Jacob Obtains the Blessing (Genesis 27:1–28:9)

This sermon was preached on 7/8/2011

What is the message of the Book of Genesis? Many correct answers could be given to that question. It tells us how God made the world; it tells us about the entrance of sin; it speaks about the choice of Abraham as the originator of the line from whom the Saviour would come. It also tells us what bad clay the heavenly Potter has to work with, because from one perspective Genesis is about how God worked in the lives of certain individuals. In this passage, we see how he worked in the lives of three of his people (Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob) and there are many lessons for us. The passage also mentions a fourth person, Esau, and he is a picture of how close we can come to the blessing of God and not receive it.

The passing of time

A lot of years have passed since Jacob obtained the birthright from his brother Esau. Isaac is probably now 137 years old. What had happened to Isaac in the intervening years? We are given three details in Genesis 26. The first is that God revealed himself twice to Isaac, first to give guidance about not going down to Egypt during a famine (26:1-5). This was a gracious act of God, perhaps designed to prevent Isaac committing the sin of which his father had been guilty when in Egypt he had placed his wife in a difficult situation because he was afraid. It is very surprising then to discover Isaac committing the same sin as his father, except that Isaac does it in a place where God had told him he would be blessed.

Second, in between the two visits of God to Isaac, the Lord also worked for him in providence by fulfilling the promise that he would blessed. So great was the blessing that the Philistines among whom he had gone to live wanted him to leave because he was becoming too wealthy. Eventually after trying to settle in a couple of places, Isaac found a suitable location, and it was there that God appeared to him the second time and repeated the promise of divine blessing (Gen. 26:23-25). Further, the Philistines recognised that God was with Isaac and therefore desired to be at peace with him.

Third, according to Genesis 26:34-35, there was only one blot on the canvas and that was Esau. His behaviour, especially his marriages to pagan women, caused great distress to his god-fearing parents.

But the years passed, and in Genesis 27:1 we find that Isaac seems to have forgotten the purpose of God to bless through Jacob and he also seems to have forgotten that Esau’s lifestyle was embarrassing to the household. Strangely he determines to ignore his previous assessment of Esau and God’s choice of Jacob and instead decides to hand on his blessing to Esau.

What is rather surprising about Isaac’s decision is that he wants to give the blessing privately. One would expect it to be given in public since it had consequences for the future. Normally it would be of benefit for others to hear it because they would be witnesses to what was said. So the fact that Isaac wanted to do it all in private suggests strongly that he did not want others to know what he was doing. Perhaps he was concerned that Rebekah and Jacob would try and stop him.

There is another surprising detail to his plan. If Isaac really thought he was about to die, it is astonishing that he wanted a large meal, especially one that he had been thinking of ordering from his son, Esau. The fact is that Isaac was nowhere near death in a physical sense – he was to live for another 43 years. Instead he seems ready to use a spiritual occasion to feed an earthly lust, a practice that did not die out with him.

The main problem in Genesis 27 is not the deceit of Jacob but the wilfulness of Isaac. All that occurs in the chapter would not have happened if Isaac had obeyed God and refused to bless Esau. His decision was deliberate, without compulsion from any other person, not even Esau. His conduct in this regard is a reminder to us that we should never go against the Word of God because we cannot tell what others may have to do in order to rectify the situation. We’ll return to Isaac later on.

Rebekah

Rebekah overheard the conversation and she determined to prevent Isaac’s plan coming to fruition. Her action was based on God’s revealed will, given to her almost eighty years previously, that God’s blessing would continue through Jacob and not through Esau. She found herself in a very difficult situation – how was she to prevent her husband from going against the revealed will of God? She had no influence in the sense that she could overrule her husband. Instead she assumed that he would have to be tricked into giving his blessing to Jacob.

Of course, it is easy for us to condemn Rebekah and say that instead of concocting her plan she should have prayed to God about the problem and left the outcome with him. But we have all had our moments when our faith was weak, when we made plans that were not fully above board as far as God’s revealed truth is concerned. This is not to condone our actions, merely to recognise the grace of God that overrules our folly. Rebekah, from this chapter, reminds us that we should leave the fulfilment of God’s promises to God rather than trying ourselves in a sinful way to bring about their fulfilment.

Jacob

It is said that we don’t really know ourselves until we see what we will do in order to prevent the loss of something important to us. Perhaps up until now Jacob had assumed that he would receive eventually his father’s blessing. All of a sudden things are about to change. What may have gone through his mind?

Firstly, Jacob is advised by the woman to whom God previously had revealed his mind on the matter. Jacob would have been aware of how his parents had walked with God for almost one hundred years – they had been married when Isaac was forty. The advice Jacob was receiving did not come from a pagan woman. Of course, he should have assessed what she was suggesting and then refused to go along with her plan. Yet, is it not the case that we too have listened to what a mature believer has to say, and even perhaps gone along with it, despite some misgivings? After all, the end she had in mind was right, although the means she was using were wrong.

Secondly, there is no excuse for how Jacob treated his father. It was a sin for him to pretend to be Esau, and even worse to take God’s name in vain when explaining how the meal had been prepared so quickly. I suppose what we have here is that when we take one step down the ladder (Jacob listening to his mother), we can easily slide quickly down to the bottom (as Jacob did with his father). An unrepented-of sin does not produce nothing, it merely produces worse sins.

