Meditate

27. Jacob Gets Isaac's Blessing

Isaac Blesses Jacob

27

When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.”²He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.³Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me.⁴Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”

⁵ Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it,⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father say to your brother Esau,⁷‘Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I may bless you before the Lord before I die.’⁸Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you.⁹Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes;¹⁰and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.”¹¹But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin.¹²Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”¹³His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.”¹⁴So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved.¹⁵Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob;¹⁶and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.¹⁷Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.

¹⁸ So he went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?”¹⁹Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.”²⁰But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the Lord your God granted me success.”²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.”²²So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”²³He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him.²⁴He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.”²⁵Then he said, “Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.”²⁷So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and 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 you of the dew of heaven,

and of the fatness of the earth,

and plenty of grain and wine.

29

Let peoples serve you,

and nations bow down to you.

Be lord over your brothers,

and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.

Cursed be everyone who curses you,

and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”

Esau’s Lost Blessing

³⁰ As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau came in from his hunting.³¹He also prepared savory food, and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.”³²His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your firstborn son, Esau.”³³Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, “Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him?—yes, and blessed he shall be!”³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, me also, father!”³⁵But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.”³⁶Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”³⁷Isaac answered Esau, “I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?”³⁸Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

³⁹ Then his father Isaac answered him:

“See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be,

and away from the dew of heaven on high.

40

By your sword you shall live,

and you shall serve your brother;

but when you break loose,

you shall break his yoke from your neck.”

Jacob Escapes Esau’s Fury

⁴¹ Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”⁴²But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.⁴³Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran,⁴⁴and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away—⁴⁵until your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send, and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

⁴⁶ Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

7. Struggling With Sin

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,²³but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

39. Psalm 39

Psalm 39

Prayer for Wisdom and Forgiveness

To the leader: to Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.

1

I said, “I will guard my ways

that I may not sin with my tongue;

I will keep a muzzle on my mouth

as long as the wicked are in my presence.”

2

I was silent and still;

I held my peace to no avail;

my distress grew worse,

3

my heart became hot within me.

While I mused, the fire burned;

then I spoke with my tongue:

4

“Lord, let me know my end,

and what is the measure of my days;

let me know how fleeting my life is.

5

You have made my days a few handbreadths,

and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight.

Surely everyone stands as a mere breath. Selah

6

Surely everyone goes about like a shadow.

Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;

they heap up, and do not know who will gather.

7

“And now, O Lord, what do I wait for?

My hope is in you.

8

Deliver me from all my transgressions.

Do not make me the scorn of the fool.

9

I am silent; I do not open my mouth,

for it is you who have done it.

10

Remove your stroke from me;

I am worn down by the blows of your hand.

11

“You chastise mortals

in punishment for sin,

consuming like a moth what is dear to them;

surely everyone is a mere breath. Selah

12

“Hear my prayer, O Lord,

and give ear to my cry;

do not hold your peace at my tears.

For I am your passing guest,

an alien, like all my forebears.

13

Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again,

before I depart and am no more.”