Jacob Part 7: Isaac Blesses Jacob Continued

Isaac Blesses Jacob

So Yaaqov just walked into the tent with the tasty food that my father loves. 

Genesis 27:18–40 CSB

18 When he came to his father, he said, “My father.” And he answered, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” 19 Jacob replied 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 bless me.” 20 But Isaac said to his son, “How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?” He replied, “Because the Lord your God made it happen for me.” 21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau or not?” 22 So Jacob came closer to his father Isaac. When he touched him, he said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23 He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. 24 Again he asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he replied, “I am.” 25 Then he said, “Bring it closer to me, and let me eat some of my son’s game so that I can bless you.” Jacob brought it closer to him, and he ate; he brought him wine, and he drank. 26 Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come closer and kiss me, my son.” 27 So he came closer and kissed him. When Isaac smelled 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. 28 May God give to you— from the dew of the sky and from the richness of the land— an abundance of grain and new wine. 29 May peoples serve you and nations bow in worship to you. Be master over your relatives; may your mother’s sons bow in worship to you. Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed. 30 As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau arrived from his hunting. 31 He had also made some delicious food and brought it to his father. He said to his father, “Let my father get up and eat some of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.” 32 But his father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am Esau your firstborn son.” 33 Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably. “Who was it then,” he said, “who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it all before you came in, and I blessed him. Indeed, he will be blessed!” 34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, my father!” 35 But he replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” 36 So he said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me twice now. He took my birthright, and look, now he has taken my blessing.” Then he asked, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?” 37 But Isaac answered Esau, “Look, I have made him a master over you, have given him all of his relatives as his servants, and have sustained him with grain and new wine. What then can I do for you, my son?” 38 Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” And Esau wept loudly. 39 His father Isaac answered him, Look, your dwelling place will be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of the sky above. 40 You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will break his yoke from your neck.

Remember, this blessing is the thing that he's tricked his brother out of with the bowl of food. So Not only is he having to trick his brother out of it but he is also having to trick is father out of it.

"'I am Esau, your firstborn. I have made, just as you spoke to me. Rise up, please. Sit and eat from my hunted game, on account of which your being can give me a blessing.' And Yitskhaq said to his son, 'What is this that you found so quickly, my son?'" I mean, did you just go to like the meat fridge? "'You know, it takes a while to get an animal, and it's very quick, it's very strange.' And Yitskhaq said, 'Well, you know, Yahweh, your Elohim has caused it to happen before me.'"

Just think how thick the irony is here. What is Yahweh Elohim causing to happen?

And what is it that deceitful humans are causing to happen? 

Remember what Joseph says to his brothers at the very end of the book? "You planned it for evil, but Yahweh Elohim was able to plan it for good." So human, divine will, and so Yaaqov here presumes to like know the will of God. And like, surely this is all what Yahweh caused to happen when so clearly this is what they're scheming.

"Yitskhaq said to Yaaqov, 'Well, come near please so I can feel you, my son. If you are my son, Esau, or not.' So Yaaqov came near to Yitskhaq his father, and he felt him, and he said, 'Well, the voice, it's the voice of Yaaqov, but those hands, those are the hands of Esau.' And he did not recognize him because his hands were like the hands of Esau, his brother. You know, hairy.

And he blessed him and he said, 'Are you my son, Esau?' And he said, 'I am.' And he said, 'Come near to me so I can eat from the hunted game, my son, so that my being can bless you.' And he came near to him and he ate, and he brought him wine in the tent, and he drank." Yeah, the younger son taking advantage of his father in the tent with food and wine.

"And Yitskhaq his father said to him, 'Come near, please kiss me, my son.' So he came near, kissed his father, and he," that is Yitskhaq.

"He smelled the smell of those clothes." Remember the desirable clothes? Yeah, smelled. Took it in. Mm, so desirable. "And he blessed him, and he said, 'Ah, the smell of my son.

It's like the smell of a field that Yahweh has blessed.

May Yahweh give you dew of the skies, fatness of the land, much grain, fresh wine.

May peoples become your servants, may people groups bow down to you.

Be more mighty than your brother.

