RETIREMENT LIVING - II

Genesis 27:15-28:9
Bob Bonner
November 19, 2006

Thanksgiving...time to thank God for His many earthly blessings. Pilgrims, it was food, safe journey and peaceful relationships with the Indians. As those early settlers desperately needed food and shelter to survive, there is something we need even more desperately for us to survive spiritually or to effectively leave our mark on this world.....God’s Word and the spiritual food, we need to take from it in order to truly live life meaningfully and productively here on earth.

This morning we return to the family drama we began looking at last week, that surrounds Jacob’s stealing his brother’s blessing from their father, Isaac. In this drama there is much to glean from these pages, more than we can or will cover in two weeks. This drama is buried amongst the treasure chest of Genesis 25-28 in which we find much instruction for our lives. Such as: how to have a successful marriage, how to raise children, the secrets behind living a successful and impactful Christian life. There are teachings as to what it takes to finish well in life. There are also lessons to be learned from others’ failures; and the obvious observation of the negative consequences that befall the individual who directly does wrong as well as the consequences of his or her wrong that come down upon others around them and those who follow them for generations to come.

Bottom line: As is true of most of God’s Word, there is much quality spiritual food in these chapters, which is meant to feed our souls. And as we come to this Thanksgiving season, we cannot only thank God for the Living Word that came to us in the flesh, Jesus Christ but also His living Word that has come to us in print.

This morning, we return to Genesis 27 to pick up where we left off in this family’s drama. The four major characters in this drama are Isaac, the father, Rebekah, the mother and their twin sons, Esau and Jacob. As we work through this drama you will see that each of these four individuals display glaring character flaws: Isaac-sensuous and weak; Esau-godless and violent; Rebekah-deceptive and manipulative; Jacob-opportunistic and unprincipled. It’s also interesting to note that in the seven scenes in chapter 27 never is the whole family together at once. This illustrates what a terribly fractured family we have here.

By way of quick review, the complete drama is found in 26:34-28:9. As we mentioned last time, the bookends of this drama deal with the godless son, Esau’s marriages to foreign women, that took place 55 years apart. What was significant about these marriages is that Esau never knew, or was never told by his parents that his first two marriages to foreign women had grieved both his father and mother. When he finds out that this has been something that they have held against him, yet had never been confronted with, he spitefully with in-your-face intentions goes right out and marries another foreign wife.

The big question that is raised by these bookends, is “How could such a thing happen?” The answer to that question lies in the seven scenes between his marriages to foreign women. As we mentioned last time, the answer as to why Isaac, the father never confronted Esau about his marriages to foreign women, is that he didn’t want to lose his gourmet meal ticket that lay in Esau’s skills as a hunter and cook. In other words, Isaac, the spiritual leader of the family who started out life so well, had abandoned what he knew to be right so that he could indulge his fleshly desires, regardless of what it cost his marriage, family or the generations to come. So spiritually out of it had he become, that he believed that he could live his life in isolation, without his actions affecting others. Either that, or he just didn’t care about how his actions affected others. Either way, Isaac is not a person one would want to pattern his life after.

Last time, we covered the first two scenes. In Scene 1: verses 1-4, Isaac tells Esau to go out and kill some game and make for his father his favorite tasty dish, after which, Isaac will pass on the family blessing to Esau.

In Scene 2: verse 5-14 we learn that Rebekah, Isaac’s wife and mother of both sons, overhears Isaac’s plan. Knowing that God had directed Isaac to give the birthright and the blessing to Jacob, Rebekah panics. Rather than seeking out God as to what He would have her to do, she takes matters into her own hands to save the situation. Although she does save the situation, in the end, she makes matters worse for herself and the family than she would have, had she checked in with God first. Jacob, pressured by his mother, but probably didn’t need to be too pressured to jump on board with her plan, agrees to do what she says.

We pickup the drama at Scene 3: Genesis 27:15, where Rebekah readies Jacob as he meets with his father, Isaac. We read, “Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. She also gave the savory food and the bread, which she had made, to her son Jacob. Then he came to his father and said, ‘My father.’ And he said, ‘Here I am. Who are you, my son?’”

