Genesis 27:39

These verses are the turning point of Genesis 27. Isaac, old and blind, had sent Esau out to hunt and prepare savoury meat so that he could bless him (Genesis 27:1–4). Rebekah overheard. She prepared a meal from the flock for Jacob to bring, dressed him in Esau’s clothes and covered his hands and neck with goatskins, and she overruled Jacob’s fear of being found out (Genesis 27:5–17). Isaac noticed that the voice was Jacob’s while the hands felt like Esau’s (Genesis 27:22), and then he blessed him (Genesis 27:27–29).

Verse 30 opens “as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob.” The verb, kâlâh, means to end, finish or complete, so every word of the blessing has been spoken. Jacob “was yet scarce gone out”, and the little word ʼak (“yet scarce”) with yâtsâʼ, to go or come out, tells us he had barely stepped away. He had left “the presence of Isaac”, and the word for presence, pânîym, is the face, so Jacob had only just passed out of his father’s sight and hearing. In that same moment “Esau his brother came in from his hunting.” The word for hunting, tsayid, is the same word as the “venison” of the next verse, the game a hunter brings home. A moment either way and the two brothers would have met at their father’s side. We who read know what Esau does not, and his unsuspecting return makes the discovery all the more painful.

Esau has done everything his father asked. “He also had made savoury meat”, using ʻâsâh, the broadest Hebrew word for doing or making, and maṭʻam, a delicacy or savoury food. Hunting was the work Esau was known for, and he comes with the fruit of it. His request is honest and warm: “Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me.” The word for soul, nephesh, means life, soul and self, so Esau asks his father to bless him with his whole self. The verb to bless, bârak, has a root sense of kneeling, and it is used both for blessing God in worship and for God or a man bestowing good on another. Here it is the father’s word of favour, prosperity and inheritance spoken over his son.

Isaac’s question is short, and it carries all his confusion. He has just blessed a son who said he was Esau, and now a second man stands before him with venison. The verb ʼâmar (“said”) is the ordinary word for saying, telling or commanding, and the shock lies in the words it introduces. Esau answers plainly: “I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau.” Bên is the common word for son, from a root meaning to build, the son who carries on his father’s house. Bᵉkôwr is the firstborn, the eldest and chief son, who held the first place in the family, received a double portion of the inheritance and was the expected heir of his father’s blessing. Every word Esau says is true, and it comes too late.

“And Isaac trembled very exceedingly.” The verb chârad means to shudder or tremble with fear, and Genesis strengthens it with two more words, gâdôwl, great, and mᵉʼôd, very or exceedingly. Isaac shakes through and through. His words tumble out: “Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him?” Then comes the sentence on which the whole scene turns: “yea, and he shall be blessed.” The verb bârak is used twice. Isaac has been deceived, he is grieved for Esau, and still he confirms what he has said.

“When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.” The verb tsâʻaq means to cry out or call for help in distress, and the noun for his cry is tsaʻăqâh. It is described with the same two words that described Isaac’s trembling, gâdôwl, great, and mᵉʼôd, exceedingly, and with mar, bitter. Father and son are both overwhelmed. Esau’s first words are a plea: “Bless me, even me also, O my father.” The doubled “me, even me also” is the cry of a son who still hopes his father has something for him.

Isaac answers with the plain truth: “Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.” Mirmâh means deceit, fraud, craft or treachery. Isaac names what Jacob did as deliberate deceit, carried out through disguise, false words and his father’s blindness. “Taken away” is lâqach, to take, seize or carry away, and “blessing” is bᵉrâkâh, the noun from bârak, meaning blessing, prosperity, or a gift or present. Isaac calls it “thy blessing”, because it was meant for Esau.

In verse 38 Esau asks again, “Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father.” He uses the word for father, ʼâb, twice in one breath, appealing to the one man who could give what he had lost. “And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.” The verb bâkâh means to weep, bemoan and make lamentation, and lifting up the voice means loud, open weeping that everyone in the tent could hear.

Esau’s question is a bitter play on his brother’s name. Yaʻăqôb comes from ʻâqab, a verb that means to seize by the heel and, by extension, to circumvent, trip up or supplant. Jacob was born holding Esau’s heel (Genesis 25:26), and now Esau says the name fits him: “for he hath supplanted me these two times.” Here ʻâqab itself is the verb behind “supplanted”, so Esau’s complaint is made out of Jacob’s own name.

The two times are the birthright and the blessing. The birthright, bᵉkôwrâh, was the right of the firstborn: a double portion of the inheritance and the leadership of the family. Jacob had obtained it from Esau for a bowl of lentil stew (Genesis 25:29–34). Esau tells it as one more theft, though in that earlier scene Esau sold it himself and despised it. “And, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing” echoes his father’s words of a moment before. His last question, “Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?”, shows that he still hopes some blessing has been kept back for him.

Isaac’s reply in verse 37 explains why so little is left. “Behold, I have made him thy lord.” Gᵉbîyr means a master or lord, so Jacob has been set over Esau. “And all his brethren have I given to him for servants”, where ʻebed is a servant or bondman, and “his brethren” reaches past Esau to the families that would come from him. “And with corn and wine have I sustained him.” The verb çâmak means to prop up, uphold or sustain, and corn and wine stand for the abundance of the land. All of this restates the blessing Isaac had given Jacob a little earlier, which began, “God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine” (Genesis 27:27–29).