May the sons of your mother bow down to you. Those who curse you, they are cursed, and those who bless you, they are blessed.' And it came about when Yitskhaq finished blessing Yaaqov, it was indeed just as he was going outside from the face of Yitskhaq, his father, that lo and behold, Esau, his brother came in from his hunting, and of course he had also made tasty things and so he brought them to his father, and he said to him,

"let my father arise." It's so weird when they speak to each other, but in third person. Let my father.

"'Let my father arise so he can eat from the hunted game of his son, on account of which your being can give me a blessing.' And Yitskhaq, his father, said to him, 'Who are you?' And he said, 'I am your son, your firstborn Esau.'"

Do you see the mirroring that's happening here? "And Yitskhaq he started trembling a great trembling very much. And he said, 'Well, who then was it who hunted game and brought it to me? And I ate all of it before you came. And I blessed him, and let me tell you, indeed, he will be the blessed one.' When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out a great crying, great and bitter very much. And he said to his father, 'Well, bless me too, father.' And he said, 'Ah, your brother, he came with deception.

He took your blessing.' And he said," this is so rich. "Isn't he rightly called Yaaqov?" I mean, he's been grabbing my heel, my paraphrase, since the day we were born.

But in this case, he says, "He grabbed my heel these two times. He took my bekorah, and now he's taken my berakah." It's the same four Hebrew letters just put in different order. 

"'He took my firstborn right, now he's taken my blessing.' Then he said, 'You gotta have one more blessing set aside for me, dad.'

Yitskhaq responded and he said to Esau, 'Well, I set him as mightier than you, and all of his brothers I gave to him as servants. I supported him with grain and new wine.'"

"'What can I really do for you, my son?' And Esau said to his father, 'You only have one blessing, dad? Bless me too.' He lifted up his voice and he wept, and Yitskhaq his father responded and said, 'Well, okay, here goes.

Away from the fatness of the land, that's where you're gonna dwell, away from the dew of the skies above. By your sword you will live, and you will be a servant to your brother, and it will come about one day when you wander free, you will break his yoke from upon your neck.'"

Can you see these two scenes have so been set in like a mirror relationship to each other.

The brother comes in deception. When the genuine brother comes and all their dialogue, everything, it's all mirrors of each other.

But then the twist comes in the poem of blessing in contrast to the poem of non-blessing at the end. And in the middle of the Yaaqov scene is this picture of ... Or excuse me, in the middle of this scene, all of the stories come together. He took your bekorah in deception, now he's taken the berakah.

The Poems of Blessing and Non-Blessing

Let me just point out a couple things. First of all, the poem of blessing, the smell of a field that Yahweh has blessed with dew, and fatness, and grain, and wine, these are new vocabulary items in the story so far. So the Eden portrait, you know, think of how it begins in Genesis 1. Fruit trees, be fruitful and multiply, animals and humans. 

You get to Eden, animals and humans at peace. Eat from all the trees. There's plants, there's rivers, and springs, right? So now we add to the picture, it's like we're adding to the palette of Eden colors. 

And so now when you can talk of dew like the magical water that appears, you can talk about the fatness of the land. Just a very vivid image of abundance. You can talk about amber waves of grain, you can talk about fresh wine. Anytime these gifts of abundance are mentioned, they become little Eden icons that can be drawn upon in later narratives, and like, in the Psalms and so on. So that is an image of Eden abundance.

Notice also after the Eden abundance, Yitskhaq talks about the rule and authority that's being given to Yaaqov. People groups bowing down to you, the sons of your mother. Sons of your mother?

He only has one brother.

Already we're like pitching forward to this expanded rule and authority. And so, right, this mirrors the Elohim blessed them and said to the humans, be fruitful, multiply, rule the land, subdue the creatures, and so on.

Then the last part of the blessing that Yitskhaq brings up is exactly what God said to Avraham. "Those who bless you will be blessed, and those who curse you will be cursed."

And remember, that put God in some awkward scenarios where Avraham played the snake, and then Yahweh has to stand by his man, stand by This snakey man on multiple occasions not because it's fair, but because it's God being consistent to his promise. 

And that same tension is apparently gonna mark the story of Jacob too, and haven't we felt it already? Like, this guy doesn't deserve God at his back, but man, whether or not he deserves it, apparently it's not a part of this equation. 

So that's the blessing.

