Over the past few weeks, we've watched the son of the late Abraham step out into his own – get married, and twenty years later have twin boys whose conflict began before their birth. In the meantime, we backtracked to get a sense for who Isaac is as a man, navigating his complicated relationship with the late Abraham; we also saw Isaac's relentless perseverence, and how God blessed him with wealth enough to highlight the foolishness of Esau's sale of his birthright all the more. Now, in today's lengthy passage from the end of chapter 26 to the start of chapter 28, we have another big story about this chosen family, in all its escalating dysfunctions. These are the people God wanted to work with? They're not the sort many of us would've recommended.
The core story today is sandwiched between a pair of weddings, both of which share the same groom: Esau. In between those weddings, the story unfolds as a series of seven dialogue scenes, each of which involves exactly two members of the family.1 And the central idea of the core story is blessing. The noun 'blessing' shows up exactly seven times throughout these seven scenes, while various forms of the verb 'to bless' show up precisely twenty-one times, which is thrice seven.2 That's not coincidence; it's a master artist at work.
As the prologue begins to scroll, the twins Jacob and Esau are forty-year-old men (Genesis 26:34), the same age their dad Isaac had been when Abraham's chief steward introduced him to their mom Rebekah (Genesis 25:20). But we read nothing about Isaac arranging similar matches here for either of his boys.3 Jacob, not presuming to run ahead, stays a bachelor; Esau, on the other hand, weds a pair of local girls, Judith bat Beeri and Basemath bat Elon, “without consulting his father.”4 In doing so, he becomes the first voluntary polygamist we've seen since Lamech (Genesis 4:23-24). But the highlight here is on the fact that these gals are daughters of Hittites of the land of Canaan (Genesis 10:15), the sort Abraham staunchly refused to risk Isaac marrying (Genesis 24:3). Given their family's unique mission on the world stage, they couldn't risk religious or cultural disruption. But Esau does what was forbidden to his father, introducing a new source of discord to the chosen family when his Hittite wives “became bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah” (Genesis 26:35). Later Jewish readers took this to mean they were defiant toward Esau's parents,5 guilty of “impure deeds,”6 and devoted to idols.7 True or not, clearly evidence is stacking up that Esau just can't be trusted with the future of the Abraham project.8
Prologue done. The stage is set. We skip forward an undefined number of years, maybe several decades, until Isaac is extremely old.9 His vision has failed. Rabbis of old speculated that, when Isaac was tied on the altar in his youth, the angels wept over him and their teardrops fell into his eyes.10 Speaking of Isaac on the altar, just as many Isaac stories we've read lately were written to rehash scenes from the life of Abraham, this week's story subtly alludes back to that grand finale in chapter 22. On the way up Mount Moriah, Isaac had called out to Abraham, “My father!”, and was answered back with, “Behold me, my son!” (Genesis 22:7). Now, as Isaac calls up the bigger of his boys, he addresses him as “my son,” and Esau answers, “Behold me” (Genesis 27:1).11
Isaac explains to Esau that he's unsure how much longer he's got (Genesis 27:2), much as Esau earlier thought himself fated unto death (Genesis 25:32).12 But Isaac's rediscovery of his vulnerability leads him to ponder his legacy and cling to Esau's manly strength.13 Isaac, a man of appetites like his son's, craves at least one more good meal before he goes. Any tribal chief in Canaan would send out underlings to hunt game for him,14 so Isaac asks that of Esau, to take up bow and arrow and slay him some wild game, turning it into “a savory dish such as I love, and bring it to me” (Genesis 27:3-4). This is the Bible's fifth explicit example of 'love.' Third and fourth were Isaac loving Esau and Rebekah loving Jacob; second was Isaac loving Rebekah; and first was when God described Isaac to Abraham as the son “whom you love” (Genesis 22:2), using language nearly identical to how Isaac now describes, not his son, but his favorite food – if this is a new Moriah moment, then that meat is the offering which he, presenting himself in God's place, desires.15 Just like Esau's hunting and his love of food were key in his first story, so again: 'game' crops up seven times here, just like 'blessing.'16