Then the father’s helpless question: “and what shall I do now unto thee, my son?” Isaac still loves Esau and calls him “my son”, but lordship, service and plenty have all been given, and the first place in the family belongs to Jacob.

Esau’s pleading moves his father to speak again, and verses 39–40 are Isaac’s word over Esau and the nation that would come from him, the Edomites, who settled in the rugged mountain country of Seir.

“Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above.” Môwshâb is a seat, dwelling or habitation, the place where a people lives. Mashmân means fatness, used of fertile ground and rich produce, and ṭal is dew, the moisture that waters plants and on which crops in that land depend. Moses’ last blessing of Israel speaks of dew and grain in the same way (Deuteronomy 33:28). Esau’s descendants did prosper in their mountain land, which held some fertile ground and lay across trade routes. Isaac’s word gives Esau a place and a living, and it shows God’s providence over those outside the line of promise. God provides for Esau as well.

The words are close to Jacob’s blessing, and the differences matter. Jacob’s began “God give thee”, it added “plenty of corn and wine”, and it made him lord over his brethren. Esau’s has the phrase “from above” (mima’al), which is found only in his. It names heaven as the source of the dew, and it may mark a more general kind of provision, while Jacob received the covenant blessing that God himself was named as giving.

“And by thy sword shalt thou live.” Chereb is a sword, or a knife or other cutting tool, and it can stand for war. Esau the hunter would father a people who lived by their own strength and weapons, often in conflict with their neighbours. “And shalt serve thy brother”, with ʻâbad, to work or serve, repeats what God had said before the twins were born. Edom did come under Israel’s rule, when David put garrisons in Edom and all the Edomites became his servants (2 Samuel 8:14).

“And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.” The phrase rendered “when thou shalt have the dominion” can also be taken as “when thou art restless” or “when thou breakest loose”, a time of agitation that ends in revolt. The verb pâraq means to break off, and figuratively to deliver. A yoke is the wooden bar laid on an ox, and Scripture uses it for political servitude, as when the people asked Rehoboam to lighten the yoke Solomon had laid on them. Edom did break free, revolting from under Judah’s hand in the days of King Joram (2 Kings 8:20). The history of the two nations follows Isaac’s words: service, then rebellion and independence.

God kept the word he had spoken before the twins were born, and the same chapters that record Jacob’s deceit show him reaping it. Rebekah and Jacob reached for what God had already promised by lies, disguise and a blind man’s trust. God’s purpose came about in spite of that sin, and he never commended the means. “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 12:22).

The cost followed quickly. Esau hated Jacob and planned to kill him (Genesis 27:41), and Jacob fled from home (Genesis 28) and spent long years away from his family (Genesis 31:41). The deceiver was deceived in turn when Laban gave him the wrong bride (Genesis 29:20–25), and in his old age his own sons deceived him about Joseph (Genesis 37:31–35). Paul’s words fit Jacob’s life: “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7–8).

Over all of it God’s purpose stood. Paul uses Jacob and Esau to show that God’s choice rests on his own calling, made before the children were born and before either had done good or evil (Romans 9:10–13). A man’s heart makes many plans, and it is the counsel of the LORD that stands (Proverbs 19:21). A man devises his way, and the LORD directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9). God worked through a favouring father, a scheming mother, a grasping son and a careless one, and he brought his promise through them all. His faithfulness rests on his own character, and he chooses unlikely people to carry his promises, as he did with Abraham, Isaac and now Jacob.

The blessing Isaac spoke over Jacob carried forward the promise that in Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:2–3), and through Jacob’s flawed line that promise came to Christ. Paul says that the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ (Galatians 3:16), that the Scripture foresaw God justifying the Gentiles by faith (Galatians 3:8–9), and that Christ redeemed us so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through him (Galatians 3:13–14). Everyone who belongs to Christ is an heir according to the promise (Galatians 3:29).

Jacob reached for the firstborn’s place by disguise. Christ is the firstborn of every creature (Colossians 1:15–18) and the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), and he holds that place by right. He won the blessing for us by obedience, since by the obedience of one many are made righteous (Romans 5:19), and though he was rich, he became poor for our sakes (2 Corinthians 8:9). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and the mediator of the new testament (Hebrews 9:15), and all the promises of God are yea and amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Esau lost a blessing that could be taken from him. The inheritance God gives in Christ is “incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 1:3–5), and those who receive it are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3–14). It comes by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9), and God chooses the weak and lowly things of the world so that no flesh should glory in his presence (1 Corinthians 1:27–29).

Isaac sustained Jacob with corn and wine, and Christ calls himself the bread of life (John 6:35) and gives living water (John 4:10). Esau was promised a yoke broken by the sword. Christ’s kingdom is “not of this world” (John 18:36), and he delivers his people from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13) and breaks the heavier yoke of sin and death. Brothers divided by a stolen blessing find their quarrel ended in him, for he is our peace and makes one people of those who were apart (Ephesians 2:14).

This passage shows a family at its worst: a father who favoured one son, a mother and son who deceived him, and a brother who learned too late the worth of what he had thrown away. Every one of them suffered for it. Yet the word God spoke over the twins before their birth came true, and Isaac himself had to say of the son who deceived him, “he shall be blessed.”

So we see who God is. His purposes stand when people scheme, and they stand when people are careless. He hates lying lips, and he lets deceit bear its own bitter fruit. He also cares for Esau, giving him a dwelling and a future outside the line of promise. And the blessing he was carrying through this broken family reaches us in Christ, where it is given freely, held securely, and never taken away from those who are his.