Genesis 37:9–11 CSB

9 Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 He told his father and brothers, and his father rebuked him. “What kind of dream is this that you have had?” he said. “Am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Can I think of any other stories in Genesis where the sons, the many sons of a father and a mother, are going to bow down to one younger chosen one of the brothers? In fact, it's exactly the same language that Joseph's dream, this is in Genesis 37, Joseph's dream, his doubled dreams are about sheaves of grain, and then the sun, moon, and stars bowing down to him. And what Jacob, Yaaqov, says is what, you think me and your mother's sons are all gonna come bow down to you? And that's exactly what happens in the course of the story. 

Genesis 49:8–10 CSB

8 Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you. 9 Judah is a young lion— my son, you return from the kill. He crouches; he lies down like a lion or a lioness—who dares to rouse him? 10 The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.

And then what happens is that the conclusion of Genesis, what you learn is that the messianic snake-crushing seed is not gonna come from Joseph's line. 

It's gonna come from Judah's line. And what Yaaqov says to Judah is that "all of your father's sons will bow down to you, and all of the peoples will give you their obedience." So Judah becomes the inheritor of the promise that Yaaqov is receiving right now.

But Yitskhaq thinks that he's giving it to Esau, but in reality, it's the younger son is giving it. 

So every time that somebody's been given the Eden blessing, Adam and Eve, Noah, Avraham and Sarah, Yitskhaq, and then Rivqah, it's been a gift and a good thing. And this time around we feel like, it's good, like the Eden blessing's good. But to this guy and in this way, it just all feels very complicated and sad. 

I think what strikes us as odd is for us we think like, the primary meaning of blessing is abundance. Like, there's more than enough for everybody. And in this story, the abundant blessing is somehow very, it feels scarce when it's in the hands of Yitskhaq.

Humans begin to abuse the Eden blessing. Over time, humans come to think the blessing is theirs to use however they want, and they adopt a scarcity mindset. But in reality, the blessing represents the opposite of scarcity. - Tim Mackie

This is the second time when people have given the blessing. Can you think of the first time when people were in the midst instead of God giving the Eden blessing directly.

Genesis 9:24–27 CSB

24 When Noah awoke from his drinking and learned what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said: Canaan is cursed. He will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers. 26 He also said: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; Let Canaan be Shem’s slave. 27 Let God extend Japheth; let Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem; let Canaan be Shem’s slave.

When Noah woke up from his wine and he knew what Ham, his younger son, had done to him, he says, so he curses the grandson of Ham, he blesses Yahweh, the God of Shem, and he speaks an ambiguous statement over his other son, Yephet. It could be negative or positive or both. 

So here it's Noah who's delivering the blessing and the curse, and so that's the other parallel to what Yitskhaq is doing right here.

Every other instances, it's God giving it. In this case, it's God's chosen one who has been given it as a gift, and then they do with it what they will.

The Poem of Non-Blessing

So the non-blessing is clearly the inversion. So not only will you not get fatness of the land and dew, you're gonna be on the outside of it, away from it, and that is called wandering.

Who's the first wanderer? 

Genesis 4:12 CSB

12 If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Cain.

Genesis 4:12, "You will become a vagrant and a wanderer in the land." In exile with no home.

It's a rare word, and it appears precisely two times in the book of Genesis, and you now know the two. So Esau is compared to Cain, he too will be a wanderer away from the blessing.

He's going to live at odds with his brothers. Sword, and you'll be a servant, but you won't like it, and you'll be at odds.

This is a comparison of Esau to Yishmael.

Genesis 16:12 CSB

12 This man will be like a wild donkey. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; he will settle near all his relatives.”

Do you remember what God says about Yishmael and his relationship to when Yishmael is born in Genesis 16? What God tells him is that he, Yishmael, will be a wild donkey. He'll be an animal of a man. "His hand will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him, and he will live in exile from all of his brothers." so this is now the third.

The son, the two sons of Avraham, Yitskhaq and Yishmael. Now we're to the sons of Yitskhaq, and it's Esau and Yaaqov, and so the careers of Yishmael and Esau become parallel to each other.

what tribe is Esau gonna marry into?