How weird Jacob must have looked. Dressed in a customary tunic with only the hands, neck and facial skin typically exposed, he only needed to cover up his neck and the back of his hands and up his forearms with furry animal skins. Probably wearing a beard, he didn’t need to do anything to cover his face.

Notice that right off the bat, Isaac senses something wrong. Isaac is not expecting Jacob to stop by his tent, probably because he and Jacob rarely spend time together. But neither is Isaac expecting Esau to be back so soon. Later, in verse 22, we are told that all along, Isaac is thinking he hears Jacob’s voice, not Esau’s. But maybe an old man’s ears are playing tricks on him. All the way through this scene, Isaac is never fully convinced that he is dealing with Esau.

Upon hearing his father’s questions, I imagine that Jacob’s stomach begins to tighten. “Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Get up, please, sit and eat of my game, that you may bless me.’”

Keep in mind, that Jacob asks his father to get up, not because his father is an invalid, laying sickly in bed, or near death. Isaac lives for another 25 years after this. Isaac has become a sedentary, lazy, wealthy old man. He is bored with life and has nothing else to do but eat and sleep. Jacob invites him to get up off his bed and come to the low eastern-like table and to sit in the customary cross-legged position to eat. Following the meal, Jacob expects to receive his father’s blessing, just as the deal was set out before Jacob.

Presumably, Isaac moves slowly from his bed to the table and then asks Jacob another question because Dad is truly suspicious. He asks, “How is it that you have it so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the Lord your God caused it to happen to me.”

Twice in these two verses Jacob lies to his father. The first has to do with Jacob’s identity and the other has to do with blasphemy, crediting the Lord for a hunt that never took place.

“Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.’ So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, ‘The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ Imagine how Jacob’s body must have momentarily tensed up as he heard his father correctly identify him by his voice; then, just as quickly, he relaxed a little when his father added, “but the hands of Esau.” You couldn’t have a more anxious-packed scene being played out than here.

Still, Isaac “...did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him [literally, “Greeted” or “saluted” him. The actual “blessing of the son” doesn’t take place for three more verses.]. And he said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ And he said, “I am.’ So he said, ‘Bring it to me, and I will eat of my son’s game, that I may bless you.’ And he brought it to him, and he ate; he also brought him wine and he drank.”

“Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Please come close and kiss me, my son.’” Up to this point, Isaac has used three of his four remaining working physical senses to test whether or not he is really meeting with Esau or Jacob. He has used his hearing, which has told him that this man is Jacob. He has used his sense of touch to feel his skin. He used his sense of taste, when he ate the meal, testing to make sure it was like Esau’s.

But still not totally convinced he is dealing with Esau, Isaac asks Jacob to come close and kiss him. In doing so, Isaac is going to put Jacob to the final sense test, the test of smell. Passing this test, even though there is probably some remaining doubt in Isaac’s mind, he moves forward to bless Isaac. We read, “So he came close and kissed him; and when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, ‘See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed.’”

Catch the order of which senses are tested first and which one finally moves Isaac to decide to bless. The hearing sense stands in conflict with the feeling sense. As these two senses come into conflict, Isaac allows what he feels to overrule what he hears, and then, is finally swept away by, of all things, his nose! The smell of Jacob's gamy garments after the savory meal lift Isaac's senses into such a state of ecstasy that he crosses the ultimate moral boundary and he thinks he blesses what God has cursed, Esau. “Now may God give you of the dew of heaven, And of the fatness of the earth, And an abundance of grain and new wine; May peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you; Be master of your brothers, And may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, And blessed be those who bless you.”

Now, we come to Scene 4. Esau, who has been hard at work, hunting, killing, dressing and cooking a meal for his father, shows up to get his blessing. He is oblivious to anything that has just gone on. He comes to his father’s tent, excited and in full anticipation of receiving his father’s blessing. He thinks he has finally pulled one over on his brother, Jacob. Although he had agreed that his brother had rightfully purchased the birthright, which the father’s blessing would have been a part of, by agreeing to his father’s present plan, Esau would be wrongfully and deceptively breaking his oath to Jacob. “Now it came about, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. Then he also made savory food, and brought it to his father; and he said to his father, ‘Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me.’ Isaac his father said to him, ‘Who are you?’ And he said, ‘I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.’ Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, ‘Who was he then that hunted game and brought it to me, so that I ate of all of it before you came, and blessed him?’”

