Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics, where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Thanks for joining me this week. We’re going to go through Genesis chapter 27. But before we do, I want to remind you to go to patreon.com, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com. To find Beyond the Basics, the entire website is patreon.com/beyondthebasics683. And you can go there and subscribe for only $4 a month. And you can get access to the full uncut episode.

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So let’s get into Chapter 27.

So we’re going to fast forward in the story from Genesis Chapter 26, where Isaac was wandering around near Gerar, the territory of the Philistines.

Verse 1 it says: When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see – and he probably couldn’t hear very well either, would be my guess. So he called Esau his older son. So he tells him he’s getting old. He doesn’t know when he’s gonna die, “So go grab your weapons and hunt some game for me.”

In verse 4 it says, he says, “Prepare for me delicious food.” And the reason Isaac wanted Esau to do this is because he wanted to make sure that it actually was Esau that he was blessing because he couldn’t see, or at least he couldn’t see very well, so he couldn’t differentiate by looking at his two sons, which was which. He knew that Esau was a good hunter. He knew how to prepare food that Isaac loves.

So this is the way that Isaac had decided that he would be able to determine Esau from Jacob. So he says, “Prepare for me delicious food, such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.”

So he wants to bless Esau, meaning he wants to pass on the covenant blessing that he received from Abraham to his son Esau. And if you remember from a couple episodes we discussed that the birthright that Esau would have received had he not sold it for a bowl of stew. You can go back and listen to that episode if you want to know more about what exactly that birthright contained. But the biggest part and the most important part for the purposes of our story is that it contained the blessing that God gave to Abraham and that Abraham passed on to Isaac.

So this is what Isaac wants to give Esau. He wants to bless Esau with this.

And we find out in verse 5, Rebecca was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebecca said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father speak to your brother Esau.”

So in verse 7, Rebecca tells Jacob that Isaac had said to Esau, “Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.”

Well, Isaac never actually said this. Isaac never said, “Before the Lord.” Go back to verse 4. He says, “That my soul may bless you before I die.”

But Rebecca is saying, “That I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.”

So Rebecca tells Jacob, “Go and get a couple goats and bring them back to me. I’ll prepare some food and bring it to your father and he can bless you before he dies.”

Verse 12, Jacob starts to get concerned. He says, “Perhaps my father will feel me.”

Well, that’s interesting because Jacob’s concern wasn’t if the plan was right or wrong. His concern is if he would get caught. His concern is if his father is going to feel him and realize it’s not Esau because Esau was hairy. Jacob was not. Jacob didn’t seem to care if it was right. He didn’t seem to care if this was the right thing to do.

So he says, “Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.”

So his mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me.”

So Jacob was worried about the consequences if he was caught. Rebecca told him that she would bear the consequences of him getting caught. She said, “Let your curse be on me.”

So they go through with a plan. Jacob goes and gets the goats. Rebecca makes the food. She puts the skin of the goats on Jacob’s hands and neck.

Verse 18, he went into his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am.”

And now Isaac speaks seven times between verses 18 and 26. It shows his suspicion, these seven times that he speaks. In verse 18, he says, “Who are you?”

Because he can’t see who’s in the room, right? He’s blind. He can’t see. He has no idea who’s in the room. So he asks, “Who are you?”

And we’ll get to Jacob’s responses in a little bit, but I want to run through what Isaac says first. Then in verse 20, Isaac said, “How is it that you have found it so quickly?”

Referring to, “How did you go out and hunt this food and prepare it so quickly?”

He wasn’t expecting to have the food that quickly. So Isaac is starting to suspect that something is up.

Next statement that Isaac makes is in verse 21, he says, “Come near that I may feel you.”

Because this would instantly tell him that it was Esau. He would feel Esau’s skin or feel Jacob’s skin and he would instantly know the difference between the two.

Verse 22, he says, “The voice is Jacob’s, but the hands are Esau’s.”

So he’s extremely suspicious right now.

So in verse 24 he asks, “Are you really Esau?”

So Isaac is very clearly doubting here.

So then in verse 25 he says, “Bring the food near that I may eat.”

Because he needed to make sure that the food was Esau’s food. And he obviously could not tell the difference between wild game and a young goat. Not only are his eyes bad and his ears bad, but his sense of taste is probably bad as well. Not only between two different meats, but the way two different people prepare them. So his test for making sure that he was getting the right person was not a very good test in the first place.

