Kootenai Church: Hebrews

Hebrews 11, beginning at verse 17. We’ll read through verse 22.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.”
19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.
21 By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones. (NASB)
We have finished our study of Abraham, which took us to the end of verse 19 in Hebrews 11. And we move on in verses 20–22 to three descendants of Abraham. They are his immediate descendants—Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Abraham's faith is the focus of this large portion from verses 8–19, but then starting at verse 20 we have this rapid-fire three examples of faith in Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And Isaac is mentioned in verse 20, Jacob in verse 21, Joseph in verse 22. And these three really take us through the rest of the book of Genesis.
We saw how Abraham takes us from Genesis 12 through Genesis 25. Was it 25? No, it’s earlier than that when he dies. Well, whatever. We'll see here in just a second. That passage has twelve chapters on Abraham, and then the rest of the book of Genesis is taken up with the son of Abraham, Isaac, his son Jacob, and then one of Jacob's sons, Joseph. And though more of Jacob's sons are mentioned, Joseph really gets the lion's share of attention at the end of Genesis. And by time we get to the end of the book of Genesis, all those descendants of Abraham that are the promised seed, the descendants of Abraham, that nation, they're all in Egypt, and Joseph is the ruler of Egypt.
And the amount of focus that Hebrews 11 gives to Abraham is somewhat indicative of his importance in the book of Genesis because there are twelve chapters devoted to Abraham, or just a little bit more than twelve chapters, but that type of proportionality is not the same for the next three characters, particularly with Joseph. You only get one verse given to Isaac and one to Jacob and one to Joseph in Hebrews 11, and yet for Jacob and for Joseph there are nearly twelve or thirteen chapters devoted to each of them in the book of Genesis as well. And yet the author of Hebrews just makes mention of them before he gets down to Moses beginning in verse 23, and then verses 23–29 is the description of Moses's faith. Now this particularly seems out of proportion especially when you consider Joseph. Joseph was a man of exemplary faith, who by faith endured temptation and trying and burdensome circumstances and probably more affliction than any young man should be asked to bear in his lifetime, and yet he only gets mention in one verse, verse 22.
So before we get to Moses down in verse 23, we want to look at each of these three patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob, the son and the grandson of Abraham, to whom the promises of the Abrahamic covenant were specifically reiterated by God Himself, and then Joseph in verse 22. And my plan is to take one sermon for each of these men. So that means we're not going to be able to give you an overview of everything that happened to these men, but instead, for each of these, we're just going to take the incident that the author gives us in Hebrews 11 and look at that incident. Now as it turns out today, that's a large portion of Scripture in the book of Genesis. So we're going to be turning back there here in just a moment, but before you do—I see some of you starting to go back there. Not yet. Genesis is an easy book to find. So wait till I tell you to get back there. You don't have to search for it like Ecclesiastes or Obadiah or something like that.
I want you to notice a couple of things here in the Hebrews text. First, notice that the example for each one of these three men is something they did when they were dying. Look at verse 21: “By faith Jacob, as he was dying. . .” You see it in verse 22: “By faith Joseph, when he was dying. . .” Now verse 20 does not say that Isaac was dying when he blessed his sons Jacob and Esau, but it did happen at the end of his life, and Isaac was convinced that he was dying or at least felt the foreboding sense that death was near, which prompted him to give the blessing to Jacob and Esau. We read that in Genesis 27:1–2: “Now it came about, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called his older son Esau and said to him, ‘My son.’ And he said to him, ‘Here I am.’ Isaac said, ‘Behold now, I am old and I do not know the day of my death.’” He had lost his eyesight, and he felt that his death was imminent, and that's what caused him to bring Esau in to try and bless Esau, and Jacob as well.
So all three of these men—what is noted in Hebrews 11 is something that they did in their life at the time of their death. And for Isaac, it is when he sensed that death was near. Now as it turns out, he didn't die for another fourteen, fifteen years after that, but he felt as if he were dying, and the Lord let him live a little bit longer. So for all three of these men, the evidence of their faith comes at the end of their life, in death. Now, this is where you might expect, on Mother's Day, for me to do a whole sermon on the subject of death like I did when we were in Ecclesiastes, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to reserve talking about the imminence of death for later on because I have two more opportunities to do this, verse 21 and 22.
Second, I want you to notice the details that are contained in verse 20. This should frame our thinking and our observations when we get back to the book of Genesis. There are three specific details. Number one, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, and this tells us exactly the event that the author has in mind. Second, the giving of the blessing was an act of faith. This is going to cause us a little bit of a conundrum when we get back and start looking at some of the details of the story itself. But just notice that it is by faith that Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. And then third, the blessing concerned things to come. And it is that fact that indicates to us that the blessing, though misguided as it might have been, Isaac was doing it yet in faith. So it is the blessing of Jacob and Esau, the giving of the blessing was an act of faith, and the blessing concerned the things to come.
