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BIBLE
STUDY LESSON
For
the week beginning Sunday December 23, 2018
JACOB
STEALS ESAU’S BLESSING
Genesis 27
Genesis 27 shows us how “parental favoritism” can literally tear a
family apart and destroy the relationships of the siblings, potentially,
forever. The parental favoritism of Isaac and Rebekah was exposed to us in
Genesis 25:28. There we see that Isaac favored Esau, the oldest son, while
Rebekah favored Jacob, the younger son. This attitude by the parents ultimately
led to a fragmented relationship between Jacob and Esau that would last for the
rest of their lives, and also would affect their families for generations to
come.
This chapter begins, where we see an aging
Isaac, now, almost totally blind, call for Esau, his oldest and favorite son,
as he feels that it is now time to pass on the blessings and promise of GOD to
the next generation. And even though he was aware of GOD’s message to Rebekah
(Genesis 25:23) that the Covenant promise would be passed on through the youngest
son, Jacob, instead, he seemed to be dead set on following Hebrew tradition, and
his own mind, rather than following the course that GOD has already set for him.
In those days, the “oral blessings” of a
father had the same force as a “written Will” has in today’s society, and that
oral blessing would always stand up in court. Here Isaac shows us how important
it is to pass down, not just a gift of material things, but also, it is more
important to be able to pass down “a legacy of faith”, or, in other words, pass
down the wisdom of “the importance of having an experiential relationship with
GOD”.
Nevertheless, Isaac’s sin of “favoritism”
toward Esau had blinded him to the fact that Esau had exhibited a disregard for
“spiritual things” throughout his entire adult life. He placed absolutely no
value whatsoever on “spiritual reasoning”. He always made it perfectly clear
that he was only interested in the moment, and, in satisfying his physical
needs, whatever they might be, at the time (Genesis 25:29-34).
Here in this passage, it seems as though Isaac
is foolishly trying to force GOD’s hand toward Esau, when he had known since
before the boys were born, that, “Hebrew tradition” would not prevail in this
case, but rather, “GOD’s Will” would overcome his selfish desires. And as I stated before, GOD’s Will,
had already been made known to he and Rebekah, before she gave birth to the
boys.
And so, while Isaac was preparing to hand
off his blessings to Esau, as GOD would have it, his plans were overheard by
Rebekah, and she quickly began to hatch up a scheme of her own. However,
Rebekah’s scheme, as crooked as it may seem on the surface, was more in line
with GOD’s plan, than what her husband was trying to do.
Rebekah, who by now was in “panic mode”,
immediately ran to Jacob, her favorite son, and let him in on what his father
was about to do. Then she instructed Jacob to go out to the flock and bring her
two fine young goats. Jacob reluctantly replied, “He (Isaac) won’t be fooled
that easily. Think how hairy Esau is and how smooth my skin is! What if my
father touches me? He’ll see that I’m trying to trick him, and then he’ll curse
me instead of blessing me”.
In verse 13 of this passage, we get a
glimpse of how motivated and determined Rebekah is to successfully carry out
her scheme. There she tells young Jacob, “Let the curse fall on me, dear son” (if
they get caught in this scheme). Just go and do what I tell you. Go out and get
the goats”. I guest she was saying in effect that, I’d rather see myself in
Hell, than for you to miss out on this blessing from your father, my favorite
son.
Rebekah finally convinced Jacob to play
along and he went out and retrieved the goats, and she prepared one of Isaac’s
favorite meat dishes from them. Then she took Esau’s best clothes and dressed
Jacob in them, and afterwards, she made a pair of gloves from the goatskin of
the animals they had just killed. She also placed some of the goat’s hair
around Jacob’s neck.
After
Rebekah prepared the meal and added some fresh baked bread to the menu, she
told Jacob to take it to his father and pretend to be Esau so that he (Jacob) might
deceitfully intercept Esau’s blessing from a blind and unwitting Isaac. And so
Jacob did as he was told, and carried the food to his father.
Arriving in Isaac’s presence, Jacob is
given another opportunity to change his mind, and not go through with this
seemingly crooked scheme, but as fate would have it, he doesn’t. In verse 18b,
Isaac asks him, “Who is it? Is it Esau or Jacob? Instead of telling the truth,
Jacob claimed to be his older brother, Esau.
Ironically, in verse 20, Jacob is met with
another question from Isaac, in which the answer, on the surface, might sound
like a lie, but here the young man answers with wisdom from GOD that he did not
know he had. Here Isaac asks him, “How were you able to find it (the meat) so
quickly my son?” And an unwitting Jacob responds, “Because the LORD your GOD
put it in my path! He had no idea how right he was.
By allowing Rebekah to overhear Isaac’s
conversation with Esau, GOD was placing the blessing of Isaac directly in the path
of Jacob. Deep in his heart, Isaac knew that he was supposed to pass down the
blessing to Jacob, but because of his steadfast adherence to tradition, and his
desire to do what he wanted to do, he was determined to pass it down to Esau, “his
oldest and favorite son”.
In verse 21, unable to depend on his “sense
of sight”, and still not convinced that the person standing before him was
Esau, Isaac asks his son to come closer so that he might be able to use his
“sense of touch” to make a determination. Isaac’s “sense of hearing”, was
detecting what he thought may be the voice of Jacob, and he wanted to be sure
that he wasn’t just being paranoid, because his conscience, probably by now,
was convicting him because he was seeking to go against what he knew was GOD’s
wishes (to anoint Jacob instead of Esau).
Because of the goat’s hair that his mother
had put on him, Jacob passed the touch test. Isaac accepted the food from him,
and ate it. Still feeling a little leery, probably because the meat didn’t “taste”
exactly like it should (wild game has a different taste from domesticated goat
meat), Isaac decided to use the only other sense he had, his “sense of smell”,
to try and make absolutely sure that it was Esau, and not Jacob.
And so in verse 26 of this passage, Isaac
asked his son to kiss him, that way he would be close enough to be able to see
if he smelled like someone who had been out in the open fields, the way Esau
always smelt. Jacob was able to pass the “smell test” because the animal skins
that he was wearing emitted an outdoors smell like the animals of the wild. And
so now Isaac was convinced, and he unwittingly blessed Jacob, who GOD had
chosen, and thereby, had to later deny Esau, whom he had chosen.
When Esau returned from his hunt with the
wild game, Isaac had to break the bad news to him that Jacob had tricked him
out of his blessing. Esau let out a loud cry, and as I said earlier, not being
able to fully grasp the spiritual implications of what it all meant, he asked
his father to give him the blessing too. Isaac regretfully had to explain to
him that there can be only one blessing of this sort, and Jacob had received
it, and “it was irrevocable”.
By this time, Isaac, no doubt, had realized
how GOD had usurped his foolish, selfish plan to do things his way. He knew
that he had tried to tamper with GOD’s plan and failed miserably, literally
destroying Esau in the process. And as a result of what happened, Esau hated
Jacob, and he made a promise to himself that he would kill him as soon as their
father, Isaac, had passed away.
When Esau began to share his sentiments
concerning Jacob with others, one of the people he told, passed the news on to
Rebekak. As a result, Rebekah sent Jacob away to her uncle Laban’s house in
Padan-aram (450 miles away), where she thought he would be safe. However, again,
as the LORD would have it, now the stage was being set for Jacob to learn a hard
lesson of his own, of what it feels like, to be deceived. Stay tuned.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER-
Official Website
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