Genesis 27
1When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied.
2“Look,” said Isaac, “I am now old, and I do not know the day of my death. 3Take your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out into the field to hunt some game for me. 4Then prepare a tasty dish that I love and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”
5Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac told his son Esau. So when Esau went into the field to hunt game and bring it back, 6Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I overheard your father saying to your brother Esau, 7‘Bring me some game and prepare me a tasty dish to eat, so that I may bless you in the presence of YAHWEH before I die.’
8Now, my son, listen to my voice and do exactly as I tell you. 9Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so that I can make them into a tasty dish for your father—the kind he loves. 10Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.”
11Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am smooth-skinned. 12What if my father touches me? Then I would be revealed to him as a deceiver, and I would bring upon myself a curse rather than a blessing.”
13His mother replied, “Your curse be on me, my son. Just obey my voice and go get them for me.”
14So Jacob went and got two goats and brought them to his mother, who made the tasty food his father loved. 15And Rebekah took the finest clothes in the house that belonged to her older son Esau, and she put them on her younger son Jacob. 16She also put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17Then she handed her son Jacob the tasty food and bread she had made.
18So Jacob went to his father and said, “My father.” “Here I am!” he answered. “Which one are you, my son?”
19Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.”
20But Isaac asked his son, “How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?” “Because YAHWEH your God brought it to me,” he replied.
21Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau, or not?”
22So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23Isaac did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him.
Genesis 27:11–23 Commentary
The First of Many Lies Jacob Tells This Chapter:
When Jacob tells his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn,” the cascade of deception begins. While the lie directly targets Isaac, Scripture is clear that all sin is ultimately committed against God — as King David would cry out a thousand years later in Psalm 51:4: “Against You, You only, have I sinned.”
Jacob Invokes God to Cover His Lie:
When Isaac asks how the game was found so quickly, Jacob audaciously drags God’s name into his scheme: “Because YAHWEH your God brought it to me” (Genesis 27:20). Notice he says “your God,” not “my God” — a telling phrase that raises serious questions about where Jacob actually stood with the Almighty at this stage of his life. Lie number two follows fast, compounding deception with near-blasphemy. A thousand years later during the era of the kings, Proverbs 12:22 cuts straight to the heart of what Jacob is doing: “Lying lips are detestable to YAHWEH.” He walked into this with his eyes wide open, knowing exactly what he was doing and whom he was betraying.
Jacob Reaps What He Sows — a Goat and a Coat:
Jacob deceives his blind father using a slain goat and a special coat. Decades later in our account, Jacob gets ’blinded’ by a dark wedding tent two chapters ahead in Genesis 29:21–25, and ten chapters later his own sons break his heart by faking Joseph’s death using the blood of a goat and a special coat (Genesis 37:31–33). You reap exactly what you sow, right down to the brand of the seed.
24Again he asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he replied, “I am.”
25“Serve me,” said Isaac, “and let me eat some of my son’s game, so that I may bless you.” Jacob brought it to him, and he ate; then he brought him wine, and he drank.
Genesis 27:24–25 Commentary
Rebekah Takes the Curse — and Pays Dearly:
Rebekah rashly declared back in Genesis 27:13, "Your curse be on me, my son!" brushing aside Jacob’s terror. Be careful what you speak aloud: that curse landed squarely on her life. She was forced to send her favorite son away that very day, never laid eyes on his face again, and was left behind to endure the company of the pagan Hittite daughters-in-law she despised.
Wine Itself Isn’t Sinful — Drunkenness Is:
Isaac drinks wine as part of the meal. Scripture nowhere condemns alcohol in moderation; the sin is drunkenness. Looking ahead across biblical history, Psalm 104:15 a thousand years later lists wine among the good gifts God provides, while the Apostle Paul two millennia down the road balances that gift with a sober warning in Ephesians 5:18: “Do not get drunk on wine... but be filled with the Spirit” Both truths sit side by side without contradicting each other.
26Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come near and kiss me, my son.”
27So he came near and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothing, he blessed him and said: “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that YAHWEH has blessed.
28May God give to you the dew of heaven and the richness of the earth— an abundance of grain and new wine.
29May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. May you be the master of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed.”
Genesis 27:26–29 Commentary
Isaac’s Blessing Is Prophecy, Not Mere Sentiment:
The words Isaac pronounces over Jacob are divinely inspired prophecy, and the covenant promises sealed here continue through the descendants of Israel. Church of God prophetic tradition traces Esau’s descendants, Edom, into portions of Palestine and the Turks, a reading held within that tradition, not settled secular history, but held with full conviction all the same.
Isaac’s Closing Line Echoes Genesis 12:3:
Isaac ends his blessing with a curse on those who curse Jacob and a blessing on those who bless him (Genesis 27:29) — echoing God’s original promise given to Abraham fifteen chapters earlier back in Genesis 12:3 nearly word for word. Over five centuries later on the edge of the Promised Land, Balaam is forced to repeat the same line over Israel (Numbers 24:9). Whoever receives this blessing receives the promise God made to Abraham, and with it the protection of a God who treats an attack on the line as an attack on Himself.
30As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father’s presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt. 31He too made some tasty food, brought it to his father, and said to him, “My father, sit up and eat of your son’s game, so that you may bless me.”
32But his father Isaac replied, “Who are you?” “I am Esau, your firstborn son,” he answered.
