Genesis 27-28

Here we find the famous story of Jacob pretending to be Esau to get his father's blessing. Even more remarkably, this is all orchestrated by their mother Rebecca. When Esau finally figures it out, he asks Isaac for a second blessing. But Isaac said he only had one blessing, but puts his hands on Esau to pray anyway.

The first blessing to Jacob had things like great produce, riches, those that curse you will be cursed, but also that his brothers - plural, yet we only know of Esau - will serve him. The second blessing to Esau omits the riches and says you will serve your brother. When I first read this, it sounded like the blessing was about inheritance.

This raises several questions - did Isaac have other sons? Perhaps even other wives? It sounds like it. More importantly, how does this differ from the birthright itself? Isaac later says that the blessing he gave to Jacob is what he got from Abraham. I guess the birthright was the typical firstborn inheritance of the property, name, and legacy of the father, while this blessing is the blessing that God promised Abraham and his descendants.

I don't remember God saying that Esau and Jacob could not share that blessing as brothers. For after all, it gets a 12-way (arguably 13-way) share in the next generation. So, the decision to pass it through Esau appears to be Isaac's individual decision.

After this, Isaac tells Jacob to get a wife from his mother's family because he does not like these Canaanite women. It sounds like they want to keep the racial bloodlines pure. But also, perhaps Isaac had taken a few Canaanite wives and he's saying that Jacob should get a wife like Rebecca. Jacob leaves and coincidentally, Esau wants to kill him. Isaac does not give similar advice to Esau, who ends up taking a wife from Ishmael's daughters, who I think would be half-Canaanite. We know Ishmael's parents, but his wife could easily be Canaanite.

Jacob has that dream on the road of the angels going up and down the ladder to Heaven. After he wakes up, he says that if God does such and such for me (blessing, protection), then I will follow that God. It's kind of a street-wise assessment, demanding proof first.

In hindsight, I wonder if Jacob believed in Isaac's blessing at the time he got it. I suspect not.

For starters, he has that encounter with God in the wilderness and his reaction is one of skepticism and his faith seems conditional. He has the dream of the Stairway to Heaven and he wakes up and says, "if you protect me and bless me, then you will be my God." He wants proof.

Second, it was Rebecca that initiated the blessing theft, not Jacob. We know that Jacob takes initiative. In fact, he's great at that. He dupes Esau into giving away his birthright when they're younger and I suspect he may have been planning something like that for a long time, just waiting for his dumb older brother to do something stupid. Jacob knows the value of the birthright - he wants Esau's financial inheritance. He understands it and takes it away as soon as he can.

But Esau's spiritual inheritance? Where is the initiative in taking that? Surely, he knows how gullible his brother and dad can be. We don't know either way why he lacks initiative in this regard, but given his reaction to the Stairway to Heaven, I think he might not even believe in the blessing when he dupes his dad.