Genesis 27:1-29
The incident brought before us in this chapter is very distressing. This is a family where God is known and yet covetousness, deceit and lies are sadly in evidence there. Isaac has become blind and he is spiritually blind too. He has lost his powers of discernment to such an extent that a tasty meal is more important to him than the moral condition of his children. Without seeking God’s mind, he prepares to bless the son whom he prefers. Rebekah, on her part, advises Jacob to cheat his brother and to deceive his father. Only Esau could appear to us to be likeable in this family. But God knew his ungodly heart and by means of this apparent injustice, His will was accomplished.
Jacob achieves his end. With the complicity of his mother, he obtains the blessing, to which he attached such value. But if he had trusted in God to give it to him instead of acting by deceit and lies, would he not have received it just the same? Without a doubt! God had declared before his birth, "The elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23), and He could not renounce His word nor could He allow a mistake to be made. And Jacob would thus have been spared both pain and lost time. The Lord’s pathway for us is always straightforward but how many times we complicate it by our unfortunate interventions.