Now with that in mind, go back—because you've just read the entire passage that deals with Isaac here—go back to Genesis 22. And we're going to pick up the narrative there. We're going to go through the life of Isaac and particularly this incident that's mentioned in Hebrews 11:20. Genesis 22. And our going through this and looking at these three things as they unfold and dealing with the issues that they raise, this is going to serve as our exposition of Hebrews 11:20: “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.” It was Esau and Jacob who were blessed, it was an act of faith, and it concerned things to come.
Now when we last left off with Isaac, he was crawling down off the altar on Mount Moriah, freshly bound, and the angel had preserved his life, and then there was a sacrifice that was made. And Abraham, according to verse 19 of Hebrews 11, received Isaac back, as it were, as a symbol or a parable of resurrection. And immediately after that, the covenant is reaffirmed. Look at Genesis 22, and I'm just going to fill in some details. We're going to be zeroing in on chapter 27, but we're just going to catch up and we're going to make up some time between Genesis 22 and Genesis 27. Genesis 22:15:
15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Gen 22:15–18 NASB)
Now Abraham heard that promise from the Lord. We might assume, if it were an audible voice that Abraham heard, that Isaac would have heard that as well, and he would have been privy to this promise.
In chapter 23, Sarah dies, and this is where Abraham buys the burial plot from the sons of Heth and buries Sarah after her death. In chapter 24, Abraham's servant is sent to find a bride for his son Isaac, his only son. Remember, prior to this, Ishmael and Hagar and those descendants have been sent away. They're no longer with Abraham. In chapter 25, Abraham has more children, and then he dies. Look at chapter 25:5:
5 Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac;
6 but to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east.
7 These are all the years of Abraham's life that he lived, one hundred and seventy-five years.
8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people.
9 Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre,
10 the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth; there Abraham was buried with Sarah his wife.
11 It came about after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac lived by Beer-lahai-roi. (Gen. 25:6–11 NASB)
Genesis 25:12–18 lists Ishmael's descendants and where they settled. And then we get to Isaac's life in Genesis 25:19. And Isaac's life really takes up the better part of three chapters, from chapter 25, verse 19, to chapter 28, verse 5. Just three chapters of material. I want to pause to note for a moment that you and I might expect more material on Isaac's life, wouldn't we, than three chapters? We get twelve, thirteen chapters on Abraham. We get a lot on Joseph. But why only three chapters on Isaac? Isaac is the son of the covenant. He's the promised son. Right, we saw the barrenness. We saw the promise given to Sarah and the conflict in the home and how that was resolved. And she finally has a son in her old age according to the promise of God. And then the covenant is reiterated to Abraham concerning that particular son and no other son. And then he offers up Isaac on the altar. Isaac becomes himself a willing sacrifice in that whole ordeal and climbs down off the altar. And we think, OK, this is the son, the only son of Sarah, this is the son of promise, this is the son of the covenant. And all we get is three chapters on him.
We get a lot more speaking of Jacob. I mean, all of Jacob's conniving and his shenanigans with Laban and his wife and his four wives and all of the bickering and the stuff that goes on with that—we have all of that laid out for us in detail. And of course, Joseph's life, that's worth at least twelve chapters. I wish there were forty chapters on the life of Joseph. But we would expect more from the author of Genesis, Moses, on Isaac, but we don't get that much on Isaac. He is given considerably less time than the other three, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. John MacArthur says this: “Isaac was easily the least spectacular and the most ordinary of the four. He was less dynamic and colorful, being generally quiet and passive. And overall, he probably had the weakest faith. We know more of his failures than of his successes.” We know of Isaac's faith, but we know more of his failures than we do of his successes.
He lived, in terms of the record of Genesis, a pretty bland life. The only thing that might be considered a test of his faith is when Rebekah is barren for twenty years and he's praying for a son. That's really the only conflict of faith that we would get from Isaac. It is a reminder to us that you can have genuine faith present—which was in Isaac when he was offered on the altar—you can have genuine faith present in a man and still have profound character flaws and disappointments. It's possible. It's not to excuse the profound character flaws, it's not to excuse the sin, but it is to recognize something that we have to be aware of and we have to acknowledge, and that is that you can have real and genuine faith in people that you just don't want to emulate in some other ways. Faith is present alongside sometimes deep flaws and abiding flaws.
Now let's look at the birth of Esau and Jacob. Chapter 25, verses 19–20: “Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham became the father of Isaac; and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.” Now Isaac was 37 when his mother, Sarah, died, because Sarah was 90 when she gave birth, and 127 when she died. So that means Isaac was 37 when Sarah died, and then he took his wife, Rebekah, four years later, because that passage we just read said he was 40 years old when he took Rebekah to be his wife.
