April 22, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Genesis? Here’s today’s reading:
Genesis 27 (NIV)
1 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”
“Here I am,” he answered.
2 Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death.……Continue Reading
Genesis 27
Genesis 27
Isaac was old and wanted to bless his oldest son Esau and had him go get wild game and prepare it to his taste. Bring it to me so I can bless you. Such deceit from Esau’s mother. She told her youngest son Jacob to get game and she would prepare it and even changed texture of his skin and had him wear Esau’s cloths to smell like him. Rebekah’s plan worked and Isaac gave Jacob the blessing that should have been his brother’s. When Isaac realized he had given blessings to the wrong son he was angry as it could not be undone. Esau cried out in anger. Isaac told him his dwelling would be away from riches. He would be under his brother, but when you get restless you will throw off the yoke from your neck. Esau said to himself I will kill my brother, Jacob, once my father has been grieved. Rebekah heard of his plan she told Jacob to flee to her brother’s until Esau’s fury went away. Rebekah had to have known God would know what she and Jacob had done!
Jacob steals the blessing of Esau with the help of his mother. As I mentioned earlier; it is such a shame that it came down to tricking Isaac. It didn`t have to be like that. These inheritance and blessings should have gone to Jacob as God said. Isaac should have followed the Lord`s lead here. Rebekah was weary from the women that Esau had married. They weren`t believers and their behavior as heathen was ungodly. Jacob listens to his parents and goes to dwell where they want him to go. He was to take a wife from their own people and not of the daughters of Canaan. Jacob has not yet taken the Lord to be his God but will and in the next chapter he will make such a vow. God bless.
Genesis 27
Reading this I think why would Rebekah do that? Couldn’t they have both just honored their Father during his end days? Could both not have been blessed?
Good comments Dennis because that cleared up the last reading, I didn’t take into account Esau’s marriages played a hand in this and being unbelievers! Genesis is tough for me to breakdown.
So many instances in this chapter of people not trusting the will and promise of God. Starting with Esau who agrees to make his father a meal and accept a blessing he knows is no longer his. A mother who feels she needs to “help” God and assure her favorite son receives the blessing. And Jacob who goes along with this plan to trick his father rather than just trust that the birthright is his and God would make sure he received it.
Now you have a family in turmoil and Esau threathening to kill Jacob all for the sake of not trusting God to do what He said He would do. Whenever we get involved and try to move along even what we know to be God’s plan outside of God’s time we make a mess and this chapter is a perfect example of that!
Twisted. I agree, Linda, Dennis, it would be best to tell Isaac the truth. Your favorite son despises your birthright, the son least appreciated seize it by deceiving you, not to.mention your own wife! BTW, Esau conveniently “forgot” about swearing his birthright to Jacob, as though he could get it and have his bowl if soup too. Esau could have been the chosen, but rejected it. Jacob contrived and tricked to the last. At least, Isaac did not go back on his word of blessing, once given, the word cannot return or change. The history of Israel is now set. Will be interesting to review what happens next. -reb
Genesis 27…had some thoughts on this passage. It seems to be another example of people trying to “help” God out…funny how that “helping” always seems to involve sinful behavior…lying, sex with someone other than your wife, deception…etc. I decided to share someone else’s perspective as it better communicates my own! Dr. Ligon Duncan said this about this passage back in 1999…it was helpful for me.
“And so last week we saw Isaac deliberately fighting against the sovereignty of God, deliberately determining with all his might to give the blessing to his favorite son, Esau, in spite of the oracle given to Rebekah. And we said it was a perfect picture of man’s ineptitude and weakness juxtaposed against God’s sovereignty. To see this man who was blind; to see this man who was confused by the signals that he was getting from his touch when he felt the supposedly hairy skin of Jacob. And he smelled the meal, and he smelled the smell of his son, Esau, on the clothing, and he heard the voice of Jacob, even though everything else was telling him Esau. And all of his senses fool him. It’s a picture of man in his weakness attempting to resist the sovereignty of God.
The next time you decide that you’re going to resist the sovereignty of God, you remember that old man, Isaac, with all of his five senses foiled in front of the majesty and the omnipotence of God. Well, we said that that story truly highlights the grace and the sovereignty of God. Everybody in that story comes out looking bad. Isaac resists the will of God. Esau is an utterly carnal and natural man. Rebekah, though she rightly knows that the line of grace is to go through Jacob, resists her husband, usurps his authority, overthrows his dignity, and lies along the way in order to establish her own agenda. And Jacob, well he’s the implementer of the deception. And we wonder, Lord, how in the world have You chosen this man to be the reception of the covenant headship. But is not the whole story a picture that God’s grace does not triumph because of us, but in spite of us.”
Genesis 27
Genesis 27
Genesis 27
Genesis 27
The supplanter supplants and the one who thought little of his birthright gets angry that his blessing is taken. What a poor example we find here of how a family should be as people deceive and connive to get a blessing from a man rather than being more concerned of how God would have them act and thereby receive His blessing. Everyone acts poorly here. Both parents function in the favoritism that is so wrong. The mother deceives her husband and encourages her son to deceive his father. One son lies several times to his dad. And yet the dad is being willful in trying to bless someone that shouldn’t be the one to be blessed. Things do end up where they should in the end and the right son is blessed, but right ends never justify bad and sinful means. How much better is honesty, and clear and direct communication about events, wants, needs, expectations and beliefs. The very things the Bible encourages and commands. You wonder if Jacob or Esau ever told Isaac about him selling his birthright which would drive what would happen here. And poor Esau, despising his birthright and yet being upset that he didn’t get the blessing commensurate with it and then despising his brother for getting what Esau gave him. May we seek to be better than this in the way that we conduct ourselves as we pursue what is right and follow correct character to get it.
It’s like watching a movie of a disfunctional family. Such strife and deceit to get a blessing to the right man!
It’s interesting to see how unpredictable (to man) God’s working is. I don’t see any qualities in Jacob over Esau. It’s like they are tripping over each other to get the “blessing” and after all their trickery and deception it goes to who God said it would. Yet another picture of how man has free will AND God is sovereign.
I was wondering at the repetition of Rebekah’s distaste for the Hittite women aka Esau’s wives mentioned at the end of chapter 26.
Hebrews calls Esau a fornicator and profane person, so I suspect his character is beyond being hasty and selling his birthright (although perhaps his sins are indicators of the same carnal character.)
”See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.“
Hebrews 12:16 NIV