July 9, 2007

• Discovering God’s Character – Part 11
  
  
  
  Jacob Receives Isaac’s Blessing

  Here in Genesis 27, we see Isaac has gotten old and he had become
  blind. Now it sounds like Isaac is going to die yet he won’t and it is
  curious here is that we have not seen as much about God interacting
  with Isaac as we did with Abraham. There may be a reason for this as
  we’ll see shortly.

  Now the overall story in this chapter goes like this. Isaac is telling
  Esau to hunt some game and bring some food for him that he liked and
  that he would bless Esau before he died and so Esau took off to go
  hunting. Now Rebekah heard this plan and tells Jacob, her son, to
  deceive his father into thinking he is Esau by wearing his clothes and
  using his mother’s cooking will help complete the ruse and Jacob will
  receive his father’s blessing instead. Jacob protests against this plan
  yet complies with his mother’s wishes. Esau comes home and discovers
  Jacob has taken the blessing intended for him. What a strange affair? What
  is going on here? Why is Rebekah telling Jacob to do this masquerade?
  Why is Isaac doing this? When does Isaac really die?

  Here’s some facts.
  1. Isaac dies at 180 years of age. (Genesis 35:27-29)
  2. Jacob and Esau were born when Isaac was 60 years old. (Genesis 25:26)
  3. When Esau married Judith and Basemath before this story, at 40 years old, Isaac was 100.
  4. Jacob will spend 20 years in Paddan-Aram to marry Leah and Rachel
  and to build up his flocks and then return to Canaan. Isaac is alive
  when he gets back. (Genesis 31:38)
  5. Rebekah believed that Isaac was going to bless Esau before his death (Genesis 27:6-7)
  6. Esau believed his father was going to die. (Genesis 27:41)

  So Isaac’s age was around 100 years old, perhaps a little older. He
  would, in fact, live up to another 80 years. Either Isaac became sick
  and got well or something else was going on. Perhaps a bit more digging
  is in order.

  If we go back in our reading a little ways we find:

  
  Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren;
  and the LORD answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the
  children struggled together within her; and she said, "If it is so, why
  then am I this way?" So she went to inquire of the LORD. The LORD said
  to her, "Two nations are in your womb; and two peoples will be
  separated from your body; and one people shall be stronger than the
  other; and the older shall serve the younger."  Genesis 25:21-23 (NASB)

  
  When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the
  field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved
  Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Genesis
  25:27-28 (NASB)

  It appears that the two sons had two different outlooks on life and
  each parent has their favorite son. The Lord had told Rebekah, not
  Isaac, how it was really going to be with the two sons. Now Isaac loved
  to eat the game Esau’s hunted.  If you haven’t already noticed this,
  there is an “eating” connection between Isaac and Esau. Remember Esau
  gave away his birthright on the account of being hungry. Would Isaac be
  attempting to “undo” Esau’s indiscretion of selling his birthright by a
  secret attempt to give it to Esau anyway through giving him the
  blessing? We cannot be entirely sure what is going on here and you can
  read the details in the text but something is happening and Rebekah
  knows about it and commands her son, Jacob, to act quickly as she told
  him. On his part, Jacob protests with some reasonable arguments and
  tells her that he didn’t think it would work and he didn’t want to
  displease his father. Yet Jacob obeys his mother and does as she has
  said. Rebekah’s plan works and Jacob receives Isaac’s blessing even
  though Isaac is somewhat suspicious. Of course, Esau arrives right
  after this happens and comes in to give his father the food he wanted
  and finds that his father has already given Jacob the blessing. Now
  Esau blames Jacob for taking both his birthright and blessing and wants
  to kill Jacob. Rebekah hears about this and tells Jacob to flee to her
  brother, Laban, and stay a few days (turns into 20 years) until Esau’s
  fury subsides. Now Rebekah gets a bit dramatic and tells Isaac that she
  would despair of life if Jacob found a wife in Canaan.