Isaac's plan is that, once he's strengthened and delighted by this excellent meal, the point of eating it will be “in order that my soul may bless you before I die” (Genesis 27:5). That sounds quite fine. But everywhere else, the final blessing from parent to child, which was a cross between a last will and testament and a prophecy, appears as a family affair, with everybody gathering 'round to bear witness to the words once spoken.17 Here, Isaac calls Esau privately, laying plans to bless Esau in the absence of his brother or mother. The obvious implication is that, despite how embittered Isaac's spirit was by Esau's careless marriages, Isaac has determined not only to keep privileging Esau but in fact to will him everything, even to the exclusion of Jacob from the family's future. This plotting behind Jacob's back underscores that “Isaac wanted to do his own will rather than God's.”18
And what could stand in the patriarch's way? A meddling wife in the hands of the Most High. As Sarah once eavesdropped from inside her tent when Abraham hosted the messengers of heaven (Genesis 18:10), Rebekah eavesdrops from outside Isaac's tent as he schemes with Esau (Genesis 27:5). No sooner does Isaac dispatch “Esau his son” to the fields than Scene 2 opens with Rebekah addressing “Jacob her son” (Genesis 27:5-6). She explains the situation, quoting the gist of what she “heard your father speak to Esau your brother,” but with one addition: putting words in Isaac's mouth, she clarifies that the blessing will be “before the LORD” (Genesis 27:6-7).19 Obviously, Rebekah loves and dotes on Jacob her son (Genesis 25:28). But she also recalls the oracle once given her, in Isaac's absence, when the LORD declared that big brother would serve little brother (Genesis 25:23).20 As Rebekah understands the plans of God, it must mean Jacob rising ahead of Esau, so she was “determined to invoke God's favor upon Jacob, even in defiance of Isaac's intent,”21 if that's what it would take to “implement the prediction from on high.”22
Having filled Jacob in on the background, she lays out her plan, which is for Jacob to impersonate Esau and to thereby hoodwink Isaac into sealing him with the blessing under false pretenses. Rebekah offers this plan, not as a suggestion to her son, not as a request like Isaac had made to Esau, but as a commandment with authority (Genesis 27:8), laying down the law for him like a Moses or a Joshua would (Joshua 22:2).23 Jacob's objection has nothing to do with the ethics of the plan, questionable though they are. After all, hadn't Isaac himself set the family precedent of lies and tricks when he aimed to deceive Abimelech at the expense of Jacob's dear mama (Genesis 26:7)?24 No, Jacob frets over pulling it off successfully. “Look,” he points out to his mom, “Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man; perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be a scoffer, and bring a curse upon myself and not blessing” (Genesis 27:11-12). The words for 'hairy' and 'smooth' sound like the names of the mountains Seir and Halak, which stand on either side of Joshua's border between Edom and Israel (Joshua 11:17; 12:7).25 Jacob describes himself as smooth, which on the surface means his surface as against Esau's body hair; but Jacob's also admitting he's a 'smooth operator,' a man whose “smooth mouth works ruin” (Proverbs 26:28).26 If he's caught out as smooth, he'll be no better than an enemy of the prophets and may come to a worse end than if he just sits back and yields to Esau (cf. 2 Chronicles 36:16). After all, won't Moses warn that “cursed is anyone who misleads a blind man” like Isaac (Deuteronomy 27:18)?
Rebekah, though, urges him not to think of logistics or consequences; leave both to her, and just obey as if her words are law (Genesis 27:13). Jacob, in obedience, fetches a pair of the healthiest goat kids they have in their domestic flocks, the very flocks that proved the LORD's blessing of Isaac in the last chapter (Genesis 26:12-14).27 After the slaying and skinning, Rebekah cooks a hearty goat stew and, with the fuzzy skins, she fits Jacob's smooth hands and neck with coverings, plus she dresses Jacob in Esau's laundry – his finest garments, which were left in Rebekah's care for some reason, despite Esau having his own home and wives by now (Genesis 27:14-16).28 With her swift mind, Rebekah has turned Jacob into a makeshift Esau, from the outside at least.29 Other than fetch the goats, Jacob is totally passive: he doesn't plan, doesn't dress himself, doesn't even pick up the bowl; she hands him the food and sends him, reluctant and nervous, on his way (Genesis 27:17).