Like, in the next paragraph, he's gonna marry an Ishmaelite woman. And so it's like the teams, this is all about forming the game roster in your mind of like, who's on whose team. It's all gonna get complicated as you go on. 

Genesis 27:40 CSB

40 You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will break his yoke from your neck.

So this, the non-blessing on Esau is echoing that, but look at the last line of the non-blessing. "But one day you're gonna have your brother's yoke on your neck, and you're gonna break free."

So Esau is the ancestor of what tribe as you go on?

Of the Edomites, of the Edomites. So it's really interesting as you read on into the biblical story. Edom is continually defeated and subjugated by the Israelites, and particularly, David is the one who defeats them, and they start paying tribute to him.

2 Kings 8:20–22 CSB

20 During Jehoram’s reign, Edom rebelled against Judah’s control and appointed their own king. 21 So Jehoram crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. Then at night he set out to attack the Edomites who had surrounded him and the chariot commanders, but his troops fled to their tents. 22 So Edom is still in rebellion against Judah’s control today. Libnah also rebelled at that time.

There's a weird little note in 2 Kings that tells of the day when Edom revolted from under the hand of the line of Judah, and they made a king for themselves.

So it's anticipating brothers living at odds with each other until finally Edom breaks free. 

So it's a good example of how the stories of these ancestors are all designed to anticipate these sibling rivalries that are gonna keep on right on through the Torah and the Prophets.

Issacs VS God’s Blessing

all the way back to the little birth poem when the twins were wrestling inside Rivqah's womb, and she prays to God. And what God says is two nations will come from your womb. One will be greater than the other, the greater will serve the younger.

It's God's words that paint the picture as it were, or that determine the course of history. And it so happens that what Isaac's words do is they match God's plan, but not precisely because he wanted to give it to the wrong son. 

think the narrative at that point is saying it's not like, it's just like a magic spell he can cast, and history turns out. Like, this was God's purpose and that we're back to Joseph's words here. Humans just do all these screwed up things, but God's purpose has a way of working it in through even that. So I think that we're meant to think that it's God's word that determines history, and that Yitskhaq's blessing is like playing second fiddle to that so to speak. 

The other piece, however, is that we're also reflecting on the fact that God genuinely invests his authority and his blessing in humans with the hope and the ideal that their will is one with God's will.

That's certainly what Jesus wanted to shape his disciples to pray every day  May your will be done, and your kingdom come here on the land as it is in the skies. So merging humanity's will with God's will is the ideal and the hope, but there's a huge liability and risk in that plan. And we're watching the negative side of that equation here.

because you really do have stories of humans invested with divine authority and power and abusing it, and that's a trope. It's a motif throughout the Hebrew Bible. 

It especially comes into play with the prophets, like the weird complicated portrait of Elijah and Elisha, for example. They're wonder workers, but sometimes they do kind of screwed up stuff with their power. Like, those little boys come out of the woods and they're making fun of Elisha for being bald. And so he just like, he just like curses them, and two bears come out and devour the boys and you're like, what? Like, that's messed up. Like, that's an abuse of power, and I think that's the point of that story is even Elisha wasn't beyond the temptation of abusing his power to bring about death instead of life. 

But sometimes he also brought life with the power that God gave him, and so I think that's a part of this portrait is

God invests this very, very dysfunctional family with immense power and privilege, and despite themselves, the blessing, you know, continues on through the generations, but there's a lot of casualties in the process, and that's just the biblical portrait of human nature and God's purpose. 

Bibliography

https://bibleproject.com/classroom/jacob

Freedman, David Noel, Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf, John David Pleins, and Astrid B. Beck, eds. in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Freedman, David Noel, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck. in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000.

Mathews, K. A. Genesis 11:27–50:26. Vol. 1B of The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005.

Brannan, Rick, and Israel Loken. The Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible. Lexham Bible Reference Series. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014.

Barry, John D., Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Michael S. Heiser, Miles Custis, Elliot Ritzema, Matthew M. Whitehead, Michael R. Grigoni, and David Bomar. Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016.

Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.

https://hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/Summaries/Vayetzei/Leah_s_Eyes/leah_s_eyes.html

https://biblepure.com/tender-eyed-meaning-in-the-bible/

https://www.logos.com/grow/tender-eyed-leah-meaning/