Isaac

It is a very sad situation to watch, Isaac blessing Jacob but thinking he is blessing Esau. Surely nothing spiritual is going on there. Yet the author of Hebrews chooses this incident as an example of faith when he says in Hebrews 11:20 that ‘By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.’ How could Isaac be exercising faith when his intention was to go against what God had said to Rebekah about their children? Yet the fact that he was exercising faith tells us that there are aspects of it here that we should imitate.

First, Isaac believed that all blessings came from God. The fact that he was wanting to bless Esau does not hide that he knew where blessings came from.

Second, God’s future was Isaac’s hope as he faced death. Certainly there was nothing in the present that would encourage him. The community of God’s worshippers was very small, perhaps even smaller than it had been in the lifetime of Isaac’s father, Abraham. Neither of his sons would have given him great encouragement. After all, Jacob on whom the future blessing rested, according to Rebekah, had not even bothered to get married, and he was now 77. Isaac had to look away from the present, which he did, and comfort himself with the knowledge that the future depended on God.

Another detail that is connected to Isaac’s faith is that he still retained the divine right to give a blessing. On this occasion, he functioned as a prophet. He did not retain this role by his own good deeds, because he had failed many times. Of course, this is very encouraging because we often imagine that somehow our faith has to be perfect. It is true that faith is God’s working, but it is his working in a sinner’s heart. If the condition of living by faith is sinlessness, then we have had it. God did not withdraw his gifts because Isaac had failed. This aspect of God’s grace occurs repeatedly in the Bible – think of David, Solomon, Peter, Mark.

Of course, this raises the question, can we exercise faith in God at the same time as we are doing wrong? Obviously Isaac did. So I suppose the answer depends on why we are doing the wrong. When all is said and done, we don’t know why he was determined to bless Esau. Maybe he did not place much value on a woman’s claims, so did not embrace Rebekah’s information about the future destiny of their children. Perhaps he judged by sight and assumed that since the only one with children was Esau, therefore he had to be blessed. Or he may have been guilty of a form of panic – after all he was 137 years old and assumed that his death was near (he was to live for another 43 years). Whatever the reasons may have been, Isaac’s faith remained. And I think we should trace that to God’s grace.

We remember the incident when Jesus predicted the denial of Peter. The response of Jesus was to pray for Peter that his faith would not fail under Satan’s onslaught. Does this not indicate that the particular target for the devil was Peter’s faith? And I suspect that he always attacks faith. What better way to damage Isaac’s faith than to persuade him to bless the wrong son? But there was One looking on who knew how to stop all that.

The next evidence for the faith of Isaac is that he trembled when he discovered that he had blessed Jacob rather than Esau (27:13). Why did he tremble? Because he realised that God had prevented him from sinning. There is no anger in his discovery that the proper recipient has received it. He acquiesces in what God has done, and that is evidence of faith in God.

A final evidence for the faith of Isaac, and also for the faith of Rebekah, is in the decision to send Jacob to Rebekah’s family in Paddan-aram (27:41–28:5). Rebekah was concerned about two things: (1) Esau would kill Jacob and (2) Jacob might marry a Hittite woman. The first concern was motherly and her second concern shows she was focussed on who would be the mother of the heir to the promises. She knew a way to resolve both matters and informed her husband. Isaac agreed, and when sending Jacob away gave him the real Abrahamic blessing: ‘God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!’ (28:3-4). I suppose those verses reveal how God would have given the blessing to Jacob without all the intrigue that occurred in Genesis 27. In any case, Isaac now has his spiritual bearings back and he and his wife are agreed as to how the covenant line will be preserved.

Esau

What can be said about Esau? At first, we may feel some sympathy for him as he loses out the second time. Yet a little thought will remove such understanding. Here are some details about him.

First, he grasped with both hands an illegitimate way to obtain the blessing he knew he was not entitled to by divine arrangement and previous personal rejection. His willingness to go and hunt for deer was evidence that he was hoping to bypass the will of God.

Second, his tears of regret were not addressed to God and he saw no evidence of God’s activity in preventing him having the blessing (‘See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears’ – Heb. 12:15-17).

Third, he wanted to kill the ancestor of the Saviour (27:41), in whom Esau could have trusted if he had the desire of experiencing God’s mercy. If he had, ‘he would have looked to Jacob, or rather to the Messiah of whom Jacob was to be the ancestor, for any interest in the birthright or its blessing to which he might yet hope to aspire. If he had thus sought for a place of repentance, or an opportunity of effectually changing his mind, he would not have sought for it in vain.’#

Fourth, Esau imagined that he could win divine favour by imitating in the external aspects of religion. He had observed that his parents regarded it as very important for Jacob to marry a relative in whom there was the fear of God. So Esau went and did the same and chose Ishmael’s granddaughter as a wife (28:9). He discovered, however, that changing the externals cannot change the situation in a spiritual sense.

Hopefully we will not, at last, be like Esau? Better to be a believer in whom God is working than a person in whom he is not.