  So now Isaac finally follows in his father’s footsteps and sends Jacob
  to Paddan-Aram to the house of Bethuel to get a wife and commands him
  to not get a wife from Canaan. He blesses Jacob and sends Jacob away
  early in Genesis 28. Esau sees this and does the opposite. In fact, in
  addition to the two wives he had, he married another, Mahalath, the
  daughter of Ishmael’s son, Nebaioth. One final point, its interesting
  to note that since the fathers in that culture had a great deal of
  input on whom their sons married, it would have been Isaac that allowed
  Esau to marry the Canaanite women in the first place. It may be for
  this reason that God doesn’t interact with Isaac so much in the
  scriptures. We’ll continue with Jacob’s travels and stay at Paddan-aram at Laban’s
  place until next time.

  It shouldn’t escape our notice that Isaac was blind in two ways, in his
  eyes from old age and in his heart from his close bond to Esau. I even
  imagine this was part of the cause of Isaac and Rebekah to each have
  their “favorite sons”. Its not hard to see that Isaac’s love of the
  outdoors led him to neglect the son who was not the “man’s man”.  You
  see, Isaac was blinded by the trappings of this world (the game, the
  smell of his hunter son, and the smell of fields which the Lord has
  blessed… v.27) and for a time appears to have somewhat neglected his
  role as a father to his son, Jacob. Yet Jacob still respected his
  father and protested the plan of his mother yet was obedient to her. 
  Often, Jacob is labeled a deceiver here but from the account, we can
  clearly see that there was a lot that had to do with “not being able to
  see” in that family in these passages. Isaac and Esau had attempted to
  do something contrary to what the Lord had clearly told Rebekah before
  the children were born. So from this, we see that even the intent of
  parents to withhold blessings from their children cannot withstand the
  will of God who intends to bless those whom He wants to bless.
  Therefore, let it be said that the blessings and curses of man have no
  bearing or power on anyone when it is the Lord who blesses and curses
  and overrules the intents and actions of man. The only power that man’s
  blessings and curses have is if we let them have power over us since
  the Lord is the final authority in all these matters and it does not
  matter what man says other than express his opinion.

  Now we should take careful note that deception met deception in the
  account. What man plans in secret, God knows. The person may plan his
  way but the Lord directs His steps. Why do you think Isaac trembled
  violently when he heard that he had been deceived by Jacob? (Genesis
  27:34)  Do you think that he knew within himself that the Lord had
  discovered his own deceit and allowed him to be deceived? That might
  explain why Isaac does not attempt to undo what was done and then
  follows in his father, Abraham’s steps. He sends Jacob to get a wife
  outside of Canaan, hearing God’s words through Rebekah’s plea to have
  Jacob get a wife from her brother Laban’s household in Paddan-aram. 

  What can we learn about God’s character here? It is clear that even
  when family affairs are not the best, it is the Lord that overrules in
  such matters. Can we see that God has a plan and that He will carry it
  out even when Isaac and Esau attempted to do something else? Can we see
  that Esau despised his birthright and was even the first to take wives
  from Canaan, something his grandfather Abraham would not do for his
  father, Isaac? God is not mocked and what we do is plain before His
  eyes. The Lord knows when a person’s heart leans toward pleasing
  themselves and when it leans toward pleasing God. He also knows when a
  person’s heart is grieved when commanded to do something that would be
  dishonoring to Him or to their parents. The Lord knows when you are
  going to be cheated by others.  The Lord knows when others are planning
  to harm you and gives you a way of escape. Jacob certainly experiences
  this.

  Yet can we, with the eyes and heart of faith, trust that the
  experiences that we ourselves experience help us to accomplish what God
  has for us to do in our lives? It has been said that God does not waste
  “trouble” on His children. So when He brings it into your life, there
  is a purpose for it. We should remember the words that Paul wrote to
  the Corinthians…

  
  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
  mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction
  so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with
  the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as
  the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is
  abundant through Christ.   II Corinthians 1:3-5 (NASB)

  I’ll close with this thought.  If there were no troubles, no
  sufferings, no trials, no heartbreak, no pain for us to experience in
  this fallen world, what would we find to praise Him for when He
  delivers us from them?  How might we become “more than conquerors in
  Christ” if there was nothing to overcome? How might God’s own heart be
  more amply expressed except by a heart and life of one who has endured
  the pain and suffering that another person is undergoing and comes to
  comfort them and give them peace and love, if we would never experience
  these things? Yes, God is the Lord of the Resurrection. Things that
  were dead are made alive by His power… and we are both partakers and
  participants in this most amazing thing.  Mr.Vee

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