Genesis 27:18 Commentary and Bible Study

Jacob is now primed to play the part of a deceiver. He comes to his father pretending to be his brother, returning from hunting game. Isaac’s uncertainty about the identity of this son appears in his question, ‘Who are you my son?’ He recognises the voice of Jacob as he later explains, but this son is presenting himself as Esau whom he had earlier summoned and sent off to hunt game. Jacob speaks the first of three lies, ‘I am Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison’: the three great lies that get him into the favour of his father. ‘How did you find it so quickly?’ and he has a smooth answer for that. ‘Let me feel you.’ Isaac is suspicious. Why is he suspicious that this could possibly be Jacob? Well, he has had enough arguments with Jacob over this very thing. Jacob with all politeness has repeatedly petitioned Isaac and said, ‘Sir, my father you cannot do this. You cannot favour Esau. It is a terrible thing for brother to appear to be against brother, but the promise and prophecy of God is clearly that I should have that Abrahamic blessing.’ But it is likely he had been dismissed from the presence of Isaac perhaps many times before while trying to speak on this subject. In support of his claim to be Esau, he repeats the instruction given to the older son to go and prepare game for his father to eat. As far as Isaac is aware, no one else had heard this instruction apart from Esau and so this repetition of the father’s command is very convincing.