Genesis 27:11

Isaac is old and blind, and believing his death is near he has sent Esau out to hunt, so that he can eat a meal of game and give Esau his blessing (Genesis 27:1–5). Rebekah heard every word. The family was already divided. Isaac favoured Esau, the skilled hunter, and Rebekah favoured Jacob, the quiet dweller in tents (Genesis 25:28). Esau had already sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew (Genesis 25:29–34). Before the twins were born, the LORD had told Rebekah, “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23). So when Rebekah hears Isaac preparing to bless the elder son, she knows what God has said about the younger.

She goes straight to Jacob. “Behold” calls him to pay attention, and “I heard” is shâmaʻ, a verb for hearing with understanding that often carries the sense of heeding and obeying. Rebekah has grasped what Isaac means to do and what it will mean for Jacob. The same verb returns in verses 8 and 13, where she tells Jacob to “obey my voice”. She heard her husband, and now she wants her son to hear her.

Her favour for Jacob drives what follows, and most likely her knowledge of the oracle does too. The whole of Genesis 27 turns on what she does with what she heard, and the story of the brothers, from their birth to Jacob’s flight, runs through Genesis 25–28.

Verse 7 is Rebekah’s report of Isaac’s words to Esau: “Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the LORD before my death.” Venison, tsayid, is game taken in the hunt, Esau’s own skill. Savoury meat, maṭʻam, means savoury food or a delicacy, a dish Isaac particularly enjoyed. The word describes good food, and the deceit in this chapter comes from the people who serve it. In the accounts of the patriarchs, solemn moments such as covenants, blessings and farewells were often marked by a meal, and this one may also have been meant to strengthen and gladden the old man before he spoke.

To bless, bârak, comes from a root meaning to kneel. It is used of people blessing God in worship and of a blessing that brings good to a person, and Strong’s notes that by euphemism it can stand for its opposite, to curse. Isaac means to speak God’s favour over his son “before the LORD”, liphnê Yᵉhôvâh, in the presence of God. Yᵉhôvâh is God’s covenant name, from the verb “to be”, naming him as the eternal, self-existent One. That makes God the witness of the blessing and the one who will make it good. “Before my death” marks it as a dying father’s last word to his son.

Such a blessing passed on the father’s authority, the inheritance and the promises God had made to Abraham. It normally went to the firstborn, who held the birthright, with its double portion of the inheritance and the headship of the family. Once spoken, it stood.

“Now therefore, my son” ties Rebekah’s command to what she has just heard. “Obey my voice” is shâmaʻ again, hearing that acts on what it hears, and “that which I command thee” is tsâvâh, to charge or enjoin, a word often used for formal orders and for God’s own commands. Rebekah speaks as one whose word is to be followed exactly, and she calls Jacob “my son” with a mother’s affection while she does it.

Honouring a parent is right, and here a mother’s command leads her son into a lie. Scripture puts obeying God ahead of obeying any person (Acts 5:29), and that order holds inside a family too.

Jacob answers with a problem: “Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.” Hairy, sâʻîyr, is also the word for a he-goat, and Esau had been covered with hair from his birth (Genesis 25:25). Smooth, châlâq, means smooth or bare. Man, ʼîysh, is the common word for a man, and Jacob sets the two men side by side. Isaac is blind, so he will know his sons by touch, and Jacob’s skin will give him away.

“My father peradventure will feel me,” Jacob goes on. To feel, mâshash, is to touch, feel for or grope, the word for a blind man feeling his way. If Isaac does, Jacob says, “I shall seem to him as a deceiver.” The word tâʻaʻ means to cheat, and by extension to deceive, mistreat or misuse, and it carries the shame of taking advantage of a blind father’s trust. Then comes the worst of it: “I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.” Curse, qᵉlâlâh, is a curse or a thing cursed, and Strong’s gives vilification. A father’s word carried weight either way, as when Noah cursed Canaan. Scripture treats blessing and curse with full seriousness, from God’s promise to bless those who bless Abraham and curse those who curse him (Genesis 12:3) to the curses Moses set before Israel for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:15–68).

What Jacob fears is being caught. He weighs how he will look to his father and what it will cost him, and the wrong of deceiving his father goes unmentioned. There is irony in this. Jacob’s name means heel-catcher or supplanter (Genesis 25:26), and now he worries about being taken for a cheat. The proverb says that whoever digs a pit will fall into it (Proverbs 26:27), and Jacob’s life bears it out. His uncle Laban later deceives him by giving him Leah (Genesis 29:25), and his own sons deceive him in his old age (Genesis 37:31–35).