Thus opens Scene 3 in a state of anxious tension, as Jacob passes into his father's tent. He speaks two syllables, no more, but it's exactly how Isaac once grabbed Abraham's attention on the mountain: “My father!” Isaac now answers in Abraham's exact words – “Behold me, my son” – but with a new three-word question interrupting it: “who are you?” (Genesis 22:7; 27:18).30 Isaac, in his near-blindness, struggles to know the difference between his sons when it counts the most.31 But the question forces Jacob to make a decision. He opts to lie: “I am Esau your firstborn” – firstborn, legally yes; Esau, no you aren't. “I have done as you told me” – no, Jacob, Isaac told you nothing. “Arise, please, sit and eat of my game” – but you didn't hunt those little goats – “in order that your soul may bless me” (Genesis 27:19).
If Jacob hoped that an economical one-word introduction would disguise his voice, this verbose fifteen-word answer tilts the opposite way. Isaac confronts the visitor with the improbability of Esau accomplishing his task quite so quickly. Cornered, Jacob digs his hole deeper with a further lie. How'd I bag these goats so fast, dad? “Because the LORD your God caused it to be before my face” (Genesis 27:20). It's almost an exact quote from the steward Abraham sent to find Isaac a wife, when he prayed “the LORD, God of my master Abraham, please cause it to be before my face today” (Genesis 24:12). Jacob is invoking a profound picture of providence. But arguably, Jacob is taking the LORD's name in vain, verging on blasphemy (Exodus 20:7). On the other hand, Jacob speaks better than he realizes: God is writing straight with Jacob's crooked and unclean lines.32
Isaac can't argue back, but he's also not sold. He can't go by what he sees; his eyes are too dim. His ears tell him that “the voice is the voice of Jacob,” not of Esau. His other senses will have to be the jury. First up is the sense of touch, but thanks to Rebekah's goatskins, “the hands are the hands of Esau” under Isaac's fingers, fuzzy enough to thwart Isaac's discernment of the truth by touch (Genesis 27:21-23). Isaac poses the question again with more directness: “Are you this son of mine, Esau?” Jacob retorts with the shortest answer of all: “I!” Isaac needs another test. Does the mystery man bring Esau's famed cooking? Jacob delivers the dish on demand, along with bread and wine, that Isaac might eat and drink as he pleases. To Jacob's great relief, the mislabeled dish passes muster; for all Isaac's pretensions as a gourmand, he can't tell the difference after all (Genesis 27:24-25). Only one sense is left. Isaac invites the mystery son to kiss him, a chance for Isaac to inhale his aroma. Jacob obliges, but the earthy smell of Esau's laundry masks Jacob's natural scent. Well, it's three senses against one. Arithmetic takes Isaac by the hand to the realm of untruth (Genesis 27:26-27).
With that, Isaac pronounces his blessing, fully believing he's speaking it over Esau his favorite. Isaac invokes the name of the LORD in describing how this smell reminds him of God's favor to the fields of earth (Genesis 27:27). Isaac prays now that “the God” would grant this son, from above and below, sources of prosperity and plenty – “from the dew of the heaven and from the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and new wine” (Genesis 27:28), which fits with Moses' description of the Promised Land as “a land of grain and new wine, whose heavens drop down dew” (Deuteronomy 33:28). Isaac escalates, bidding this son receive the servitude of peoples, the submission of nations, mastery over his own brother, the submission of his mother's sons. Had there been any doubt, it's now erased: Isaac meant to grant leadership of Abraham's heirs to Esau, husband of Hittites, and to make Jacob's people servants of Edom. But Isaac accidentally does the opposite, diverting that destiny away from Esau to Jacob. Isaac caps it off by adapting a line from God's original promise to Abraham: “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you” (Genesis 27:29; cf. 12:3).
