Story 47 The Cost of Deception
What a sad and distorted picture of a family. Isaac, Esau, Rebekah, and Jacob each worked out of their own selfish ambition, competing over the powerful and potent blessing of the firstborn son. What great blessings and harmony they could have shared together if they had all submitted to the will of their faithful God. Instead they were sneaking around and plotting lies as if they were enemies! What was intended to be a great and joyous event, celebrating the family of God before the pagan nations of the region was turned into a mass of deceit, manipulation, and conniving schemes against each other. If only they shared in the faith of Abraham!
God made it clear that he had chosen Jacob to be the son who would inherit the covenant promises of Abraham:
Rebekah could have trusted God’s words to her and rested in his promises. She knew that his blessings were meant to fall on Jacob, yet she did not have faith in God to make it happen. She was going to use deceit and manipulation to stop her husband from giving the blessings of God to the wrong son.
Esau could have chosen a life of obedience. Instead, he had chosen to marry two pagan women and sold the great treasure of his birthright for almost nothing.
Isaac could have had faith and trusted God’s choice to have Jacob to lead the family, yet he chose to favor Esau. He was too blinded by his favoritism to see that Esau was not spiritually worthy or wise enough to lead the family of God.
Jacob could have had faith that God would move on his behalf, even if his father did not obey. Instead, he tricked his father and broke the bonds of family trust.
What a disaster area of mistrust and faithlessness! How different Abraham and Sarah had been! How honest and direct and honoring they were toward each other!
Rebekah told Jacob to bring her two goats from their flock. She would cook them. Then Jacob could take the meal to Isaac and pretend to be Esau.
When Jacob heard his mother’s plan, he didn’t feel bad about deceiving his father. But he was very afraid that it might not work. Esau had been hairy since birth, but Jacob’s skin was smooth and hair free. The minute Isaac touched his arm, he would know that the man in his tent was not Esau. If Isaac realized that it was Jacob and that he was trying to trick him, Isaac would curse him instead!
Rebekah said, “‘My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.’” A curse from Isaac would have brought terrible condemnation on her life, but she was willing to risk it for her favored son.
Rebekah went and cooked a delicious meal just as she knew her husband would like. She took some of Esau’s best clothes and prepared them for Jacob to wear. She put hairy goatskins on Jacob’s arms and neck so that if Isaac touched him, he would feel just like his brother. When Jacob was done having this costume put on him by his sneaky mother, he went into the tent of his waiting father with the food.
“‘My father’” he said nervously.
“‘Yes, my son,’ he answered. ‘Who is it?’”
And then Jacob crossed over the line and told a lie. He told 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 give me your blessing.’”
Isaac was suspicious. This voice didn’t sound like his oldest son. He asked Jacob how he had managed to hunt an animal and kill it so quickly. Jacob lied again. He told his father that God himself had given him quick success in his hunting. Wow. Now Jacob had brought the Lord himself into his deception!
Isaac was still suspicious. Something was amiss, and he knew his wife and second son very well. He had planned to give the blessing in secret for a reason! He said, “‘Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.’”
So Jacob moved closer, and Isaac reached out his hand and said, “‘The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’” And so Isaac gave Jacob his blessing. Yet even then he asked, “‘Are you really my son Esau?’”
By now, Jacob must have been trembling inside. Once again, he lied. “‘I am!’” he insisted.
Finally Isaac relented. He had Jacob bring the food over and he ate. As Jacob came near, Isaac kissed him and smelled the clothes of Esau. Now he really believed. The deception worked. He opened his heart and gave Jacob the fullness of his blessing from his innermost being. It was a blessing specially fit for one who would become the father of a mighty nation;
“‘Ah the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field
that the LORD has blessed.
May God give you of heaven’s dew
and of earth’s richness-
an abundance of grain and new wine.
May nations serve you
and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may the sons of your mother
bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed
and those who bless you be blessed.”
Wow. Isaac prayed a blessing that would bring Jacob overflowing prosperity. Water would come to his crops, the earth would produce fine food and grains and wine and the nations themselves would fall at his feet. And Jacob would rule over his brothers. The authority and blessing that Isaac wished to give Esau worked exactly against him. Now Jacob had the blessing and Esau would have to serve him. The blessing of Abraham was upon him. It would be his descendants that would carry on the line that would become the nation that would bless the world.
When Isaac was done, Jacob left his tent. Just moments after he was gone, Esau came bursting into the room. He brought the tasty food that his father so loved in from his hunt. He said, “‘My father, sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing.’”
Isaac was confused. He had made so certain that the man he blessed was his firstborn son, yet this new arrival sounded exactly like Esau. His heart must have filled with dread as he asked, “‘Who are you?’”
Now it was Esau’s turn to be confused. He had just spent the day following his father’s orders. How could he not know who he was or why he came? “‘I am your son, your firstborn, Esau’” he said.
Isaac was so enraged that he began to trembleviolently all over. His dream for his oldest boy was over. This blessing was not only for Esau, it was for himself…at the end of his life, his great pleasure was to pass all that he had worked for into the hands of Esau. He asked the question that he already knew the answer to; “‘Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him-and indeed he will be blessed!’” There was no question in Isaac’s mind that the blessing he prayed carried irrevocable power. Though Isaac had blessed with mixed motives, he had spoken by faith in the power of God. It was the blessing of LORD himself, and it was as sealed in the future as surely as history is sealed in the past.
When Esau heard that his father had given away the blessing, he cried out with a great and mighty wail. Once again his conniving brother had outwitted him! He turned to his father and begged him with tears to bless him, too.
Isaac looked with sadness and sorrow on his son. “‘Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing,’” he said.
Esau stood there, swimming in his anger, bitterness, and loss. “‘Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times. He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!’” He looked at his father and asked, “‘Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?’”
Isaac answered his son, “‘I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?’” Isaac had planned to give it all to Esau, denying Jacob any blessing at all, even though he knew that Jacob was the son of God’s choosing. If he had saved some for Jacob, then he would have had some left to give to his beloved son Esau. But because of his rejection of Jacob and God’s plan, Esau would go without. All he had left for his favored child was an anti blessing. As Esau wept, Isaac blessed him with the dark promises that remained;
“‘Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness,
away from the dew of heaven above.
You will live by the sword and you will serve you brother.
But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from your neck.’”
Genesis 27:39-40
The family of Abraham was full of deception and mistrust, but the grace of God was at work in the midst of it all. The chosen son of his sovereign will would carry the covenant of Abraham forward into history.