And chapter 24 ends with the statement, “Thus Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.” Now there's something to psychoanalyze there if you wanted to psychoanalyze something, namely that he was 37 years old, a mature man when his mother died, and he could have seen it coming. She's 127 years old; he had time to prepare for this. And then his mother dies, he's in mourning for at least three years and finally gets a wife, and it's when he gets a wife that thus he is comforted concerning his mother's death. Three years is a little long to mourn that, I think. Maybe it's because I'm an emotionally barren wasteland of a human being; that could be possible. And I might expect somebody to kind of, especially in a rugged environment like that, to kind of man up and deal with that situation. But that seems a little long, especially when you get married finally at the age of 40 and the thing that can be said is that that comforted you concerning your mother's death. That seems a little unhealthy to me, just a little bit, but maybe not. I will ask Isaac when I get to Heaven if indeed that was the case.
Genesis 25:21: “Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.” Rebekah faced the same thing that Sarah did—that is, a long time of being barren, for twenty years. And notice that her barrenness is not attributed to sin or a lack of faith or a lack of piety or a lack of prayer or anything like that. And notice also that Isaac did not do what Abraham did and take another woman as a handmaid to try and bear a child. Isaac had to know that he was the son of promise, that the promises of many descendants would be fulfilled through him. He knew that, and yet even though his wife was barren, he did not make the same mistake that his father, Abraham, had made, probably because Isaac had grown up in a house where that mistake had caused an untold amount of stress and divisiveness and chaos, and he didn't want to repeat that. And so instead Isaac prays, and the Lord answers the prayer.
Verse 22:
22 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.
23 The Lord said to her [pay attention to this statement], “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.”
24 When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau.
26 Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. (Gen. 25:22–26 NASB)
Now parents, if you think that your kids fight, let me introduce you to Jacob and Esau. These are two guys who are doing a UFC match in the womb of their mother, struggling together even while they're in the womb, so much so that she notices this and it is a cause of anxiety to her. And even when they come out, Jacob, who's just let go of the choke hold on Esau, is at least grabbing onto his heel, not willing to let go of him.
Jacob was born second, Esau born first, and this by God's sovereign design. And this that is mentioned here in verse 23 is quoted in Romans 9 to demonstrate God's sovereign purposes in choosing Jacob, the younger, as the one to whom all of the promises and the blessings would be given. And the younger would be served by the older. So Esau's born first, Jacob is born second. The rights of the family inheritance should go to Esau, and the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant would most naturally go to Esau. And yet God, before they were born, before they could do anything good or bad, sovereignly announced His choice that it would be Jacob who would receive that, and not Esau. Romans 9:10:
10 And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac;
11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,
12 it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.”
13 Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Rom. 9:10–13 NASB)
That's a quotation from the book of Malachi. It's not here in Genesis, but the older will serve the younger, quoted in Romans 9, verse 12, is from the book of Genesis. God's choice was revealed of which of these children would be the heir of the promises, and that before either child could do anything good or bad. In other words, it was revealed to Rebekah who the heir was to be before either of them were born so that nobody could look at the one and say, “Well, this one is more beautiful on the outside. He deserves the blessings,” or, “This one is certainly a more God-inclined individual. He is to deserve the blessings.” No, God determined the order of that, that Esau would be born first, Jacob would be born second, but Jacob would get the preeminence.
And so now that Esau is born first and Jacob is born second, and yet God has said Jacob should have the preeminence, we might ask how is that going to happen? Esau, being born first, would receive the double share of the inheritance. He had the birthright. And not only that, but as the firstborn, he should be the heir to the Abrahamic covenant and the Abrahamic promise. So those two things stand in the way of God accomplishing His purposes for this family. So how is it that Esau would become lesser than Jacob and Jacob would get preeminence in both of those areas?
The answer comes in verse 27. There are two events that change all of this. Verse 27:
27 When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents.
28 Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished.
30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom. (Gen. 25:27–30 NASB)
Let me pause there for just a moment. The Edomites come from Esau. That's the nation that you read of, the Edomites, in the Old Testament. The book of Obadiah describes their actions against, their treachery against, their brother Jacob. Whenever you read of the Edomites in the Old Testament, they come from the line of Esau.
Verse 31:
31 But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.”
32 Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?”
33 And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. (Gen. 25:31–34 NASB)
Now you can see the family dynamics already at play. Esau was a rough man, a rugged man, a hunter, a manly man. Jacob less so. That doesn't mean that Jacob was effeminate. It just means that Jacob had different interests and a different temperament than Esau. Esau liked to hunt food. Jacob liked to cook food. They had those different interests and temperaments, and that endeared them to different parents so that Esau became Isaac's favorite and Jacob became Rebekah's favorite. You can see that the family situation is less than ideal already, and this is evident all the way through the following narrative.