There. The blessing is finished. Once out in the world, it can't be pulled back.33 Jacob, receiver of the blessing in a case of mistaken identity, exits the stage – and, if we doubted God's providence at work, he gets out just as Esau is about to enter. No sitcom could've scripted this better, for “the hand of God is active.”34 The twins pass like ships in the night; in no scene here do they share the stage. And so Scene 4 brings Isaac face-to-face, not with the fake Esau, but with the real deal with the real meal (Genesis 27:30-31). Where Jacob crept in with one word, Esau barges in with eight, bidding his dad rise up, eat the game, and give the blessing. It sounds much like what Jacob said when cornered, but where Jacob said 'please,' Esau doesn't; where Jacob invited his father to sit, Esau doesn't; and where Jacob spoke in the first-person, Esau speaks in third-person.
Needless to say, Isaac's caught off his guard. “Who are you?” he asks Esau – the same question he asked Jacob, but now leaving off the word 'my son.' Esau's answer is pure poetry: “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau!” (Genesis 27:32) – the same structure as when God spoke to Abraham about “your son, your only one..., Isaac” (Genesis 22:2).35 So when we read next that Isaac “trembled a great trembling even to abundance,” which is a sign of astounding anxiety, fear, and shock,36 and that he rhetorically asked who'd been there getting his blessing in persona Esau just moments before (Genesis 27:33), understand what this moment means for Isaac. Isaac is realizing that he's unwittingly become his own mental image of his father. Isaac, in the grip of powers beyond his ken, has in a way 'sacrificed' his beloved son to the plans of the God.37
Esau's reaction is no less volatile than his father's. Where Isaac once lay on the altar as a lamb led to slaughter, Esau's more of a cat led to the vet's office. Esau “cried out a great and bitter cry to abundance,” heard all through the encampment, including by Jacob and Rebekah. Esau begs for blessing, but Isaac puts his finger gingerly on the sticky wicket: “Your brother came in deceit, and he has taken your blessing” (Genesis 27:34-35). Not that it was properly Esau's. When Esau identified himself as “your firstborn” (Genesis 27:32), that's legally now a lie; he gave up his birthright. Esau assumes birthright and blessing are separable, despite being near-identical words in Hebrew;38 but Rebekah and Jacob, and evidently God, beg to differ with him over that.39 In Esau's bitterly punny complaint about Jacob being a dirty, double-crossing, twice-over backstabber like his name forecast, Isaac may be hearing for the first time about Esau having sold his birthright.40
Esau whines and begs more for whatever back-up blessing is still in papa's bag, saved up for Esau now. But of course there's nothing. Wasn't that the whole point, when they conspired to give Esau a private blessing of total provision and dominion, leaving nothing for Jacob? Had Isaac not tried so hard to put all the eggs in Esau's basket, maybe he could fry one for pining Esau now. As it is, Isaac can but list the highlights of what Jacob now has: mastery over Esau, power over his descendants, the gifts of grain and new wine – so what else does Esau think Isaac's hiding up his sleeve (Genesis 27:37)? At this, Esau – husband of two wives and father of who-knows-how-many children by now – melts down, demanding his father invent a second blessing for him, and bursting into tears as he wails out (Genesis 27:38). Our hearts hurt for Esau, who seems in this moment to be a victim of a terrible injustice, a man broken and hurting and desperate.41 Esau hadn't foreseen there being consequences when he blindly bartered his birthright away, but now “afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears” (Hebrews 12:17).
