Genesis 27:6 - Meaning and Application

Rebekah is here planning to get for Jacob the blessing that was meant for Esau. The goal itself was right, because God had already said that the older would serve the younger, and Rebekah was acting on that promise. She did not want to see her husband try to work against what God had spoken.

But the method was wrong, and it could not be justified. If Esau had no right to the blessing because he had already sold his birthright, still it was wrong to trick Isaac, who was old and weak, by taking advantage of his blindness. It was also wrong to teach Jacob to deceive, by putting a lie into his mouth, or at least into his hands.

This kind of fraud could also leave Jacob with deep doubts later. If he got the blessing by deceit, he might wonder whether it truly counted, especially if Isaac later found out and withdrew it, saying it had been given to the wrong person. Jacob also saw the danger. If he failed, as he likely could have, he feared his father’s curse more than anything else. On top of that, he would expose himself to the curse God speaks against anyone who leads a blind person astray (Deuteronomy 27:18).

If Rebekah had gone to Isaac honestly when Esau returned, and had reminded him with humility and seriousness of what God had said about their sons, things might have gone very differently. If she had also shown him how Esau had given up his right by selling his birthright and by marrying foreign wives, Isaac may well have agreed, knowingly and freely, to bless Jacob. That would have been honorable and fitting.

But God let her take this crooked path so that he could bring good out of evil. He often carries out his own purposes through the sins and mistakes of people, and that gives us comfort. Even with all the deceit in the world, God still rules it according to his will and for his own praise (Job 12:16).

Isaac could not rely on sight here, since he was blind. Providence had already made faces different enough that people can usually tell one person from another, and life would be impossible if everyone looked the same. So Rebekah tries to deceive his other senses.

First, she works on his sense of taste. She prepares tasty kid meat, seasons it well, and serves it so that Isaac thinks it is venison. That was not hard to do. This shows the folly of people who are so fussy and refined about food and proud of their appetite. It is easy to fool them with something very close to what they claim to prefer. Solomon says rich foods can be deceptive, because they can mislead us in more than one way (Proverbs 23:32).

Second, she works on his senses of touch and smell. She puts Esau’s clothes on Jacob, his best clothes, the kind Esau would likely wear when coming before his father for the blessing. Isaac could recognize them by their material, shape, and smell. If we want a blessing from our heavenly Father, we must come in the clothing of our elder Brother, Christ, who is the firstborn among many brothers, clothed with his righteousness.

To keep Jacob’s smooth skin from giving him away, she covers his hands and neck, and likely part of his face, with the skins of the young goats that had just been killed (Genesis 27:16). Esau was so rough and hairy that only such a covering could make Jacob seem like him. People who try to look rough and harsh in their manner are really putting the beast over the man, and they end up shaming themselves by disguising who they are.

Finally, Rebekah spoke a very reckless word when Jacob worried about a curse: “Let your curse be on me, my son” (Genesis 27:13). Christ alone could speak like that, because he is able to save since he was also able to bear the curse. He took the curse of the law for all who will take the yoke of his command. But no creature should dare say, “Let the curse be on me,” except when the curse is clearly undeserved, and we know it will not come (Proverbs 26:2).