Esau's temperament and values are on display in his selling of the birthright to Jacob or his trading it away for a pot of stew. It was an act of blasphemy. And just what we've read there is enough to see that Esau was a profane man with no interest in spiritual things and no interest for the long term. He was not a man who considered what might become of his immediate actions. He acted instead in the minute. And this example from Genesis is cited later in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12 where Esau is mentioned, and his act of selling his birthright is compared there to immorality, being godless and immoral. It wasn't just the bartering away of a little bit of inheritance money. What Esau did there was despise the God of the covenant who was promised in that covenant and in that birthright. So Hebrews 12:15 says,
15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (Heb. 12:15–17 NASB)
And we're going to see that described here in just a moment.
With that act, Jacob secured the birthright of his family line, which was a double inheritance, the right to control the estate. And what we learned from Esau is that he was a basically materialistic man thinking of the now and the immediate desires. He was profane and did not value God or the covenant or His blessings. He had no regard for his family name or his family honor or his family inheritance, all of which was tied up in that birthright. And Esau is a man who sought to satisfy his carnal, fleshly lusts in one moment of time without ever thinking of the consequences of that long-term. That is why he was an immortal man. And that is why the act of selling the birthright is compared to immorality and godlessness. So he's a profane man.
He even married pagan women. Genesis 26:34–35 says, “When Esau was forty years old he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite; and they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.” These are pagan women, part of the idolatrous culture around them, and these are the ones that Esau took as wives. Later on, skipping over chapter 27 just for a moment—you don't have to go there. You can if you want. Verse 6 of chapter 28—Jacob is sent by Isaac away to get a wife. Verse 6:
6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,”
7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram.
8 So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac;
9 and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth. (Gen. 28:6–9 NASB)
Now this seems like an attempt by Esau to gain Isaac's favor after the blessing has been given to Jacob back in chapter 27, which we're going to look at here in just a moment. He sees that the wives around him displeased Isaac, and so he sees Jacob being sent away to find a wife elsewhere, and Esau seems intent to either regain the family status or the approval of his father, and so he goes to marry a cousin of his, which was one of Ishmael's descendants, still in the Abrahamic line but not back where Abraham and Sarah had come from. And this seems like just an attempt to curry favor, but God had rejected Ishmael's line, and so this couldn't end in God's blessing. As much as Esau wanted maybe to try and get that blessing back, what was done in chapter 27 was done.
The covenant is confirmed in chapter 26 to Isaac, in chapter 26, verses 2–5, and in chapter 26, verse 24. So you can see that everything that is going on here, this thing is—what would you say of the whole thing? You'd say the whole thing is just a complete dog's breakfast, and we haven't even got to the dog's breakfast part of it. The dog's breakfast is in chapter 27. But the family dynamics that are playing into this, the sin that is there, the lack of concern for spiritual things on Esau's behalf, that is all setting up for chapter 27.
So now turn to chapter 27. By the time we get there, because of chapter 26 and the confirming of the covenant in verse 24, Isaac knew of God's promise. He knew that God had intended for the younger to be served by the older, that Jacob was to receive the inheritance and the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. He knew that this would be carried on through his sons, and he knew that God had chosen Jacob to do that, but Isaac had his favorite, and it's Esau. Now we pick it up in chapter 27, verse 1.
1 Now it came about, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” And he said to him, “Here I am.”
2 Isaac said, “Behold now, I am old and I do not know the day of my death.
3 Now then, please take your gear, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me;
4 and prepare a savory dish for me such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.” (Gen. 27:1–4 NASB)
Now notice the expectation of death there, which I mentioned just a moment ago. And notice that the time has come for Isaac to pass on this blessing to his sons. Now what Isaac is about to do is a sinful action, but what he is doing was intended by him to give and to bestow the Abrahamic blessings, the promises given to Abraham in chapters 12 and 13 and 15 and 17 of Genesis, to bestow all of that on Esau. That was Isaac's intention. And this parental blessing was to be bestowed in this way, and it seems understood by everybody in the text that the blessings would be conferred in this manner. It's not explained why everybody understood that, but everybody seems to understand that. Jacob, Esau, they do. Rebekah does. Isaac does. Everybody understands that the blessing was to be communicated in this way. This parental blessing or benediction would actually communicate the promises and the action of God on behalf of the one who was to receive it.
This has to be unique, and we have to wonder, Why did Isaac think this? We don't see this with Abraham. We don't see a moment in Abraham's life where he pronounces blessing over Isaac and confers the blessings on Isaac. Abraham doesn't do this, but for some reason Isaac understood that this was to be done by him toward Jacob or Esau, and he knew that it was to be Jacob, but he instead intends it for Esau. But everybody in the passage understands that this parental blessing is to be bestowed in this manner, and nobody questions that. So it appears to be a historically unique situation where Isaac either is told to do this or he feels compelled to do this in some way, but everybody understands that once he does this, this is done. There's no going back. This is not Isaac's attempt to merely well-wish blessings upon his children. Whoever it is that receives this blessing gets it, and that's it. It's done. Everybody seems to understand that.
