Genesis 27

The method Jacob used in getting the birthright can’t be supported in any way. He used fraud and deceit. His conduct was pretty lousy. God didn’t condone this any more than He condoned what Sarah and Abraham did with Hagar and Ishmael. God couldn’t use the trickery and cleverness of Jacob. As we’ll see, God deals with him in a very definite way. Jacob had to pay for his sin in the same coin in which he sinned and we’ll see this as we get into this chapter.

So where are we? Chapter 26 concluded with Esau, who was about forty years old at this time, marrying two Hittite women. This caused Isaac and Rebekah a lot of grief. Now they realise that, in order for Jacob not to marry a Hittite or a Philistine, he must be sent away to Haran where Isaac got his bride from the family of Abraham.

So let’s see the story unfold from Genesis 27:1-4, Now it came to pass, when Isaac was old and his eyes were so dim that he could not see, that he called Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.” And he answered him, “Here I am.” 

Then he said, “Behold now, I am old. I do not know the day of my death. 

Now therefore, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me. 

And make me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.” 

We’ve seen that Isaac was an outstanding man, a great man, in fact. Abimelech and the Philistines came to make a treaty with him because they feared him.

He was patient and peace loving but also prominent and powerful. Here, however, he reveals that weakness of the flesh.

All during his life, Esau had been his favourite while Jacob had been the favourite of Rebekah. Esau was the outdoor boy who would go out and bring in a deer or some other animal. He would barbecue it, and the old man would enjoy it.

Now, Isaac was very old and his eyesight was so bad that he couldn’t see and he believed his time to die was close.

He probably wasn’t as near death as he thought because his age has been calculated to be 137 at this point and he lived to be 180, 43 more years.

He wants to bless his favourite son. It’s his way of settling his affairs, sort of a last will and testament.

He knows very well that God has said the elder will serve the younger, but he bypasses that because he wants to bless Esau, the one whom God did not choose, the one who despised his birthright, and who married pagan wives. It seems that Isaac rejected godly thinking and spiritual wisdom, in exchange for what pleased his natural feelings. He was determined to pass on the blessing to Esau, despite what the LORD had said and what the boys had shown in their lives up to this point.

So he tells Esau to go out and bring home some meat and he’ll bless him because of it. What a revelation this is of this family and the underlying strife. There was strife in the family of Abraham because of Hagar, now there’s strife in this family over these twins

We continue the story in Genesis 27:5-8,  Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt game and to bring it. 

So Rebekah spoke to Jacob her son, saying, “Indeed I heard your father speak to Esau your brother, saying, ‘Bring me game and make savory food for me, that I may eat it and bless you in the presence of the LORD before my death.’ 

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to what I command you. 

Rebekah overheard what Isaac said.

And, here we go again!

Instead of trusting God to fulfil what He had promised in Genesis 25:23, Rebekah used manipulation and scheming to bring about what she thought God’s plan was, and, probably, also her own desire.

How very wrong we are and how twisted we get when we think of helping God in the fulfilment of His promises and prophecies.

Jacob is Rebekah’s favourite; so she concocts this deceitful plan of absolute trickery, and it can’t be condoned on any basis.

God’s recording it as history, but He condemns it. We’ll soon see that. Remember the things that are being outworked here, and later we’ll see the chickens come home to roost for Jacob.

Now Rebekah goes on to say to him in verses 9 to 11,  Go now to the flock and bring me from there two choice kids of the goats, and I will make savory food from them for your father, such as he loves. 

Then you shall take it to your father, that he may eat it, and that he may bless you before his death.” 

And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth-skinned man. 

Esau was not only an outdoor man a red man as we’ve seeen, but he was also a hairy man.

Verse 12,  Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him; and I shall bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.” 

Well, not only will he seem to be a deceiver; he is a deceiver.

Now to verses 13 to 17,  But his mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me.” 

And he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother made savory food, such as his father loved. 

Then Rebekah took the choice clothes of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. 

And she put the skins of the kids of the goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 

Then she gave the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.  

She put that skin of the kid of the goat on the back of his neck and on the back of his hands so that when his father would feel him, he’d think it was Esau.

Issac couldn’t see Jacob, but he could touch him and smell him.Esau was an outdoors man, a hunter. He would have had a very distinct scent about him, in fact he probably stank looking at the whole thing through our eyes today.

Now to Genesis 27:18-20,  So he went to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” 

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done just as you told me; please arise, sit and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.” 

But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the LORD your God brought it to me.” 

Oh, dear.

This boy at this point is so typical of pious frauds. You find them all over the church. They talk about the Lord leading them. Sort of standing, hands clasped trying to look holy with one eye pointing upward as if in continual verbal contact with God. Most of the time this is a desperate desire to have all who are roundabout marvel at this person’s spirituality and how amazing it is that God has hand-picked them to lead and talk to.

Through my 40 or more years as a Christian, I’ve seen so much pain and hurt and quite frankly, utter stupidity, generate from these people.

Oh My, sometimes the Lord “leads” these ones to do and say some very unusual things, but they can very piously pray about it and openly say that it’s the Lord’s will and the Lord told me.

So often its purpose is to promote self and it’s nothing but pride, the mother of all sin.

Believe me, Jacob at this point is a pious fraud. The Lord had nothing to do with this deception.

We continue with verses 21 to 27,  Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 

So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 

And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. 

Then he said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He said, “I am.” 

He said, “Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son’s game, so that my soul may bless you.” So he brought it near to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. 

Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near now and kiss me, my son.” 

And he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and blessed him and said: “Surely, the smell of my son Is like the smell of a field Which the LORD has blessed.

You can tell that Isaac suspected something was wrong, but Rebekah knew Isaac very well and she’d worked out every detail of the plan.

