The Blessing That Got Stolen

By now the twins were grown men, and their father Isaac was so old that his eyes had stopped working. One day he called for Esau.

"I am old, and I could die any day," he said. "Hunt me some wild meat and cook it the way I like. Then I will bless you."

In those days a father's blessing was a promise spoken over a son's whole life, and once spoken, it could not be taken back.

Rebekah was listening. The moment Esau left, she grabbed Jacob.

"Bring me two young goats," she whispered. "I'll cook them the way your father likes, and he will bless you instead."

God had already said, before the twins were born, that the older would serve the younger. Nobody in that tent waited to see how God would keep his word.

"Esau is hairy and I'm smooth! If Father touches me, he'll know I'm tricking him, and he'll curse me instead of blessing me."

"If there's a curse, let it fall on me," said Rebekah.

So she cooked the goats to taste like wild meat. She dressed Jacob in Esau's best clothes, which smelled of grass and hunting, and tied goatskins on his hands and neck. (Goat pretending to be deer, Jacob pretending to be Esau: everything in that tent was wearing a costume.)

Jacob carried the plate in. "Father, I am Esau, your firstborn."

"So soon?" said Isaac.

"The LORD your God helped me find it," said Jacob. That was a lie with God's name stuck on the front.

"Come here, so I can feel you." Isaac's old hands moved over the goat hair. "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are Esau's hands. Are you really my son Esau?"

"I am."

Isaac ate. Then he said, "Come and kiss me," and he breathed in the clothes. "My son smells like a field the LORD has blessed." And he blessed him with rain and harvests, and brothers who would bow down to him.

Jacob had hardly gone out when Esau came in with his own plate. "Sit up, Father, and eat!"

"Who are you?"

"Esau, your firstborn!"

Isaac began to shake all over. "Then who was here? I have blessed him, and he will stay blessed."

Esau let out a loud and bitter cry. "Bless me too, Father! He has cheated me twice. First my birthright, and now my blessing!"

Esau stopped crying and started hating. "When my father has died," he said to himself, "I will kill my brother Jacob."

Someone told Rebekah what Esau was planning, and she sent Jacob running to her brother Laban in Haran. Before he went, Isaac called him in and, knowing exactly who he was this time, blessed him with the promise God had made to Abraham.

So the blessing went down the road with Jacob, and it cost him his home for twenty years. A trick could grab a blessing, but it could not mend a family.

The promise passed from father to son, looking for the one it was for. Long after, another Son came, and he never needed a disguise. His Father's voice came from heaven: "This is my Son, whom I love." Soldiers took his clothes and threw dice for them. Rebekah had offered to carry the curse herself. He really carried it, on a cross.

Now everyone who belongs to him is wrapped in him like a coat, and God pulls them close and blesses them, with no trick at all. Their older brother is Jesus.