And he (Isaac) said “are
you indeed my son Esau?” Genesis 27: 24
Apparently,
Isaac suspected that it may be Jacob, not Esau who stood before him, awaiting
his blessing.
My
father noted that Isaac had a fairly simple way of determining the truth:
asking the son in front of him to bring his brother as well. Why didn’t Isaac
use this method of verifying which of his sons stood before him?
Further,
the fact is that Isaac later affirmed the blessing to Jacob. When Esau appeared
to claim the blessing:
Then Isaac received an
exceedingly great shock and he said: “who then is he who hunted game and brought
it to me and I did eat of all before you came and I blessed him? And he shall stay
blessed.” Genesis 27: 33
My
father suggested that Isaac knew well that it was his younger son Jacob who
stood before him. Initially, however, Isaac’s intention was to give the
blessing to Esau, since the blessing dealt with earthly matters “the dew of
heaven and the richness of the earth”.
Isaac
felt that since Jacob was “a plain man” [Genesis 25:27], no point would be
served by giving him the earthly blessings. Esau, “a man who understood
hunting” would easily take everything from Jacob. By giving the earthly
blessings to Esau, Isaac thought he would save Jacob. However, now that Jacob
had demonstrated his ability to use guile to protect that which is rightfully
his. At that point, Isaac realized that Jacob will be able to protect the
earthly blessings as well.
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