Verses 28 and 29,  Therefore may God give you Of the dew of heaven, Of the fatness of the earth, And plenty of grain and wine. 

Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, And let your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, And blessed be those who bless you!

Here we see Isaac giving the same blessing to Jacob that he’d received. He’s passing it on but not to God’s chosen heir. The interesting thing is that it already belonged to Jacob. God had said that it did. God had already blessed Jacob. God’s not accepting this deception at all

Let’s see what happens next in verses 30 to 33,  Now it happened, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. 

He also had made savory food, and brought it to his father, and said to his father, “Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that your soul may bless me.” 

And his father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” So he said, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” 

Then Isaac trembled exceedingly, and said, “Who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate all of it before you came, and I have blessed him—and indeed he shall be blessed.” .” 

Now Isaac sees how he has been taken in by this plot.

verse 34 to 40 When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me—me also, O my father!” 

But he said, “Your brother came with deceit and has taken away your blessing.” 

And Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? (and indeed he was rightly named. The name Jacob means Userper which means to take or make use of under a pretence of authority but without any actual right.) For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright, and now look, he has taken away my blessing!” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” 

Then Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Indeed I have made him your master, and all his brethren I have given to him as servants; with grain and wine I have sustained him. What shall I do now for you, my son?” 

And Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, my father? Bless me—me also, O my father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. 

Then Isaac his father answered and said to him: “Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, And of the dew of heaven from above. 

By your sword you shall live, And you shall serve your brother; And it shall come to pass, when you become restless, That you shall break his yoke from your neck.” 

Verse 41,  So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” 

Esau is thinking. My father’s old and he won’t live much longer. Just as soon as my father dies, I’ll kill Jacob. I’ll get rid of him! This is the thought of his heart, and he evidently talked about it to others.

verses 42 and 43,  And the words of Esau her older son were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said to him, “Surely your brother Esau comforts himself concerning you by intending to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice: arise, flee to my brother Laban in Haran. 

Here again, we see Rebekah taking things into her own hands. She tells Jacob that he’s going to have to leave home.

Little did she know that she’d pay for her part in this, for her own sin.

She never saw her favourite and beloved son again. She said she would send him over to Haran for a little while but it was a long while and she died before he ever got back.

She wants Jacob to go to her brother, Laban, and that’s where she’ll send him. This is where Jacob is going to learn some very hard lessons. This is where the chickens come home to roost. Old Uncle Laban is going to put him through some hard life training and teach him a few things. Jacob thought he was clever, but Uncle Laban is an expert at cleverness. Poor Jacob’ll find out he is just an amateur, and he is going to cry out to God in desperation before it is all over.

To Genesis 27:44-45,  And stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury turns away, 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 bereaved also of you both in one day?” 

Notice that she says she’ll send him away for a few days.

Those few days lengthened out to twenty years, and during that interval she died. She never saw her boy, her pet, her favorite, again.

We can picture the life of Rebekah during those years when we consider that Esau probably didn’t think much of his mother after that little episode.

On to verse 46,  And Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

Remember that Esau had married these heathen, godless women from the people of Canaan and that caused deep sorrow in the home. Even Rebekah was overwhelmed by it.

Now she tells Isaac that if Jacob stays there he’ll probably do the same thing. She uses this as an excellent excuse to get Jacob away from home to protect him from Esau because Esau is planning to kill Jacob and he seems to make no secret of it. That takes us into chapter 28 where she has this little conference with Isaac to convince him that the thing to do is to send Jacob back to her family, to her brother Laban.

Remember how Abraham’s servant had gone there to get her? So now the task is to get Jacob back there to find a wife and also to get him out of danger. It was a wise move because if he’d stayed at home, Esau would’ve certainly tried to kill him.

However, the way it turned out was that Rebekah was the first to die. Jacob got back later for his father’s funeral. But he never saw his mother again.

Now we get into chapter 28:1, Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him: “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 

All through the old testament, we learn time and again how God forbids the descendants of Abraham, the Israelites, to inter-marry with the surrounding heathen nations. This is something God made very clear. Every time the people break this command, and they do regularly, it ends in disaster and primarily disaster for God’s chosen people. It’s hard to overstate how deeply against this God is.

Now to take a little sidebar here. This is the simple explanation of the 6th chapter of Genesis where the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. It’s simply the Godly line intermingling with the ungodly line of Cain which finally resulted in the judgment of the flood leaving only 1 Godly man left.

Now I realise it’s an unpopular thing to say in the day and age we’re living in but intermarriage between the Godly and the ungodly always leads to more godlessness and eventual sorrow and deep regret. Some Christians may think that if they marry that ungodly man or woman they can influence them to come to God. This is not impossible but it’s very rare. Most of the time the influence pulls the wrong way. It’s just a fact of life. Ever notice how even when you feel positive and high-spirited and you get to spend time with negative, depressed and dissatisfied people you’re seldom able to lift them to your level? More often than not they’ll bring you down to their level. We tend to emulate those we associate with most.

God is adamant all through the Word that the godly are not to marry the godless. 2 Corinthians 6:14 tells us, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”

The New Testament strictly tells Christians not to be unequally yoked. You don’t get unequally yoked by working with or talking to unbelievers, as some people think! You do it by intermarrying. That’s the way you join up with them. And God’s very much against it.

To Genesis 28:2-4,  Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.

So now Jacobs off back to his mother’s family and back to old Laban who wrote the book on skullduggery. Jacob doesn’t know it yet but he’s in for quite a ride and it’s a far from pleasant one but we’re going to have to wait till next time to find out about it and I hope you’ll be with us. Until then friends may God bless you and keep you.