Esau's tears provoke a response, but Genesis doesn't call it a blessing; it's more like the underside of Jacob's. If Jacob will live “from the dew of heaven and from the fatness of the earth” (Genesis 27:28), Esau can know that “away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high” (Genesis 27:39), which sounds almost like God's curse on Cain (Genesis 4:21-22).42 In place of the peaceful harvesting of grain and wine grapes, “by your sword shall you live,” Esau, “and you shall serve your brother” (Genesis 27:40). After all, you've yoked yourself to the clans of Canaan, and in the words of Noah, “Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers” (Genesis 9:25). But Esau gets a silver lining. Every now and then, “when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck” (Genesis 27:40). This tracks with the later history of Israel, who lived in a land of dew and fatness, and Edom, whose land was rocky and harsh; the early Edomites had to fight for survival, they were subjected to Israel under King David (2 Samuel 8:14), but later, when Israel had less faithful kings, the Edomites broke free and independent once more (2 Kings 8:22).43
This hardly seems like something Isaac wanted to say. The New Testament fills us in that it was “by faith” that “Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau” (Hebrews 11:20). Yes, on a human level, Jacob fooled and deceived his father. But Isaac's innermost soul, from whence the blessings were spoken, was moved by the spirit of prophecy, because despite all Isaac's flaws and despite all his misconceptions, Isaac was driven by his faith, ultimately “recognizing the divine purpose” in the words he had matched unknowingly to their targets.44 In spite of his blindness, his faith saw better than his body or his mind, and it blessed in accordance with God's will,45 so “his words had efficacy from God's power alone” working through him.46
As Scene 4 winds down for intermission, Esau isn't taking this God-powered word so well. Since Jacob had manuevered for what Esau believed was rightly his own, Esau grows into a smoldering hostility that builds and builds with time.47 Esau “burned with the firebrands of envy into a persecuting hatred.”48 In the inner sanctum of his heart, he makes a secret resolution. Assuming (as Isaac did) that Isaac's days are numbered, Esau will bide his time so long as Isaac lives, but once Isaac is buried away, Jacob must swiftly follow at Esau's hand (Genesis 27:41). Esau has adopted a new role model: Cain, the original brother-butcher.49
Somehow, the murmurings of Esau's darkening heart make their way to Rebekah. Mama Rebekah refuses to be another Eve, stepping in only after it's too late to save a life.50 She cares deeply about both these boys51 – each is “her son” – and she doesn't want a single fateful day to tear them both away from her (Genesis 27:45). Calling Jacob to join her on stage for Scene 5, she again fills him in on what he hasn't noticed and again insists he listen and follow her plan (Genesis 27:42). Where Abel followed Cain to the field for fratricide, Rebekah insists he rise up and go on the lam, escaping to Harran to seek refuge with Uncle Laban; surely Rebekah's brother will be kinder to Jacob than Jacob's brother aims to be, right (Genesis 27:43)? Jacob can shelter there in Harran for “a few days,” Rebekah unrealistically suggests, until Esau's fury and outrage divert their course back to the hunt and he “forgets what you have done to him” (Genesis 27:44-45) – rather bold of Rebekah, inventor of this whole scheme, to now pin the responsibility on the son she used as her pawn!52 But, she assures Jacob, once Esau calms down, she'll send a messenger to let Jacob know the coast is clear and bring him back. That, of course, never happens, and Rebekah will never see Jacob again, which perhaps she knew from the start.53
Having thus warned Jacob by a monologue in Scene 5, the briefer Scene 6 sees her monologuing, for the first and only time, to her husband. See, Rebekah can't very well just bid Jacob go AWOL; she needs to get Isaac to authorize his trip. But she dare not explain the situation with Esau, lest she hurt Isaac's feelings, incriminate herself, and worsen family relations further.54 So Rebekah relies on her other secret superpower: drama. Just as when she lamented life amidst her pregnancy pangs (Genesis 25:22), now “I loathe my life in the face of the daughters of Heth,” she truthfully complains to Isaac (Genesis 27:46), drawing on the same vehement verbiage God uses in his reaction to Canaanite idolatry (Leviticus 20:23).55 It's bad enough that Esau's married two of them. Her words hit a sensitive spot, calling Isaac's attention subtly back to Esau's unworthiness and indirectly rebuking him both for favoring him and for not doing for Esau what his own father Abraham did for him.56 Now, if her precious Jacob is left similarly unprovided for and must wed “one of the daughters of Heth like these, like these daughters of the land,” then “what to me will be my life?” Rebekah laments (Genesis 27:46).