Then in verse 26 he says, “Come near and kiss me.”

And this is final test that Isaac has to make sure that he’s blessing the right person. He wants to smell the garments to see if they smell like the field and Jacob had put on Esau’s garments. Isaac smelled his garments. He asked him to come near and kiss him so that he could smell his garments to make sure that he, in his mind, was blessing Esau.

So let’s get to Jacob’s responses here in verses 19 through 24. And what’s interesting is not the responses themselves, but the fact that he lied three times.

In verse 19, after Isaac said, “Are you my son?” Jacob said, “I am Esau your firstborn.”

So he emphasizes the role here of the firstborn. He knows that Isaac is trying to circumvent this agreement that Jacob and Esau had. He’s lying in saying, “I am Esau.”

And he’s kind of lying by saying, “I’m your firstborn.” I mean, obviously Jacob was the younger brother, but he had the rights of the firstborn. So that’s what he’s emphasizing here. He’s saying, “I have the right to this blessing.”

In verse 20, Isaac said, how is it that you have found it so quickly? Asking about the food. Jacob said, because the Lord your God granted me success. Well, obviously Jacob didn’t even hunt for this food. So that’s a lie. But also Jacob lied about God’s role in the deception. He lied.

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and said, gave me success. And then in verse 24, Isaac says, are you really my son Esau? He answered, I am. So this third lie proves that Jacob did not trust God to restore the birthright to him. Jacob clearly felt that he had to go and get it himself. There’s no indication that

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Jacob really even knew or cared about God at this point. mean even in verse 20 he calls God, he calls him the Lord your God, speaking to Isaac. He’s saying this is your God that granted me success. He didn’t say my God.

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So after this whole conversation, Isaac gives Jacob a four-fold blessing, starting in verse 27. So Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said, see, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. Then the next part of the promise, the second part of the promise, is concerning the earth. He says, may God give you the dew of heaven, which is actually referring to God’s favor.

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The dew or the water coming from heaven that would water the earth, would water crops, provide water for animals. A person has nothing to do with that. That just happens. It happens every day. It’s like the sun coming up. You can’t control whether it rains or whether the dew appears each morning. So that’s referring to God’s favor. Then it says, of the fatness of the earth,

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which is the best of what the earth can offer, the best land, the best animals, etc, etc, and plenty of grain and wine. So what this means is that all that Isaac has to give, he gave to Jacob. He gave grain and wine, which is all the crops, the fatness of the earth, which is his best animals.

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the due of heaven which really isn’t even Isaac’s to give but he’s passing on the favor of the Lord is really what he’s passing on there so all that is to say that everything that Isaac had to give he gave to Jacob everything that Isaac had on the earth he is giving to Jacob the third part of this blessing concerns the nations he says let people serve you

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and let nations bow down to you. So he’s putting Jacob in a place of authority over nations. This is again referring to the blessing that God gave to Abraham. And the fourth part of this blessing is concerning his family. He says, be Lord over your brothers and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Basically what Isaac is saying here is you’re going to be the patriarch of the family. You are now in charge.

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this family. Excuse me, I went a little bit out of order there. The first part of the blessing was concerning the earth, the second part of the blessing was concerning the nations, the third part was concerning his family, and then the fourth part is directly quoting Abraham’s blessing. It says, be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you. So that is directly from Abraham’s blessing where

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It places God’s favor and blessing on Jacob and anybody who tries to come against that will be cursed.

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So Isaac finished giving Jacob the blessing. Esau came in. He says, let my father arise in the heat of his son’s game that you may bless me. And his father Isaac said to him, who are you? He answered, I am your son, your firstborn Esau. So Esau came in also emphasizing that he was the firstborn. He tried to emphasize his claim to the birthright as well, just like Jacob did, but it was no longer his to claim.

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Not only had he sold it to Jacob many years before, but now he had just missed out on the blessing. So in verse 33, then Isaac trembled very violently, because he says, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me and ate it all before you came? And I have blessed him. And he says, yes, and he shall be blessed.

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So in verse 36, Esau says, is he not rightly named Jacob for he has cheated me these two times. So then he says to his father, have you not reserved a blessing for me?

