, the selfish, the vain, the foolish, the manipulators, the weak of faith and heart – and used the consequences of our bad and stupid choices to 1) show His great mercy, love and grace, and 2) to bring about His ultimate will and plan. And, of course, we always end up sowing what we reap. Jacob is about to learn just how difficult life can be when we take the easy road of deceit to satisfy our own selfish desires and ambitions instead of simply trusting in God to supply our needs. The deceiver and “supplanter” is about to get a dose of his own medicine.