Rebekah meets Jacob’s fear head on: “Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them.” The Hebrew ‘ālay qillātekā, “upon me thy curse”, is short and emphatic. She offers to bear whatever comes of the plan herself, and with that she removes Jacob’s last objection. Her confidence most likely rests on the oracle, and on the fact that Jacob already held Esau’s birthright. “My son” is spoken with affection, and “only obey my voice” closes the discussion.

People ask what came of her offer. What followed fell on the whole family. Esau came to hate Jacob and wanted revenge (Genesis 27:41), Rebekah herself had to send Jacob away to escape his brother’s anger (Genesis 27:43), and the son she loved spent years far from her.

“And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother.” The verbs come one after another, and Jacob’s fears are set aside as soon as his mother answers them. Rebekah then made “savoury meat, such as his father loved,” as she had said she would.

“Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau.” Goodly, chemdâh, comes from a root meaning to desire and describes something delightful or precious, so these were Esau’s best clothes. Raiment, beged, is the ordinary word for clothing or a garment. The clothes were “with her in the house”, where she could reach them, and she put them on Jacob. Clothes Esau had worn would carry his smell, and that mattered, for when Jacob came near, Isaac smelled the smell of his raiment (Genesis 27:27). The verse calls Esau her “eldest son” and Jacob her “younger son”, the very order the LORD had said would be reversed.

“And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth of his neck.” Skins, ʻôwr, means skin, hide or leather. The hands, yâd, and the smooth part of the neck were the places Isaac was most likely to touch, and Isaac did feel his hands (Genesis 27:22). Smooth here is chelqâh, smoothness, a word that can also mean flattery or an allotted portion. The goatskins answer Jacob’s objection of verse 11, and Isaac’s blindness, which makes him rely on touch, is the very thing the disguise works on.

“And she gave the savoury meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.” With the bread the meal is complete. The word for hand is yâd again, as in verse 16. Every piece of the plan is now in Jacob’s hand, and from here he carries it out himself when he goes in to Isaac (Genesis 27:18–29). The bitter results come as soon as Esau returns (Genesis 27:30–45). Jacob leaves for Haran (Genesis 28:1–5), and on the road God meets him in a dream at Bethel (Genesis 28:10–22).

God had spoken before the twins were born, and his word stood. Paul draws on this very choice to show “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” (Romans 9:10–13). God’s choice rested on his own call, made before either boy had done good or evil. The proverb says that a man’s heart holds many plans, and it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21).

Jacob put on his brother’s clothes to receive a blessing meant for another. In Christ, God clothes his people in the garments of salvation (Isaiah 61:10) and gives them a righteousness that comes through faith (Romans 3:21–26). Jacob gained an earthly inheritance by disguise. Christ is the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2) and the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15), and he holds that place by right. He is the truth itself (John 14:6) and our high priest without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and he won his people’s inheritance by obeying his Father even to death on the cross (Philippians 2:8). He learned obedience and became the source of eternal salvation (Hebrews 5:8–9), and by his own blood he obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–14). His obedience makes many righteous (Romans 5:19), and through him come righteousness and life (Romans 5:17).

Jacob feared a curse, and Rebekah said, “Upon me be thy curse.” Christ did what her words only promised. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, so that we receive the blessing of Abraham through faith (Galatians 3:13–14). He was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), and on the cross he cried out as one forsaken (Matthew 27:46). He is the Lamb of God (John 1:29), who gave himself as an offering that pleased God (Ephesians 5:2).

The promise that passed from Abraham to Isaac and on to Jacob finds its seed in Christ (Galatians 3:16), and God’s word that all nations would be blessed in Abraham comes true for all who believe (Galatians 3:8–9). In Christ God blesses us with every spiritual blessing, adopts us as his children and redeems us through his blood (Ephesians 1:3–14), and he keeps for us an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled and unfading (1 Peter 1:3–4). Jacob and Esau were torn apart by what happened in these verses. Christ is our peace, who reconciles people to God and to one another through his cross (Ephesians 2:14–16), and through him God reconciles all things to himself (Colossians 1:19–20).

These verses show a family of God’s people at a low point. A father plans to bless the son he favours, a mother plots for the son she favours, and a son worries about being caught while his brother is out hunting. Over all of it stands the word God spoke before the twins were born, and that word outlasted Isaac’s plan and Rebekah’s plot alike.

The same God calls lying lips an abomination and delights in those who deal truly. Rebekah believed his promise and still took it into her own hands, and the sorrow that followed came from that choice. Both truths stand together here: God’s purposes are sure, and the way his people pursue them matters to him.

The God who kept his word to this family is the God who has given us every blessing in Christ, freely and in truth. The blessing Jacob tried to take by disguise comes to us as a gift, through the obedient Son who needed no disguise at all.