Genesis Twenty Seven
Written by Viner Hall
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It was said by one who was commenting on Jacob supplanting Esau in chapter 27 of Genesis regarding the blessing, who wrote: -
“There is a sad, beginning to the matter, for it is a story of deceit met by deceit, with unexpected results in loss and suffering, in which is seen that God’s will prevails. Isaac was growing old and proposed to give his paternal blessing before he died.
He loved the elder of his two sons, for the reason that he did eat of his venison. This fleshly desire influenced Isaac to follow a course that he knew was not in harmony with the will of God. It was his will to bless Esau, and instead of calling together all the family to witness the blessing, he sends Esau off privately to secure food that he loved that he might give him the blessing.
“Rebecca overheard and mindful of ‘the purpose of God’ revealed to her before her Sons were born, resorts to fraud to obtain the blessing for Jacob. The latter becomes party to the plot, and disguised as Esau secures the blessing. Even at this point the terms of the blessing were overruled, for they concerned only material prosperity and political supremacy, (Gen. 27:26-29).
“When Esau returned the fraud was discovered, and Isaac trembled exceedingly. This distress seems to have sprung from a consciousness that his clandestine endeavour to bestow the blessing upon Esau had been frustrated, and that God’s will would be done. “Where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it to me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? Yea, and he shall be blessed,” (Gen. 27:33).
“In the upshot the brethren are estranged; Jacob leaves home to escape his brother’s hatred, and begins a period of discipline in which he is purged of his weakness by being himself subjected to constant fraud and deception on the part of his uncle with whom he found asylum.
“The Conferring of the Abrahamic blessing upon Jacob did not exempt him from the effects of that deception to which he had been a party. But the evident desire and will to secure that which concerned everlasting life showed Jacob to be a fit subject for the discipline of the Lord. This was brought to bear providentially while Jacob suffered from Laban’s Craft and Greed.”
J. C.
(The bold print in the foregoing is mine. V. H.)
On reading this article I was very strongly moved to reply and after re-reading the history of Isaac and Jacob in our recent Bible readings, I feel conscientiously impelled in the interests of the truth to give this answer, in order to clear the character of one of the very chiefest of God’s sons—who for ages has been the victim of libellous slander, and that in spite of the fact that he is one of the few saints of God against whom no sin is charged in the Bible. First let me say—”It is a very serious thing to condemn those whom God does not condemn:“ and I would add, more serious still to condemn those whom God attested and approved.
In paragraph 3, I notice he seeks to limit the blessing of Isaac to “material prosperity and political supremacy;“ in support of which he cites Gen. 27:26-29. Now is he not quite wrong in so limiting the blessing sought by Jacob for does not verse 29 of this citation embrace the fullness of the blessing covenanted to Abraham?