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This is the point where we see Rebecca develop further her underhand scheme to ensure that Jacob usurps his brother Esau in receiving his father inheritance and blessing.

“Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made”

(Genesis 27: 15-17)

Rebecca comes up with this clever little scheme to put animal skin on his arms and neck so he will feel like his brother to his blind fathers touch. Take it to him the food and your father will think you are Esau and we’re get this thing sorted because he will bless you instead of your brother. Her scheme boils down to two things, skins and soup, skins for his arm soup in his hands, and off he goes to see his father. As they then say, the plot thickens,  Verse 18. 

‘He went to his father and said, “My father.” “Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.” 

(Genesis 27: 18)

They must have had slightly different voices. They didn’t sound exactly alike, so immediately Isaac’s suspicions are aroused, Jacob said to his father, it is I your first born, I have done just as you told me. So, he lies, plain and simple, he tells a bare face lie, which of course was always part of the plan. So, what does Isaac do? Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

“Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so, he proceeded to bless him.“Are you really my son Esau?” he asked. “I am,” he replied”.

(Genesis 27: 22-24)

Remember what told Esau to do was go to the field and take his bow and arrow and kill the game and bring it back and it appears Isaac thinks  that he hasn’t have time enough to do this. How do you get out of a lie when confounded, you usually you lie again, d that is what Jacob does. Only this lies worse because he now implicates God in the lie, what he is doing amounts to blaspheming God. The verse, “don’t take the name of your Lord, the Lord your God in vain”. comes later in the Bible, but that is exactly what he does here, he invoked the name of God to implicate the Lord himself in his lie.

Isaac is still not fully convinced so he says come here I want to feel you. I want to feel your skin. He heard the voice and he suspected this might not be his son. However, the following verses describe what finally convinces him that this is Esau.

Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you, my blessing.” Jacob brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought some wine, and he drank.Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.”So, he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field   that the Lord has blessed”.

(Genesis 27: 25-27)

It is the smell of him alongside all the other deception that finally convinces him. The actual blessing is going to be stated next, but first we need to recognise the depth of the deception going on here.  Rebecca put the clothes of Esau on Jacob, so when Isaac smelled the clothes, he got the scent of his older son, and he blessed him.

is the blessing.

“May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness— an abundance of grain and new wine.
May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

(Genesis 27: 28-29)

He’s talking about three different blessings her. The first is material prosperity. The second is that he's going to rule over other people, including his own brother. The third is that anyone who curses him will themselves be cursed by God. 

As I said this re-statement of the blessing given earlier and echoes Chapter 12 of the Abrahamic covenant, where God said anybody who blesses the Jews are going to be blessed, and anybody who curses the Jews are going to be cursed. Granted, Jacob’s blessing was oral and not written, but according to the rules and laws of that day, what Isaac said was still legally binding.  He has blessed Jacob and it was unalterable. It cannot be reversed as a matter of fact, there are records archaeologists have dug up of accounts of oral oaths similar to this from this time as being recognised as still applying 100’s if not 1000’s of years later. So, we know that this agreement was binding.

Today, we would say that you have to have a signed contract and have the signatures witnessed. But they didn’t do that in those days, but this was still a legally binding agreement. Giving my blessing, equated to authorising you inheritance. 

This is why this is very important,  and not just an intriguing story. Jacob gets blessed and usurps the family inheritance. If you’ve got a Bible you don’t need to watch soap operas for dramatic stories. As we have worked through this chapter of Genesis it sometime feels like we’ve hardly come across a honest character yet. We have just seen Isaac going off and marrying two Hittite women and by doing so deliberately disobeying God.

Rebecca his mother is also deliberately disobeying God and Jacob is going along with his mother and lying and blaspheming God in the process. We could understand it if God was pretty disgusted with these people, yet these are the people he’s chosen to bless. But the plot is about to take another twist. Let’s go back to the passage and pick it up at verse 30.

30 After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. 31 He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”32 His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?” “I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.” 33 Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came, and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!” 34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”

(Genesis 27: 30-34)

Remember, Esau he went out to kill some animals so he could fix his father his favourite meal and when he returns Isaac finds out about the deception that has been played on him. The text says he trembled violently, and in fact, this particular Hebrew word has several different shades of meaning. One possible meaning is he was terrified, he realized that he had blessed the son he didn't intend to bless. Not surprisingly Esau cries out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father blessed me as well, my father.

35 But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” 36 Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birth right, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

(Genesis 27: 35-36)

Stole it? That’s what Jacob has done, the he and his Mother operated amounted to stealing. At birth they called Jacob a supplanter, do you remember, when these two were born and I pointed out that Esau came out first and Jacob grabbed his heel.  His name actually translates as heel grabber, the imagery behind this is if you were running a footrace and one runner grabbed the heel of the runner in front of him, he would trip, and the second runner would be able to overtake him. So that’s what he’s saying, he’s done this before, right from the beginning. Esau says he cheated me out of the birth right, and now he’s cheating me out of the blessing.

Do you remember how Jacob got the birth right? Remember that story he came in from the field, he was hungry, and he said give me some soup, remember that story?  He said, yeah, I’ll give it to if you give me the blessing, and he gave him the birth right for food. Esau says here is he took it from me but that no exactly what really  happened? No, not at all. He gave it up, he surrendered his birth right, he exchanged it for a bowl of soup and now he is blaming his brother.

37 Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?” 38 Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud”.

(Genesis 27: 37-38)

He still wanted his father’s blessing and here his father answers and says to him, alright, I’m going to bless you .Now, we need to pay careful attention to this blessing. I wonder if he Esau will get what he expects, well we will look at that next episode.