Her manipulation of her husband – which really is meant here for everybody's benefit, not her own self-seeking – pays off. He says nothing back, but in the final scene Isaac summons Jacob into his tent, the same way he'd summoned Esau in Scene 1; Jacob has now supplanted Esau as the summoned son.57 But where Isaac lamely made requests of Esau, he now lays down a law for Jacob in faithful confidence, commanding Jacob to not marry a wife from among the daughters of Canaan, but instead rise up, travel to Rebekah's hometown and marry one of Jacob's maternal cousins, one of “the daughters of Laban, brother of your mother” (Genesis 28:1-2). It's a command perfectly compatible with what Rebekah wants for Jacob.
But we also read that Isaac “blessed him” – and this time, Isaac does it knowingly, acceptingly. It's now clear that Jacob is the appointed son, the one whom God means to be the next heir of Abraham. So, invoking the God who gave Abraham the covenant (Genesis 17:1), Isaac pronounces: “May El Shaddai bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become an assembly of peoples!” (Genesis 28:3). That's the first time the Bible uses this word for 'assembly,' which will be used again for the religious congregation of Israel and, in the Greek Bible, become the word we find in our New Testament as 'church.' Isaac goes on to declare over Jacob “the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed with you,” to inherit ownership of the land God had promised Abraham (Genesis 28:4). This is the first time we've heard Isaac speak his father's name aloud since that traumatic day on the mountain, and now the very last word we ever hear Isaac say is 'Abraham.'58 With that name on his lips, Isaac sends Jacob away from the land of promise, and the scene ends with a reminder that Rebekah was “the mother of Jacob and Esau” alike (Genesis 28:5). But, having bade Jacob's curse fall on her instead of him, this is the last we see Rebekah alive; her death, unlike Sarah's, goes unmentioned.59
Thus closes the seventh and final scene, as Jacob “fled from his brother's anger” (Wisdom 10:10). We go back now to Rebekah's other son, as Esau reacts to what happened as Isaac blessed and commanded Jacob (Genesis 28:6-7). Now, after all these years, Esau finally clues in to the fact that “the daughters of Canaan were evil in the eyes of Isaac his father” (Genesis 28:8) – ironic phrasing, since Isaac's eyes don't see, but more interesting is that Esau focuses only on the opinion of his father, whereas the narrator stresses that Jacob acted in obedience to “his father and his mother” (Genesis 28:7), for “in everything he obeyed his elders in God.”60 Poor Esau, who “tries hard but... does not really understand the main issues” at stake in his life,61 decides that if Jacob made his parents happy by going to marry a maternal cousin, he can do the same by marrying a paternal cousin. Esau approaches Uncle Ishmael and weds his elder daughter Mahalath, but Esau does so “in addition to the women who were wife to him” already (Genesis 28:9). What that's supposed to fix in the family is unclear.62 If anything, this only distances Esau further from the covenant by linking him with Ishmael the disinherited.63
Whether Rebekah and Jacob did right or did wrong has been hotly debated for thousands of years, and still is to this day.64 But for all that, despite the dire costs she took on, Rebekah pushed both Isaac and Jacob along the way toward the fulfillment of God's will for who they're meant to be.65 For his part, Jacob has now “received the fullness of his father's blessing,”66 “and through the gift of his father's blessing, he was made holy.”67
The blessings of Jacob and Esau were – in St. Augustine's words – “real events with prophetic significance; events on earth, but prompted by heaven.”68 Down through the ages, the people of Israel obviously identified themselves with their ancestor Jacob here, for good and for ill. Tensions worsened with Edom, especially after they cheered over the ashes of Solomon's Temple (Psalm 137:7), and the prophets threatened that “saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom will be the LORD's” (Obadiah 21). When the Jews rose against Greek oppression, they also “made war on the sons of Esau” (1 Maccabees 5:65), and eventually forced the remaining Edomites to convert to Judaism.69 But when Rome demolished the Second Temple, many Jews turned to these chapters for understanding, insisting the Romans must be secret sons of Esau,70 that Rome's acts of violence were the deeds of “Esau's hands,”71 and only once Esau's city Rome would fall could Jacob's city Jerusalem rise again in the kingdom of God.72 Some learned to yearn to “eradicate the descendants of Esau” like burning the leaven of evil away for the Passover.73 Of course, once Rome had bowed the knee to the name of Jesus, it became popular in rabbinic thought to identify Christians as the new sons of Esau.74
But in that reasoning, they were reacting to the paradoxical Christian view that those born of Jacob's flesh could be the truer heirs of Esau. What's going on in this story, zoomed out? The younger brother receives the elder's unclaimed birthright, assumes the blessing under the elder's guise, and is persecuted for bearing God's favor. Is it any surprise that, to early Christians, that sounded like the relationship of the old and new covenant people?