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So Esau was now facing the possibility of having no inheritance when Isaac died. If you remember again, going back to the episode on the birthright, that birthright included Isaac’s physical inheritance, the land and the animals and the servants that was all being passed on to Jacob. So in verse 37, Isaac answered and said to Esau, behold, I have made him Lord over you and all his brothers

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I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” So Isaac had nothing left to offer Esau. He’d given Jacob everything. Everything Isaac had to give, he’d given to Jacob. He didn’t have anything left to give Esau. But Esau lifted up his voice and wept, begged for even one blessing. Isaac actually gave him a three-fold blessing.

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verses 39 through 40. The first blessing he says is, from the fatness of the earth shall be your dwelling. If you have a Bible that has footnotes, this actually, there’s a footnote here that will say another translation of this verse, or it could say, behold of the fatness of the earth shall be your dwelling. Those seem kind of opposites, so it’s a little unclear what this means, at least to me.

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Maybe somebody a little bit smarter than me might be able to uh shed some light on it. But away from the fatness of the earth means you will lack abundance. You’re not going to have the abundance of animals and crops that Jacob is going to have. But if it says, the fatness of the earth shall be your dwelling, then that could mean that Esau is going to dwell or live on the abundance of the land.

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end up becoming very wealthy. In Genesis 36 verses 6-7 it says, Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all his property that he had acquired in land of Canaan. He went into a land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together.

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the land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock. So he did end up quite wealthy. So in my opinion, the correct translation should be, behold of the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, but.

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The translators of the ESV disagree with me and they’re a lot smarter than me. So I’d be interested to see what other translations say. But keep that in mind as you’re reading this. There’s a couple different ways that could be translated. The second blessing that Isaac gives is in verse 40, by your sword you shall live. So what he’s saying is that life is going to be difficult, but you will live. You’re not going to die young. There’s going to be a lot of struggle, a lot of fighting, but you’ll live.

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And then the last, the third blessing that Isaac gives is, will serve your brother, but when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. Meaning Esau will never accept Jacob’s rule. Esau will never accept that Jacob is the patriarch and has the authority in the family. But Jacob would be the one to pass on the seed of the promise, the chosen seed that we’re looking towards as we go through the book of Genesis.

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Esau now has become the seed of the serpent So in verse 41 Esau hated 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 approaching meaning when Isaac would die when his father would die the days of mourning His death are approaching then I will kill my brother Jacob. He’s gonna hunt him down. Just like Nimrod Nimrod Remember we talked about

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him being a hunter of men. Now Esau, who had already been compared to Nimrod, is now going to hunt Jacob down just like Nimrod would do. And he’s going to kill his brother just like Cain would do. This is showing that Esau is fully leaning into being the seed of the serpent. But he shows mercy. He showed mercy to Cain. And he showed mercy…

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to Esau by allowing him even one blessing that he would live. So Esau says he’s going to kill Jacob and again Rebecca finds out somehow somebody heard and told Rebecca what Esau had said. So she called Jacob her younger son and said to him in verse 42, behold your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.

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Therefore my son obey my voice arise flee to Laban which is to the east so that Direction to the east Represents exile so Jacob is now going into exile away from his family and away from the land God had promised Rebecca goes on stay with inverse 44 stay with him a while Until your brother’s fury turns away until your brother’s anger turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him

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In fact, everybody in this story lost something. Isaac and Rebecca lost their son Jacob, who had to flee to the east to Laban. Esau lost his blessing. Esau lost his blessing a lot earlier, but he still lost his blessing. He thought he was getting it back. He thought he had come up with a great plan to get it back. He ended up without it anyway. Jacob lost his home and his family. We need to read these stories, of course, as…

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how it pertains to Jesus as we’ll get to in just a minute and following the story of the promised seed and the covenant between God and Abraham and how that’s going to play out. Of course we need to read it that way but we also need to recognize that if we don’t learn the lessons that we should be learning from these stories things can go very bad for us. Fathers

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When the Lord has spoken, we need to not try to go against God’s plan for our families. We need to communicate with our wives. We need to not pit our sons against each other. With dignity and respect and honor, we can avoid all sorts of issues. We can have a family that thrives and grows and loves and turns into godly human beings.

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we don’t do these things, we turn into this family.

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does this all point to Jesus? Earlier on, Rebecca had asked Jacob to find two young goats, two good young goats, which is way more than necessary for one meal. I don’t know if you noticed that. Why would Rebecca ask for two goats for one meal if all they’re doing is making stew or whatever meal it was for Isaac? Why did Rebecca need two young goats? Well, this actually points to the Day of Atonement.