Now by the way, that raises a question. I don't have time to answer this in depth, but should you and I do this? Is this something we are to do as parents? Is God obligated, if I speak good into the life of my child, if I put my hands up and I speak over my children certain blessings, is God obligated to fulfill those blessings? Does He do that? This seems to be historically—this is described, but it's not prescribed. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't pray for my children. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't ask for God to bless my children in certain ways. We can do that. But I can't just ex cathedra announce a blessing and God is obligating Himself to do that. That's not how this works.
We might wish that it worked that way. I can just lay my hands on my children—“You'll be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams, you will possess the Idaho Panhandle, and you will wash your hands and your feet in the blood of your enemies.” I might wish that I could just bestow these blessings upon my children, but I can't do that because God is not obligated to fulfill those blessings or things that I announce. But in this context, it seems this is exactly the way it was to unfold. Nobody doubted that this is how the blessing was to be bestowed.
Now, you can see the problems with Isaac already. He's playing favorites. He has his favorite, Esau. Isaac seems somewhat similar to Esau in that he is driven by his fleshly desires. He just wants a good meal. “You give me a good meal, I'll bestow upon you the Abrahamic covenant.” I mean, it's almost as if any sort of spiritual consideration is just taken right out of the mix as far as Isaac is concerned. He just wants good food, a savory dish like he loves, and if he gets that from Esau, he'll give the blessing in exchange for this. This seems like an entirely carnal transaction that is about to occur.
And he is intent on giving the blessing to Esau even though he knew, as the Lord told Rebekah, the older will serve the younger. He knew that Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob earlier, and he knew that Esau was a profane and fleshly man. That would have been evident to him because he had taken wives that caused him and Rebekah great grief. And yet he preferred his son who had no spiritual inclination whatsoever and was a profane man. He preferred him over Jacob. Isaac's intentions are clearly sinful in the passage. I think we have to understand that.
Verse 5:
5 Rebekah was listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game to bring home,
6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, saying,
7 ‘Bring me some game and prepare a savory dish for me, that I may eat, and bless you in the presence of the Lord before my death.’
8 Now therefore, my son, listen to me as I command you.
9 Go now to the flock and bring me two choice young goats from there, that I may prepare them as a savory dish for your father, such as he loves.
10 Then you shall bring it to your father, that he may eat, so that he may bless you before his death.” (Gen. 27:5–10 NASB)
So Rebekah concocts this entire charade to trick Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. This entire charade involves, of course, deception and lying, and Jacob rightly understands that there is a real and genuine danger in trying to deceive his father into giving him the blessing instead of Esau.
Verse 11:
11 Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.
12 Perhaps my father will feel me, then I will be as a deceiver in his sight, and I will bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.”
13 But his mother said to him, “Your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me.”
14 So he went and got them, and brought them to his mother; and his mother made savory food such as his father loved.
15 Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son.
16 And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.
17 She also gave the savory food and the bread, which she had made, to her son Jacob. (Gen. 27:11–17 NASB)
What a great idea this is. We all recognize how tragic this is. This whole thing is being set up for just destruction.
And what does that passage tell you about the kind of man that Esau was? That if you felt a goatskin, you would think that's Esau. If you smelled a goatskin, you'd think that's Esau.
I went to school with a guy like that, not the smell part, but the hairy part. I went to school with a guy. When I met him in ninth grade, he was already shaving. In tenth grade, he would shave in the morning and have a five-o'clock shadow by one o'clock in the afternoon. You could ask him, “How many days has it been since you shaved?” and he would say he didn't count them in days, he counted them in hours. And he's the type of guy sitting in English class next to you and his black hair would be sticking out behind his collar like this because he shaved all the way down to his collarbones. In ninth and tenth grade, that was the case. There's something wrong if somebody has to shave their forehead to be recognizable.
Now, I'm not going to comment on—not that he smelled bad, but the hairy part. There are some people that are like that. Now, that's odd in Sandpoint. When you go to school in Clark Fork, it is not uncommon to have somebody who is old enough to buy you alcohol in school with you when you're in eighth and ninth grade. But in Sandpoint, this was an oddity. And he was my age. It's not that he was older than me. He was my age and that hairy.
Verse 18:
18 Then he came to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”
19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Get up, please, sit and eat of my game, that you may bless me.”
20 Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have it so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the Lord your God caused it to happen to me.” (Gen. 27:18–20 NASB)
So now Jacob has brought God into this deception. Now he's using God as a leverage point to deceive his father. Now, keep in mind, Isaac knew that it was wrong for him to give the blessing to Esau, but that's what he's intending to do. And now Jacob comes in pretending to be Esau and he uses this little reference to God, not only to suggest that God is complicit in this, but also to suggest that God must be blessing Isaac's plans to give Esau the blessing by making it so easy for this whole plan to unfold. “Oh, God's hand is in this, Father. Don't worry about it. I am Esau.” He lies about his identity.