Jacob had acquired the firstborn status in which Esau had placed too little stock, and similarly, they saw, “the younger people,” Christians, “received the Firstborn of All – Christ – when the older people rejected him.”75 By this time, the former covenant had grown old indeed. The Old Testament is stuffed with countless blessings that seem to be directed, in their literal sense, at Israel after the flesh; these are “promises to the first people.”76 For the sake of these promises, they were sent hunting “through spiritual contemplation” to attain “the profits of good works” under the Law, “moved to offer to God a pleasing manner of life.”77 But “understand Christ at the heart of this mystery,”78 for he “himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), displaying “the likeness of sinful flesh” as Jacob displayed the skins of the goats to bear the likeness of Esau (Romans 8:3).79 After that, “in the guise of the elder” people living under the Law, “it is the younger who gets blessed,”80 “the new people of God through faith.”81 Now, “under the symbols of the Old Testament and its promise to the people” of Israel, “a spiritual blessing has lighted upon the people of the Christians,”82 who “make off with the Father's blessing by the completely mysterious workings of faith,”83 and who “fulfill the Law by performing a spiritual priestly ministry, offering themselves as a pleasing aroma to God the Father.”84
For Christ brings the dew of heaven and the fatness of earth together in his incarnation, he waters the fields with the blessings of the words of life, and he supplies plenty of grain and wine in “the sacrament of his body and blood,”85 “the sacred eucharist,”86 for which “the patriarch Jacob hungered” in advance.87 Christ is the Lord whom all peoples must serve, all nations bow down – and though Christ was “crucified and killed” (Acts 2:23) and his disciples likewise were hated and hounded by “ploys and persecutions” of brethren,88 yet the risen Lord promises us to “make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you” (Revelation 3:9). Those who labor under the yoke of the Jewish Law have, since that day, rendered service to Christians, not in any demeaning way – God forbid it! – but by faithfully preserving and carrying the Law and the Prophets throughout the world,89 because, whether the carriers see it or not, the Law and Prophets proclaim Christ (John 1:45; Luke 24:44). Nor is that the last word – we haven't seen the last of Esau in Genesis yet, and you might be surprised what's in store and what we hope it foreshadows in the days to come.
In the meantime, there remain Esaus in our own people's midst, born of the Church's womb but hairy through fleshly commitments. They have a certain share in the blessings of the people of God – they come to church, they participate in Christian things, they bear the Christian name – but with a different destiny, living by the sword that cuts at the bonds of love.90 Our hope is instead to strive to be Jacob, the saints who hearken to “the encouragement of our Mother the Church,”91 who, by bearing the hairy sins of their brethren before their Father, will be “established by their Mother as princes over all the earth,”92 for “if we endure, we will also reign with” Christ (2 Timothy 2:12). If we hear and give “the obedience of faith... among all the nations” (Romans 1:5), then that sweet blessing of Father Abraham may be yours, rather than an Esau's bitter “weeping and gnashing of teeth” when the kingdom is the LORD's (Luke 13:28; cf. Obadiah 21; Hebrews 12:17). Amen.
1 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 373.
2 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 189; James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 133.
3 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 389.
4 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.265, in Loeb Classical Library 242:131.
