Genesis 27:30-41

It happened, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob had just gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. He also made savory food, and brought it to his father. He said to his father, “Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that your soul may bless me.”

Isaac his father said to him, “Who are you?”

He said, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.”

Isaac trembled violently, and said, “Who, then, is he who has taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before you came, and have blessed him? Yes, he will be blessed.”

When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceeding great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, my father.”

He said, “Your brother came with deceit, and has taken away your blessing.”

He said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright. See, now he has taken away my blessing.” He said, “Haven’t you reserved a blessing for me?”

Isaac answered Esau, “Behold, I have made him your lord, and all his brothers have I given to him for servants. With grain and new wine have I sustained him. What then will I do for you, my son?”

Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, my father.” Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.

Isaac his father answered him,

“Behold, of the fatness of the earth will be your dwelling,
and of the dew of the sky from above.
By your sword will you live, and you will serve your brother.
It will happen, when you will break loose,
that you shall shake his yoke from off your neck.”

Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

There are few things as horrible as being betrayed by those you love. Unfortunately, Isaac, because He didn’t believe the word of God and submit to those words, had to feel what it was like to be betrayed. The Bible tells us that it felt so bad that he “trembled violently.” Esau knew what it was like to be mistreated by his own brother. This reminds me of what Jesus felt. Jesus took betrayal for us as a part of His suffering. We were the ones who didn’t believe God’s word and we were the ones who deserved to be betrayed, but Jesus, who did nothing wrong was betrayed by His own disciples. Jesus even knew that it was going to happen but it still added to the pain of that horrible time of His death. Then, he blessed us, the ones who deserved to be hurt.

There is nothing as strong as God’s word. God has reversed the pattern of sin and death through what Jesus has done through the son of Jacob and Isaac, just as He said He would.

Once again, we see here that God uses this opportunity to cause Isaac to bless Esau. Even though God blessed Jacob over Esau, He still loved Esau and wanted good for him as well.
God’s blessing of Jacob and Esau is symbolic in the New Testament. If we just took these things at face value here, we might think that what God is doing is strange. These things may look strange to us because God has reasons that He may not explain. Some things are so beyond us that we may never be capable of understanding them. We have to trust that His reasons are just as good as He says He is.