Verse 21: “Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.’” Now I want you to put yourself in Jacob's position for just a moment. You have got to at that moment be thinking to yourself, “OK, the jig is up. This whole thing is going to come crashing down like a house of cards.”
22 So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”
23 He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands; so he blessed him.
24 And he said, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he said, “I am.”
25 So he said, “Bring it to me, and I will eat of my son's game, that I may bless you.” And he brought it to him, and he ate; he also brought him wine and he drank.
26 Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come close and kiss me, my son.” (Gen. 27:22–26 NASB)
See, something was off. He sensed it was so. Something was off.
Verse 27: “So he came close and kissed him; and when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, ‘See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed.’” I think that's a euphemism of some kind. The smell of the field. In other words, you smell like what belongs outside, not what belongs inside. You smell like a goat. You smell like the field that the goat lives in. It's not just the hair, it's the smell.
Now, how it is that Esau ended up with three wives, I will never know. That has to be a mystery in and of itself, how he got three wives out of that deal. A guy that smells like that and is hairy like that. Some of us have difficulty just getting one wife, and we don't have to shave our forehead in order to get her.
So Isaac felt the clothes; the clothes were right. He smelled his son; the smell was right. The feel of his hands was right; it felt like a goat. The voice was all wrong. And Isaac thought to himself, “Yeah, seems legit.”
So verse 27:
27 He came close and kissed him; and when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, “See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed;
28 now [listen to the wording here of the Abrahamic covenant] may God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of grain and new wine;
29 may peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you; be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you.” (Gen. 27:27–29 NASB)
There's a reference there to national as well as personal blessings, financial blessings as well as eschatological blessings. The material blessings are mentioned, the dew of Heaven, the fatness of the earth, the abundance of grain and new wine. And there are national blessings of the nations that would come who would bow down to those who came from the one who possessed these blessings, which is now Jacob.
And notice the language at the end of verse 29. It is the language taken straight out of Genesis 12:3 when God first appeared to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Now Isaac's intention is to bestow the Abrahamic covenant promises to Esau, and he is bestowing these blessings. He's checking and he's double-checking, but the deception has been effective.
Verse 30:
30 Now it came about, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.
31 Then he also made savory food, and brought it to his father; and he said to his father, “Let my father arise and eat of his son's game, that you may bless me.”
32 Isaac his father said to him, “Who are you?” (Gen. 27:30–32 NASB)
Now Esau had to be wondering, “I know my dad's eyesight is going, but now his mind must be going.” He's not asking, “Who are you?” because he doesn't know who Esau is, but he's asking, “Who are you?” because he's convinced that he's already given the blessing to Esau. He's already encountered him, and now here's somebody else coming in with the same thing. And Isaac is starting to put two and two together at this moment.
Verses 32–33: “Isaac his father said to him, ‘Who are you?’ And he said, ‘I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.’ Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, ‘Who was he then that hunted game and brought it to me, so that I ate of all of it before you came, and blessed him?’” And this last statement in that verse is the statement where he is coming to an understanding that what is done is done. “Yes, and he shall be blessed” (v. 33). He understands, “I can't go back on this. I've already given this blessing to Jacob.” Isaac intended the blessing for Esau, but Jacob now has stolen it—the material blessings, the ruling of the nations, the descendants being preserved, everything promised to Abraham. And it seems to be entirely materialistic intentions by Esau in even wanting this blessing. Isaac knows that what he has done is done and Jacob has received it.
Verse 34:
34 When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!”
35 And he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.”
36 Then he said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” (Gen. 27:34–36 NASB)
You can hear the distraughtness in his voice over this circumstance. Jacob means supplanter or heel holder or heel catcher. Remember he was born holding on to Esau's heel, and they thought, “Oh, cute, we’ll just name him Jacob,” which means heel grabber. And as it turns out, Jacob ends up grabbing Esau's heel throughout his life and taking these two things. He's done it twice now where he's tripped up Esau. He got the birthright from him by selling it to him for a cheap bowl of soup. And now he has connived his way through and gotten the Abrahamic blessings on top of that.
Verses 37–38:
37 Isaac replied to Esau, “Behold, I made him your master, and all his relatives I have given to him as servants; and with grain and new wine I have sustained him. Now as for you then, what can I do, my son?”
38 Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” So Esau lifted his voice and wept. (NASB)
Now why is Esau weeping? Does he really want the God of the covenant? There's nothing that indicates he wants the God of the covenant. What has Jacob been given? New wine, fatness of the field, nations serving him, master of all. Those are the things that Esau has his eyes on. It's not that he wants the Giver of the gifts. He wants the gifts. And that in itself is the indication of a carnal person. They want all the blessings that God can give them without wanting God Himself. So Esau has lost out on these material blessings, and he wants the benefits of it without having to have any kind of a relationship or covenant with Yahweh at all. He's already taken pagan wives who are not worshippers of Yahweh at all. The man is a profane man.