Note Isaac’s reaction: He “trembled violently.” Isaac was so upset that he had been duped that he starts shaking uncontrollably. Emotions of all sorts overwhelmed him. Anger with Jacob, concern over Esau, grief over the further division between his wife and himself, resentment at having his own plans thwarted, realizing that he had been standing against God’s plans. Too late did he realize what had happened...that God had overruled his desire to bless Esau. When he did realize it, he also saw his own life for what it had become...a spiritual failure. No wonder he was so physically and visibly shaken. As a result, he knew that there was no going back on the blessing he had given to Jacob, because God was in this thing. Hence, he adds at the end of verse 33, “Yes, and he shall be blessed.” Although having strayed from the faith for years, Isaac shows us here a glimpse of being a man of faith. Realizing that he could no longer act as a man of no faith, Hebrews 11:20 states, “By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob...” Isaac was not going to go back on what he had done, because finally, for a split second, Isaac returned to the faith he had abandoned, and did what was right!

But Esau can’t believe it! He hasn’t seen his father act in faith for more than sixty years. Why, all of a sudden is he going to start walking by faith now? There must be something Esau can do to rescue this situation. With another intense emotional outburst, Esau, this rough rugged man of the woods, screaming like a woman and weeping like a baby, responds. “When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father!’”

Not only the Hebrew words themselves, but the way they are written in uncharacteristically halting phrases capture the shock and agony of Esau. Bitterly, he realizes that there is nothing he can do to change his father’s mind, but like a desperate beggar he pleads for something...anything!

Isaac responds to his favored but devastated son, “And he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.’ Then he said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.’ And he said, ‘Have you not reserved a blessing for me?’ But Isaac replied to Esau, ‘Behold, I have made him your master, and all his relatives I have given to him as servants; and with grain and new wine I have sustained him. Now as for you then, what can I do, my son?’”

Ironically, Isaac had fully intended to give everything to Esau and nothing to Jacob. Now, he has nothing to give Esau except an anti-blessing, which is more like a curse than a blessing. We read, “Esau said to his father, ‘Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.’ So Esau lifted his voice and wept. Then Isaac his father answered and said to him, ‘Behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, And away from the dew of heaven from above. By your sword you shall live, And your brother you shall serve; But it shall come about when you become restless, That you will break his yoke from your neck.’”

In this anti-blessing, Esau is denied both the right to rule over his brother and he is denied the privilege of living off of the land’s fertility. He will never be a farmer. Daily, he will have to do what he has been doing most of his life, with a break once in a while when he returned home. He will have to hunt and forage for food. In poetic still, notice how in verse 39 Isaac reverses the order of the blessing to Jacob in verse 28, of the “fatness” or the “fertility of the earth” with the “dew of heaven.” This is a poetic device, used in this poetic blessing to highlight and emphasize this reversed blessing against Esau.

“So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’”

Out of respect and love for his father, Esau will wait til his father dies, before he will take revenge on his brother. Note also, that Esau must have spoken this threat against Jacob out loud in his father’s presence, because someone loyal to Rebekah heard his threat and reported to her what had just happened. For we read in the next verse, “Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, ‘Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, and arise, flee to Haran, to my brother Laban! Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury subsides, until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?’”

Always a mother, Rebekah knows her boy’s tendencies. She knew that Esau was a hothead, but she also knew that once he exploded, and given some time, this free spirited son would forget the offense. He would not carry a grudge. And sure enough, Esau’s anger eventually did subside, according to Genesis 33. But Jacob would not know this about his brother for more than 20 years. He would live for the next 20 plus years with this low grade fear of some day, having to return home to face his brother. Furthermore, Esau, in the years ahead, does prosper quite adequately in a material sense which was all he really cared about in the first place, so he wouldn’t feel cheated anymore.

However, although Rebekah knew her sons, she did not know the future. She fully expected Jacob to leave, get a wife and return shortly. She didn’t plan on him being gone for more than 20 years. Furthermore, she couldn’t know that she would never see him again once he left their home, because she would die before his return.