5 Targum Onqelos Genesis 26:35, in Aramaic Bible 6:98.
6 Jubilees 25:1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:104.
7 Targum Neofiti Genesis 26:35, in Aramaic Bible 1A:133.
8 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 189; Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2015), 35.
9 Chad Bird, Limping with God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship (1517 Publishing, 2022), 45.
10 Genesis Rabbah 65.10, in Harry Freeman, tr., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 2:585-586.
11 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 294.
12 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 8.
13 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 296.
14 Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 337.
15 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 391.
16 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 196.
17 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 376.
18 Jerome of Stridon, Letter 36.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 147:183.
19 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 134.
20 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 78.
21 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.269, in Loeb Classical Library 242:133.
22 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 53.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:82.
23 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 392; Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 8.
24 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 239.
25 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 191; Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 9.
26 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 437.
27 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 134.
28 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 9.
29 Chad Bird, Limping with God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship (1517 Publishing, 2022), 34.
30 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 299.
31 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 393-394; Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2015), 120.
32 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 394; John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 79; Stephen K. Ray, Genesis: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary (Ignatius Press, 2023), 256.
33 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 244.
34 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 53.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:87.
35 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 395 n.21.
36 James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 213.
37 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 396.
38 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 247.
39 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 377; Elie Assis, Identity in Conflict: The Struggle between Esau and Jacob, Edom and Israel (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 24.
40 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 194.
41 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 196.
42 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 14.
43 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 245.
44 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 81, in Library of Early Christianity 1:163.
45 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 196.
46 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Hebrews §607, in The Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 41:262.
47 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 247.
48 Cyprian of Carthage, On Jealousy and Envy 5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 36:296.
49 Matthew R. Schlimm, From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 166.
50 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 311 n.4.
51 Ambrose of Milan, Jacob and the Happy Life 2.4 §14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:155.
52 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 246.
53 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 391-392, 397-398.
54 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 195; Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2015), 136.
55 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 441.
56 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 382; Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2015), 33.
57 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 197.
58 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 401.
59 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 287.
60 Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetical Discourse 4, in Cistercian Studies Series 150:63.
61 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 139.
62 O. Palmer Robertson, The Genesis of Sex: Sexual Relationships in the First Book of the Bible (P&R Publishing, 2002), 30.
63 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 403.
64 Shira Weiss, Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible: Philosophical Analysis of Scriptural Narrative (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 156-175.
65 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 390.
66 Peter Damian, Letter 39.6, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 2:103.
67 Ambrose of Milan, Jacob and the Happy Life 2.1 §3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:148.
68 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.38, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:228.
69 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13.257-258, in Loeb Classical Library 365:357.
70 Genesis Rabbah 63.7, in Harry Freeman, tr., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 2:561; Israel Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (University of California Press, 2006), 10.
71 j. Ta'aniot 4.8 68d, in Heinrich W. Guggenheimer, ed., The Jerusalem Talmud (De Gruyter, 2015), II/3:167.
72 4 Ezra 6:9-10, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:34; Genesis Rabbah 63.9, in Harry Freeman, tr., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 2:565.
73 b. Pesachim 5a, in Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, ed., Koren Talmud Bavli (Koren Publishers, 2013), 6:22.
74 Israel Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (University of California Press, 2006), 32.
75 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.21.3, in Ancient Christian Writers 72:67.
76 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 4.11, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:191.
77 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 3.4.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:177.
78 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 4.24, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:199.
79 Augustine of Hippo, Against Lying 10 §24, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/10:193.
80 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 4.11, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:191.
81 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 3.4.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:178.
82 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 4.13, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:193.
83 Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 73.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 110:14.
84 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 3.4.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:179.
85 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.37, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:228.
86 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 83, in Library of Early Christianity 1:165.
87 Paschasius Radbertus, On the Body and Blood of the Lord 21 §114, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 34:135.
88 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.21.3, in Ancient Christian Writers 72:67.
89 Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 86.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 47:26-27.
90 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 4.31-34, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:201-204.
91 Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 73.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 110:14.
92 Basil of Caesarea, Homily 17.12, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 46:295.
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