Look at the blessing, if you want to call it that, that Esau gets in verse 39:
39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him, “Behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, and away from the dew of heaven from above.
40 By your sword you shall live, and your brother you shall serve; but it shall come about when you become restless, that you will break his yoke from your neck. (Gen. 27:39–40 NASB)
That's the closest thing to a blessing in the passage, just that statement. And as it turns out, there were a number of times throughout the history of those two nations, the Israelites and the Edomites, that the Edomites did kick off that yoke of Israel from their neck and ended up doing much treachery and harm to the Israelites as they fought and warred against them.
Verse 41:
41 So Esau bore a grudge against 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 near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
42 Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you.
43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, and arise, flee to Haran, to my brother Laban!
44 Stay with him a few days, until your brother's fury subsides,
45 until your brother's anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?”
46 Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?” (Gen. 27:41–46 NASB)
So she uses this as an excuse to send him away to some other place to get a wife, which he eventually does.
Now, Esau's sin in this issue is obvious. It is his murderous rage. He demonstrates here that whatever grieved him about losing this blessing, it was not that he lost God. That's not his interest. Because immediately after losing all of the financial and the material blessings, Esau is filled with an ungodly, unholy, and even demonic rage in that he is willing to kill his brother because of what his brother did.
In chapter 28, Isaac and Rebekah send him away to get a wife, to Rebekah's family, and the covenant then is confirmed with Jacob in verses 3–4. And Jacob now recognizes the purpose of God in all of this, and this brings us now back to Hebrews. Whew, it brings us back to Hebrews. How is what Isaac did an act of faith? How is what he did an act of faith? How do we sort this out?
John Owen says this: “And there is none in the Scripture [speaking of the stories in Scripture] filled with more intricacies and difficulties as unto the right judgment of the thing that is related, though the matter of fact be clearly and distinctly set down.” In other words, he’s saying what we read here is clearly laid out for us, but it is so confusing as to what is going on here that the intricacies make this very difficult to unscrew and to untie. It's like a knot. “The whole represents unto us divine sovereignty, wisdom, and faithfulness working effectively through the frailties, infirmities, and sins of all the persons concerned in the matter” (Owen).
Now there is sinful conduct on behalf of every person in this narrative, and that we cannot deny. The whole family acted shamefully. Isaac, who is the head of the family, is driven by his own desires for meat and the fulfillment of his own lusts. He has a very materialistic view to a degree himself, and he has an unbalanced and preferential love for one child based only on those desires. And he failed to heed the plan and purpose of God revealed to Rebekah that the younger should be served by the older. He failed to heed that and intended to confer the blessing onto one to whom it was not to be given.
And I just want you to notice that Isaac's sin here ends up affecting the entire family. Everybody's deception, all of the lies and the murderous rage that follows, all of it comes because the head of the family did what was sinful and wrong. And if he had just been obedient and done what he should have done and had not sinned in that way, if there had not been that dynamic that Isaac had contributed to, then none of the rest of this would have followed suit. There's sin in this family and enough to go around because one man did not do what he was supposed to do. And so Rebekah's sin is a response to that, Jacob’s sin is a response to that, and Esau’s sin is a response to that. He's filled with murderous rage because his father refused to do what his father should have done. So his failure to lead his family in godliness and obedience created the occasion for all of the other sin that we've read about in chapter 27.
But set aside the sin for a moment. There is obviously faith that is present in all of these people as well. This is why it's difficult. There's faith present in this. Isaac believes the promises, doesn't he? He believes them. He knows, he believes that God is going to bestow these blessings as He promised Abraham on whomever it is upon which he lays his hand. He is speaking of things future that he is certain that God is going to fulfill. Now, Isaac is misdirecting those blessings, but he's still acting in faith in that he is expecting God to fulfill His word upon whomever it is that he lays his hand.
Rebekah believed the promises as well, which is why she wanted them to be given to Jacob. And she obviously believed what God had said that the younger shall be served by the older. She believed that as well. That was an anchor for her faith. She knew it was supposed to go to Jacob. So she's working in faith to try and get these blessings to go to Jacob instead of to Esau, even though what she's doing is sinful.
Jacob believed the promises, which is why he wanted them, and Esau believed that these promises would be fulfilled, which is why he wanted them. So all of them are expecting God to fulfill His future promises. All of them have a measure or a degree of faith in some way in all of this even though there is tragic sin that is interwoven in all of it.
So how can it be said that Isaac is acting in faith? Because he believed that God would fulfill His promises as He had said, and the things that He is promising are things that were yet to come that he believed with certainty God would do. Hebrews 11:20: “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.” So faith was present in Isaac. Even though he was moving the wrong direction, faith was present. It was moving him, but God's providence was directing that to accomplish His purposes. Isaac had faith that was present. He's moving the wrong direction with that, intending the wrong thing sinfully. There's faith mixed with sin, but God by His providence overrules all of that.