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And this is told in Leviticus chapter 16. Leviticus chapter 16 tells us about the day of atonement, which was done once a year. on this day, there would be two goats. One goat would be a sacrifice of atonement for sins to wash them clean. The other goat would bear the sins of the nation and it was sent out of the camp into the wilderness.

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So I’m going to read you verses seven through 10 in Leviticus chapter 16. It says, he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And we’ll get into Azazel. We’ll get into all that once we get to Leviticus. I’m not going to get into that now. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel

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shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.” So one goat was sacrificed as a sin offering to wash sins clean. The other goat was kept alive to make atonement for sins, which means to pay for sins. It means to make reparation.

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for our sins. So the blood washes the sins away, the live goat makes reparations or makes atonement for the sins, and was sent away alive into the wilderness. So then and only then could the priest enter the tent of meeting. This actually points to the two ways that Jesus makes us acceptable to enter God’s presence. So he bore our sin on the cross, and his shed blood washes our sin clean.

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So he takes our sin, just like the live goat took the sin of the nation of Israel, and his shed blood washes our sin, just like the other goat would be sacrificed and the blood would wash away the sin of the nation of Israel. That’s what the two goats on the Day of Atonement would point towards.

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that would point towards the sacrifice that Jesus would make several thousand years later. So in this story here in Genesis chapter 27, there are two goats. One goat was used as a sacrifice for the meal. The other goat would bear Jacob’s sins. The second goat would stay alive, would remain alive and would bear Jacob’s sins and together they would make Jacob acceptable to meet his father. Remember,

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In the last few chapters, Isaac has been a picture of Jesus very consistently. I’ve shown multiple ways in every chapter how Isaac has been a picture of Jesus. So this is a picture of atonement in this chapter. This chapter is showing us the concept of sacrifice and atonement and what Jesus would do for us on the cross. He’d shed blood, would wash us clean, would remove the sin,

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from us that shed blood would remove our sins but the sins gotta go somewhere and so the other goat would bear Jacob’s sins. Jesus bore our sin. He took on our sin that was washed clean. And that made Jacob acceptable to go meet his father and receive the blessing. Just like Jesus’ would make us acceptable to meet Jesus’ father, our father, and receive the blessing.

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we’ve been brought into in the new covenant under Jesus Christ. That’s what this chapter is pointing towards. So the question I’m going to ask, and I talked about this a little bit already, but it’ll give you the opportunity to kind of meditate on it and think about it a little bit personal way. What’s the result of Isaac’s disobedience to God here?

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What happened because of Isaac’s disobedience? And what can we learn from this in regards to making decisions for our own families? Even if you’re a single person, you still have a family that you’re part of. This chapter isn’t just about what Isaac did, it’s about what the entire family did. So what can we learn from this, not only in regards to making decisions for our own families, but in regards to how we respond to those decisions?

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So think about that and meditate on that. So I want to end with prayer. Let’s just take a minute to reflect on the Lord and thank the Lord. So Lord, I thank you so much for your word. Thank you for everything that you’ve shown us in this chapter. Thank you for the picture of what can go wrong when a family conspires against each other. And I pray that as we read,

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And as we meditate this week, that we would recognize those areas where maybe we’re working against each other in our families. Maybe we’ve played favorites. Maybe we’re trying to manipulate each other, even in small ways. I pray that you would highlight those ways to us. I pray that you would highlight those things to us. And I pray that you would give us opportunities to repent and to make it right.

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and to turn to each other in love. Help us, Lord, to love each other, to serve each other, to think of each other’s needs before our own. And I thank you, Lord, that you sent your son, Jesus, to wash our sins with his blood and to take those sins on himself so that we can approach you, Father.

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so that we can approach you in all your glory so that we can come to you and talk to you just like we are now so that we can be brought into the blessing that you have for us and for this planet and we look forward to that day when that blessing is revealed in all its fullness. In your name, amen. Well, thanks for listening. Always appreciate it if you

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rate the show, subscribe. If this is your first time listening, make sure you click follow or subscribe so you can always get updates when a new episode is released. Go to that Patreon page and subscribe there. You can get full episode there. Always appreciate you guys. Thanks. Talk to you next week.