Jacob Takes Esau's Blessing and Leaves Home

Esau married two Hittite women, Judith and Basemath. These marriages brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Later, when Isaac was old and could hardly see, he called for Esau. He asked his elder son to hunt game, prepare the food he loved, and then receive his blessing before he died.

Rebekah heard Isaac’s words and made a plan for Jacob. She told him to bring two young goats so she could prepare the kind of food Isaac liked. Jacob worried that his father would touch him, realise the trick, and curse him instead. But Rebekah dressed Jacob in Esau’s clothes and covered his smooth skin with goat skins.

Jacob went in to his father with the food. Isaac was suspicious because the voice sounded like Jacob, even though the hands felt like Esau. Jacob falsely claimed to be Esau, and Isaac ate, drank, and blessed him. He spoke of dew from the sky, rich land, plenty of grain and wine, and rule over peoples and brothers.

As soon as Jacob left, Esau returned from hunting. When Isaac understood what had happened, he trembled violently. Esau cried out with deep bitterness and asked for a blessing too. Isaac said Jacob had come with deceit and had taken the blessing. Esau wept again, and Isaac spoke a harder future over him, with conflict, service, and later breaking his brother’s yoke.

Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing and planned to kill him after Isaac’s death. When Rebekah heard this, she warned Jacob to flee to her brother Laban in Haran until Esau’s anger turned away. She also spoke to Isaac about being distressed by the daughters of Heth, and Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan Aram to find a wife from Rebekah’s family. Isaac blessed him again with the blessing of Abraham.

Esau noticed that Isaac had blessed Jacob, sent him to Paddan Aram for a wife, and did not want him to marry a Canaanite woman. Seeing that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth, as another wife besides the wives he already had. What do you notice about the choices each person made in this troubled family?