33Isaac began to tremble violently and said, “Who was it, then, who hunted the game and brought it to me? Before you came in, I ate it all and blessed him—and indeed, he will be blessed!”
34When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!”
Genesis 27:30–34 Commentary
The Timing Couldn’t Be Tighter:
Jacob has barely cleared the doorway of his father’s tent before Esau walks in from the hunt sincerely ready for his blessing, moments too late. Isaac trembles violently and recognizes that God Himself has allowed the blessing to stand. It will not be revoked, however it was obtained.
Esau and Scripture’s First Record of Bitterness:
That bitter cry becomes the defining curse of Esau’s line. Two millennia later, the author of Hebrews warns against letting a “root of bitterness” spring up, pointing straight to Esau who sought the blessing with bitter tears when it was too late (Hebrews 12:15–17). That grudge fueled centuries of hostility against Israel, an enduring hatred that the prophet Obadiah over a millennium down the road would condemn in scathing detail (Obadiah 1:10–14). Bitterness has a terrifyingly long memory.
35But Isaac replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”
36So Esau declared, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me twice. He took my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing.” Then he asked, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?”
Genesis 27:35–36 Commentary
Don’t Confuse the Birthright with the Blessing:
It is not entirely fair for Esau to claim Jacob “cheated” him out of the birthright. Two chapters earlier in Genesis 25:34, the text states plainly that Esau “despised his birthright” and sold it willingly. Jacob’s deception over the blessing was sinful in its own right, but the two should not be collapsed into one act — and Hebrew itself keeps them distinct, though they sound like cousins: bekorah, meaning birthright, and Berakah, meaning blessing. Two different words, two different transactions, one traded fairly, and one stolen outright.
Birthright to Joseph, Scepter to Judah:
The birthright was the legal right of primogeniture, codified over five centuries later under the Mosaic Law on the plains of Moab as a double portion of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:17); the blessing concerned material inheritance and family authority; and the covenant promises could run through an entirely different son still. Fifteen centuries later, the post-exilic record in 1 Chronicles 5:1–2 makes that distinction explicit: Reuben was firstborn, but his birthright passed to Joseph while the rulership went to Judah. The birthright blessings pass through Joseph. The scepter, and ultimately Yeshua the Messiah, come through Judah.
37But Isaac answered Esau: “Look, I have made him your master and given him all his relatives as servants; I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”
38Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, O my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.
39His father Isaac answered him: “Behold, your dwelling place shall be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of heaven above.
40You shall live by the sword and serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will tear his yoke from your neck.”
41Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau said in his heart: “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
Genesis 27:37–41 Commentary
Esau’s Bitter Grudge Turns to Murderous Revenge:
Isaac’s pronouncement assigns Esau a harsh frontier... Esau’s response to this forecast in Genesis 27:41 is unbridled, murderous hatred: "The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob." Left unchecked, that inner poison metastasized into an enduring generational blood feud.
42When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you. 43So now, my son, obey my voice and flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran. 44Stay with him for a while, until your brother’s fury subsides— 45until your brother’s rage against you wanes and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”
46Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a Hittite wife from among them, what good is my life?”
Genesis 27:42–46 Commentary
A Personal Truce Cannot Stop Generational War:
While Jacob and Esau will eventually weep and embrace six chapters ahead in Genesis 33:4, that temporary brotherly reunion never extinguished the bitter feud festering between their descendants for generations. Esau’s hostility crystallized into the national enmity of Edom, an enduring hatred that the prophet Amos over a millennium later condemns in Amos 1:11: “Because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity; his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever.”
The Scheme Costs Rebekah Her Favorite Son for Life:
Rebekah uses the threat of Hittite marriages to persuade Isaac to send Jacob away (Genesis 27:46) — the same nightmare her household already lived through with Esau’s pagan wives one chapter earlier in Genesis 26:34–35. The danger was never bloodline; it was a covenant household getting dragged away from the worship of the true God. Yet because of this deceitful scheme, Rebekah paid a devastating personal price: she appears never to have laid eyes on her favorite son again. Jacob fled for his life, and while Genesis never records her death, she is absent when Jacob returns home eight chapters later in Genesis 35:27 and is already buried at Machpelah by the close of the book in Genesis 49:31.
Genesis 27:1–10 Commentary
Jacob Already Held the Birthright — Then He Stole the Blessing:
Jacob didn’t need to scheme here at all. He had already acquired the birthright two chapters earlier — perhaps through calculating opportunism, but he held it legally (Genesis 25:29–34)—and God had already revealed to Rebekah before the twins were born that the older would serve the younger (Genesis 25:23). Instead of resting in God’s promise, Jacob went a step further and outright stole the patriarchal blessing through carnal deception. The contrast is stark: the birthright was acquired legally, but the blessing was stolen. Snatching God’s promises through deceit is pure flesh, and trying to help God through deception never spares a man the bitter consequences.
Rebekah Pressured Him, but Jacob Owns His Choice:
Jacob is not acting honorably here. His mother manipulated the scheme, but he remains fully accountable for walking through that door. A son with any backbone tells his mother no. God’s mercy will cover a man’s spiritual guilt, but the physical consequences in the flesh are locked in — God will let you eat a bitter harvest if that’s what it takes to purge the garbage out of your character.