Genesis 27:28

The rivalry began before Jacob and Esau were born. When the twins struggled in Rebekah’s womb, the LORD told her that “the elder shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23). Esau was born hairy (Genesis 25:25), grew up a hunter and a man of the field, and later sold his birthright and despised it (Genesis 25:34).

The whole of Genesis 27 turns on the father’s blessing. Isaac, old and with eyes too dim to see, tells Esau to hunt venison and make him savoury meat so that he may bless him before he dies (Genesis 27:1–4). Rebekah overhears and tells Jacob to bring goats from the flock, which she will cook the way Isaac likes (Genesis 27:5–10). Jacob is afraid that his father will feel his smooth skin and that he will bring a curse on himself, and his mother overrules his fear (Genesis 27:11–13). She dresses him in Esau’s clothes and covers his hands and neck with the skins of the goats (Genesis 27:15–16). That is where verse 18 begins.

“And he came unto his father, and said, My father.” The verb for came, bôwʼ, is the ordinary word for coming or going in, and ʼâb is the plain word for a father. Jacob’s first word, “My father,” is true, and he speaks it from inside a disguise. Isaac answers, “Here am I,” the reply of a man who is ready and listening, and at once he asks, “who art thou, my son?” In Hebrew the question is short and direct, mi attah. Isaac’s eyes are gone, so from here on he tests his son with what remains to him: hearing, touch, taste and smell. The verb for said, ʼâmar, is the everyday word for saying something, and it carries the whole exchange from question to answer and back.

Jacob’s reply in verse 19 is an outright lie: “I am Esau thy firstborn.” He takes his brother’s name and his brother’s standing as the firstborn, bᵉkôwr, the eldest son who by custom received the blessing. He claims his brother’s obedience too: “I have done according as thou badest me.” Then he urges his father to “arise... sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me.” The word for venison, tsayid, means game taken in the hunt, and this meal only passes for it, since Rebekah cooked it from the flock. “Thy soul” means Isaac himself, so Jacob is asking for the blessing his father will give with his whole self. The verb bârak, to bless, comes from a root meaning to kneel, and it is used both of blessing God in worship and of bestowing good on a man. Jacob’s name means “heel-grabber” or “supplanter,” and here he lives up to it.

Isaac is still unsure, and in verse 21 he says, “Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not.” The verb nâgash means to come or draw near, and here the nearness is for examining. The word for feel, mûwsh, means to touch or handle. “My very son” renders zeh, “this,” so the sense is “whether thou be my son, this one, Esau.” Isaac wants to be certain.

Jacob comes near, and Isaac “felt him.” This verb, mâshash, means to feel and by implication to grope or search, the way a blind man’s hands go over a face and arms. Then Isaac says the line the whole scene turns on: “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” The word for voice, qôwl, means a voice or sound, and Isaac’s ears tell him the truth. The word for hands, yâd, is the ordinary word for the hand, and Jacob’s are covered in goat skin, so they tell Isaac what Rebekah planned. Esau had been hairy from his birth, and the skins answer the very test Isaac knew to make.

Verse 23 gives the result: “And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau’s hands: so he blessed him.” The verb nâkar means to look at intently, and so to recognise, and Isaac is unable to recognise the son in front of him. The word for hairy, sâʻîyr, is the plain word for hairy, and it also names the he-goat, whose skin is doing the work here. “So he blessed him” gives the outcome, and the verses that follow tell how it came about: one more question, the meal, the kiss and the blessing itself.

In verse 24 Isaac asks a last time: “Art thou my very son Esau?” The word for son is bên, and ʻÊsâv, Esau, is explained by Strong’s as “rough,” in the sense of something felt, which suits the man whose skin Isaac has just been feeling. Jacob answers with a single Hebrew word, ani, “I.” It is his second direct lie, and it settles the matter for Isaac.

Now Isaac says, “Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son’s venison, that my soul may bless thee.” He eats, and Jacob brings him wine, and he drinks. The meal was part of the solemn occasion Isaac had set, and eating together often marked acceptance and fellowship. Wine belonged at such meals, as when Melchizedek brought out bread and wine to Abram. The word for soul, nephesh, means a living being, the self or the person, so it is Isaac himself, with all he is, who will bless.

Then comes one more test: “Come near now, and kiss me, my son.” Isaac is called “his father” here, ʼâb again, and the verb is once more nâgash, “come near,” with a small word in Hebrew, nâʼ, that the KJV renders “now.” The kiss, nâshaq, was an ordinary greeting between family members, as when Laban ran to meet Jacob and kissed him. Here it also brings Jacob close enough for Isaac to smell his clothes.

