06/09/2008
Genesis 27:26 - 37 (HCSB) 26Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come closer and kiss me, my son.” 27So 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 down to you.
Be master over your brothers;
may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Those who curse you will be cursed,
and those who bless you will be blessed.30As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau arrived from the hunt. 31He had also made some delicious food and brought it to his father. Then he said to his father, “Let my father get up and eat some of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.”
32But his father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?”
He answered, “I am Esau your firstborn son.”
33Isaac 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!”
34When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”
35But he replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”
36So 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?”
37But 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?”
In this passage, Isaac is aged and blind. Realizing that his demise is eminent, he calls for his first-born son (and consequently his favorite son) to prepare a meal of wild-game so that he may bestow the blessing as was common among patriarchal society. Rebekah conspired with Jacob to deceive Isaac. Remember that Esau had frivolously bargained away his birthright for a pot of stew from Jacob (Genesis 25:27). Jacob comes in to Isaac and successfully pulls off the ruse. It is only when Esau returns that the whole ordeal is revealed.
Now, what strikes me about this passage is the permanence of the blessing. We would think that as soon as Isaac realizes what has happened that he can simply reverse it because of the deception, but this doesn’t seem to be possible.
We treat blessings (and curses) as something almost trivial. We call out “bless you” when someone sneezes with very little thought. But what if we began to think of blessings in the way that Isaac did?
The blessing that was given to Jacob was bestowed in such a permanent way that you could even think of it as a branding on the skin. Once Jacob had received it (right or wrong), it was permanent and irrevocable. When Esau then asks for a blessing of his own, Isaac replies that the blessing has already been given. All that remained was a curse (Genesis 27:39).
Another important thing to understand here is that Rebekah was told when the boys were born that the older would serve the younger (Genesis 25:23). In the patriarchal society, this would have been quite odd. But so it was prophesied. Perhaps Rebekah was working to bring about the prophecy since she knew Isaac favored Esau.
Nevertheless, we need to realize that a blessing is a special thing. Not just a blue ribbon we can hand to someone for doing a good job. We cannot yell “undo” if we change our minds. We must treat it as reverently as Isaac did. When we bestow a blessing, we should do so in soberness, realizing that we are invoking the very spirit of God on someone’s behalf.
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2008 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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