With verse 46, we have a very brief scene shift. On a rare occasion, Rebekah speaks to Isaac. In this verse, we hear from Rebekah for the last time. After this, she is never seen or heard from again. We read, “Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

With these words, Rebekah maneuvers her husband into sending Jacob away from home and away from the enraged Esau, under the guise of getting a wife for Jacob. What’s interesting about this verse is how it contrasts the beginning of this section, which started back in 25:19 and the end of this section concerning Isaac and Rebekah’s marriage. It begins with Isaac praying and interceding on behalf of his wife that she might bear children, but by the end of this section, they are not even talking to one another, except for this brief request from Rebekah to Isaac that she send Jacob off to get a wife. What a sad scene.

With the next scene, Isaac meets for the first time with Jacob after his deception. This must have been a very emotionally strained occasion. “So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him [meaning he greeted or welcomed him into his chambers] and charged him, and said to him, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.’ Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.”

Again, what a spiritually and emotionally tragic scene. The chastened-by-God father sending away, not bidding farewell, but sending him away. Further, these words are Isaac’s formal passing of the patriarchal birthright to Jacob. Like himself, Jacob is hardly ready to take on this responsibility. It will take the rest of his lifetime to grow into the patriarch God desired.

Please note: The bestowal of this blessing on Jacob was in no way a divine approval of how Jacob had obtained the blessing. Sometimes, we really do stupid things, that God permits, in order to fulfill His plans. But He is never pleased or honored when our manner of operations violates His principles.

There is no retirement from the life of faith. Forget the dream of spending your old age sitting back in a life of ease and indulgence. Look forward instead to your greatest works of faith in your waning years.

Instead of going to our graves spiritually blind, like Isaac, because we quit serving Jesus, we should endeavor to be like Moses, of whom the Scriptures declare, “Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.” (Deuteronomy 34:7)

Or, consider the example of Caleb, who never retired from the adventure of faith. Even into his eighties he was eager to take the high ground for the Lord: "I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the LORD will be with me, and I will drive them out as the LORD has spoken." (Joshua 14:11-12)

You can retire from your job, but you never were saved to retire from the life of faith. Taking new ground for Christ is always the best guard against selfish indulgences.

Another lesson we can take from our study, comes as a warning from observing Isaac and Rebekah’s collapse of their marriage and how they grew apart with age. Isaac and Rebekah were infatuated with each other and hot passions existed in the beginning. But when real life began, they became different people, who showed no evidence of really trying to build into their marriage. As the years passed, they loved each other even less, and in turn, their marriage rotted and fell apart.

Couples never stay static in marriage. They either value their marriage, work at it and grow together, or they quit working on their marriage, thereby dishonoring their marriage vows, and although they stay together, they grow apart. Interestingly, in 25:21, we see Isaac praying for his wife to become pregnant. But 90 years later they are not even speaking to one another, unless it was a matter of necessity. One of the secrets to building spiritual depth in one’s marriage as well as increasing the health of one’s marriage is the humbling of yourselves before each other and God, and making time to pray together. There is an old saying that is trite but true: Couples who consistently pray together stay together.

Third, when we first met Esau and Jacob, they were kids. So often, in our youth, we think we can sow our wild oats and not reap the consequences. We can be wild and free with our decisions and never have to live with the results of those decision. But one of the overriding thoughts of our study is the moral law of “reaping what one sows.” In Isaac’s case, his sensuality costs him his family his full place of honor in the genealogical accounts. Esau’s impatience, greed cost him his birthright and blessing. Rebekah’s deception draws her into anonymity. Jacob’s deception will bring him deception and alienation. This is evidence that the moral law is true: One always reaps what one sows. The fruit of our decisions and action may not show up immediately in our lives, but they will show up!

Finally, I’ll close with this Thanksgiving thought. When you read through the entire New Testament, all that the Spirit of God has chosen to remember about Isaac is that which he did that was good. In one short statement, in Hebrews 11:20 it says, “By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob...” Similarly, the Spirit of God remembers another believer whose life ended in temporal failure. With all of his mistakes and foolish choices, 2 Peter 2:7 same thing with Lot. That gives me hope...not to go off and do good, thinking there is no consequence (that’s stupid). But rather, even when I think I am doing good, and am not and I am doing something foolish, God will still honor my faith. I have the freedom to risk to do right, and to fail, and still remain deeply loved, fully approved, completely forgiven and forever accepted by God...Praise to Jesus!

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