“And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment.” The verb for smelled, rûwach, properly means to breathe, and so to smell. The noun for smell, rêyach, means odour or scent. The raiment is beged, clothing, and these were Esau’s own clothes, which carried the smell of a man who lived in the open country. Isaac says, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed.” To a family that lived from its flocks and its land, a field the LORD had blessed meant growth, harvest and plenty, and the picture leads straight into the blessing that follows. Isaac speaks the LORD’s name truly at the very moment Jacob’s lie succeeds.

“Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.” The blessing is a prayer to God, ʼĕlôhîym, to give, so the plenty is his gift from first to last. Dew, ṭal, mattered greatly in Canaan, where it watered the crops through the dry season when rain was scarce, so dew from heaven was provision straight from God’s hand. Fatness, mashmân, means richness, as of a fertile field or a rich dish, and here it is the rich soil that bears abundant harvests. Corn, dâgân, is grain such as wheat and barley, the staple behind daily bread. It means grain of every kind, and maize, which Americans call corn, came from the Americas and was unknown in Isaac’s world. Together, rain from above, rich ground below and full harvests of grain and wine describe a life of complete provision. Moses later sets rain and harvest among the LORD’s blessings on an obedient Israel (Deuteronomy 28:12).

God carried out his own word through this day, and Scripture counts Jacob’s lie as sin. Paul says that God chose Jacob over Esau before the twins were born, apart from anything either of them had done (Romans 9:10–13). God’s choice came first, and the lie added nothing to it. Lying lips are abomination to the LORD (Proverbs 12:22), and God was able to keep his promise by righteous means and in his own time. His purpose prevailed in spite of the scheme, and he did it through flawed people whose choices were still their own.

Rebekah and Jacob reached for God’s promise with their own hands, much as Abraham and Sarah once tried to secure an heir through Hagar (Genesis 16). The fruit was bitter. Esau hated Jacob and planned to kill him once their father was dead (Genesis 27:41).

Rebekah sent Jacob away to her brother Laban (Genesis 27:41–45). There the deceiver was deceived, given Leah when he had served for Rachel (Genesis 29:20–27). His own sons later deceived him (Genesis 37), and years after this day he was still afraid when Esau came to meet him (Genesis 32:6–7). Paul’s words describe his life: “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

Isaac’s part is counted differently. Hebrews says, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come” (Hebrews 11:20), so the blessing he spoke, mistaken as he was about the son in front of him, was a word of faith about the future God would bring.

Jacob came to his father in another man’s clothes and gained the blessing by a lie. Jesus is the Son in his own right, the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2–4), the firstborn of every creature (Colossians 1:15), and the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). He inherits by perfect obedience, by his death as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and by his resurrection. He humbled himself, and God has highly exalted him so that every knee shall bow to him (Philippians 2:5–11). A psalm says that all kings shall fall down before him (Psalm 72:11), and in him the bowing down of Isaac’s blessing reaches its fullest meaning.

The Messiah came through Jacob’s line, flaws and all (Matthew 1:1–17). He is the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), and through him the blessing of Abraham comes on the Gentiles (Galatians 3:13–14), as Scripture foresaw when it told Abraham that all nations would be blessed in him (Galatians 3:8). Those who reject him hear the word “Depart from me, ye cursed” (Matthew 25:41).

Isaac had to sort out a true voice from false hands. The sheep of Christ hear his voice and know it (John 10:27), and his hands bear the marks of the nails, which he showed to Thomas (John 20:27). In him all the promises of God are yea and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). Through him believers are blessed with every spiritual blessing and adopted as children (Ephesians 1:3–6), given an inheritance (Ephesians 1:11) that is kept in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:3–5), and saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). We receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 4:4–7), the Spirit as our Comforter (John 14:16–17) and everlasting life (John 3:16), and we are made joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

These verses show us a God whose word stands. He said before the twins were born that the elder would serve the younger, and he brought it to pass in a household where the father favoured one son, the mother schemed for the other, and that son lied in God’s own name. His purpose rested on his own choice, and his faithfulness carried it through.

The same chapters show that he is holy. Jacob reaped what he sowed in Laban’s house and among his own sons, and the name he took up to cover a lie is the name his father spoke in truth when he blessed him. Isaac’s words, once spoken, stood, and Proverbs says that life and death lie in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21).

What Jacob grasped at in a disguise, God gives freely in his Son. Jacob had to come near in borrowed clothes, and we who were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). The plenty, the rule and the blessing on those who bless all find their yes in him.