THE WORD OF ELOHIM

GENESIS

Chapter 27

     When Yischaq was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his older son Esav and said to him, “My son.”  He answered, “Here I am.”  And he said, “I am old now, and I do not know how soon I may die.  Take your gear, your quiver and bow, and go out into the open and hunt me some game.  Then prepare a dish for me such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my innermost blessing before I die.”

     Rivqah had been listening as Yischaq spoke to his son Esav.  When Esav had gone out into the open, to hunt game to bring home; Rivqah said to her son Ya’akov, “I overheard your father speaking to your brother Esav, saying, “‘Bring me some game and prepare a dish for me to eat, that I may bless you, with the Yehovah’s approval, before I die.’”  Now, my son, listen carefully, as I instruct you.  “Go to the flock and fetch me two choice kids, and I will make of them a dish for your father, such as he likes.  Then take it to your father to eat, in order that he may bless you before he dies.”  Ya’akov answered his mother Rivqah, “But my brother Esav is a hairy man and I am smooth-skinned.  If my father touches me, I shall appear to him as a trickster and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.”  But his mother said to him, “Your curse, my son, be upon me!   Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.”

     He got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a dish such as his father liked.  Rivqah then took the best clothes of her older son Esav, which were there in the house, and had her younger son Ya’akov put them on; and she covered his hands and the hairless part of his neck with the skins of the kids.  Then she put in the hands of her son Ya’akov the dish and the bread that she had prepared.

     He went to his father and said, “Father.”  And he said, “Yes, which of my sons are you?”  Ya’akov said to his father, “I am Esav, your first-born; I have done as you told me.  Pray sit up and eat of my game, that you may give me your innermost blessing.” Yischaq said to his son, “How did you succeed so quickly, my son?”  And he said, “Because Yehovah Elohim granted me good fortune.”  Yischaq said to Ya’akov, “Come closer that I may feel you, my son—whether you are really my son Esav or not.”  So Ya’akov drew close to his father Yischaq, who felt him and wondered, “The voice is the voice of Ya’akov, yet the hands are the hands of Esav.”  And so he blessed him.  

     He asked, “Are you really my son Esav?”  And when he said, “I am,” he said, “Serve me and let me eat of my son’s game that I may give you my innermost blessing.”  So he served him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank.  Then his father Yischaq said to him, “Come close and kiss me, my son;” and he went up and kissed him.  And he smelled his clothes and he blessed him, saying, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that the LORD has blessed.”  

“May God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth;

Abundance of new grain and wine.  

Let peoples serve you and nations bow to you;

Be master over your brothers, and let your mother’s sons bow to you.  

Cursed be they who curse you, blessed they who bless you.”  

No sooner had Ya’akov left the presence of his father Yischaq—than his brother Esav came back from his hunt.  He too prepared a dish and brought it to his father.  And he said to his father, “Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may give me your innermost blessing.”  His father Yischaq said to him, “Who are you?”  And he said, “I am your son, Esav, your first-born!  Yischaq was seized with very violent trembling.  “Who was it then, “he demanded, “That hunted game and brought it to me?  Moreover, I ate of it before you came, and I blessed him; now he must remain blessed!”  When Esav heard his father’s words, he burst into wild and bitter sobbing, and said to his father, “Bless me too, Father!”  But he answered, “Your brother came with guile and took away your blessing.” {Esav} said “Was he then, named Ya’akov that he might supplant me these two times?  First he took away my birthright and now he has taken away my blessing!”  And he added, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”  Yischaq answered, saying to Esav, “but I have made him master over you; I have given him all his brothers for servants, and sustained him with grain and wine.  What then, can I still do for you, my son?”  And Esav said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, Father?  Bless me too, Father!”  And Esav wept aloud.  And his father Yischaq answered, saying to him,

“See, your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven above.  

Yet by your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother;

But when you grow restive, you shall break his yoke from your neck.”

     Now Esav harbored a grudge against Ya’akov because of the blessing which his father had given him, and Esav said to himself, “Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Ya’akov.”  When the words of his older son Esav were reported to Rivqah, she sent for her younger son Ya’akov and said to him, “Your brother Esav is consoling himself by planning to kill you.  Now my son, listen to me.  Flee at once to Charan, to my brother Laban.  Stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury subsides—and he forgets what you have done to him.  Then I will fetch you from there.  Let me not lose you both in one day!”

     Rivqah said to Yischaq, “I am disgusted with my life, because of the Chitti women.  If Ya’akov marries a Chitti woman like these, from among the native women, what good will life be to me?”

Pronunciation    Notes