And after the deception is revealed, Isaac acknowledged the divine providence in it when he said, “Yes, and he shall be blessed” (Gen. 27:33). It's almost as if at that moment he realized, “God's been orchestrating this. We've been sinning, we've been acting in faith. It's a mingled, mixed-up mess. A dog's breakfast, as it were. But God has been sovereign over all of this.”
So we're already over time, but let me wrap up with a couple of closing observations. First, God uses obviously deeply flawed people. You know how I know that? Because all of you are deeply flawed people. Oh, and me too. If God didn't use deeply flawed people, He wouldn't use people, because we're all deeply flawed. We're all deeply broken. Everyone we read about in Scripture is us. The sinful proclivities, the lack of understanding, the misdirected faith, all of that, that's us.
And yet God did not reject them. He did not command nor did God approve any of their sin. He saw the true faith in them and accepted them on the basis of that faith, even though they were misguided as to the accomplishment of God's promises. God did accept them, and He pardoned their sin, and we can be thankful for that because inside of all of us, even on our best days, with our best of good works that we do in faith, there is always mixed in with that a measure of sin, unbelief, bad motives, pride, selfishness. It's always mixed in there. One of the things I'm longing for in Heaven is the fact that we will be able to do all that we do without any mixture of those wicked things. But while we are here, those things are mixed together, irreparably so. That's just part of being human. We're very complicated beings.
Number two, God by His providence accomplishes His purposes, and this does not excuse our sin, and it does not excuse our unbelief. It doesn't incentivize sin. There were real consequences to everything that unfolded in chapter 27. After the murderous rage of Esau, Jacob flees, and he's missing from the family for over fifteen years. There was estrangement that happened in the family as Jacob and Esau didn't speak to each other for a decade and a half, and they're estranged from one another.
And we cannot say, “Well, since God uses, by His providence, even human sin to accomplish His purposes, and His purposes will stand”—that does not excuse us to say, “Well, then I don't have to worry about it. I can go ahead and sin. I can go ahead and do what I do, and I can just let God work out the details of that.” That is not the proper response to that.
The outworking of divine providence is mysterious. This is the third observation. The outworking of divine providence is mysterious. We can marvel at it in hindsight that God uses people with faith, God uses people without faith. God uses people who are longing to do His will and people who don't want to do His will. God uses people who are oblivious to His will entirely. And He works all of that in the mystery of His providence to rule and overrule in all of the affairs of man to accomplish everything that He has preordained should come to pass.
How does He do it? How does this interaction between human sin and divine providence work out? You and I cannot know that. We can only look at it in hindsight and see in hindsight how God might work out the workings of His providence in creation as He accomplishes His purposes, but we can never unscrew the inscrutable. He will accomplish all His good pleasure, Scripture says. No purpose of His can be thwarted. He rules in the heavens and does as He pleases. That is our God. And that describes His hand of providence.
And we can't second-guess God and think, “Now what might have happened if things had worked out differently?” This is what we call a counterfactual. What if Jacob had been obedient? What if Jacob, at the prompting of his mother, had said, “No, mother, I know that the promises belong to me. I'm not going to take part in your deception. I'm just going to sit back and see how the Lord might work this out on His own without our help”? Or what if Rebekah herself had said this and said, “You know, Jacob, we both know that the promises belong to you and not to Esau, so let's just sit back and see how God is going to allow this to unfold”? What if that had happened? Or what if Isaac himself had just decided to be obedient in the moment? We don't know how all of that would have played out. We don't have to worry about how all of that would’ve played out because only God knows the counterfactuals, and we cannot know them unless He reveals them by divine revelation, which He hasn't. But it's not for us to know the counterfactuals. All we can know and see in hindsight is how God rules in the affairs of men.
And the fourth observation, and with this I close—and this one should be of encouragement to us—our failures cannot and do not thwart God's promises or His providences. Our failures cannot thwart God's providence. Now that's not an excuse for apathy. It is an incentive for industry. Listen to that carefully. That's not an excuse for apathy. What it means is that you and I, because we are called to, we can be diligent, we can work hard, we can serve the Lord, we can give, we can pray, we can be faithful, we can be obedient, we can participate in God's work, we can be industrious, we can serve Him, and we can labor for Him, knowing that we can never mess up what He is going to accomplish. Knowing that even when we fail to do those things that God has called us to do, as much as we might be striving to do them, even when sin is mixed into that and we're trying to mortify sin but it creeps in, even in all of that we can have the confidence that God will accomplish His purposes, fulfill all of His promises, and do exactly as He desires to do in our lives because He rules and overrules in the affairs of men. That is divine providence. And that's what we see unfolding. Ultimately that is a source of comfort and encouragement and solace to God's people.