Genesis 27:34 Commentary and Bible Study

When Esau said, ‘Bless me, reverse the blessing to Jacob; bless me also’, Isaac answers, ‘No, my son. No, I was going to bless you wrongly, the blessing has been stolen from you, but it's right it should have been, and I am guilty before God. I should never have favoured you. I should never have thought I could combine the church and the world in my family, and give to my favourite older son, who represented the seed of the serpent, the headship of the family of God, and the headship of Zion. I should never have done it.’ Esau suddenly realises how great is his loss. He emits a cry of profound anguish, the cry of one who knows that he has made the wrong choice and now faces the consequences. It is the bitter cry of a man who has become enmeshed in the tentacles of sin and cannot now extract himself. It is a tragic moment for Esau. He has his father’s love on his side, but he senses that he does not have God on his side. He would like to bend his father’s will and cause him to change his mind, but he suspects that his father is constrained by something stronger than parental affection which cannot be altered. ‘Bless me – me also, O my father’. It is a pitiful appeal to a father’s love, but one which he knows is in vain. His appeal must fall on deaf ears however much Isaac would like to change the situation. Esau protests at the unfairness of all this. Jacob is indeed living up to his name. His name meant ‘supplanter’ and again he has supplanted Esau and deprived him of what was most precious to him. But strong appeal is not always evidence of being in the right. Esau is perhaps most grieved not because Jacob has come between Esau and the Lord the dispenser of that blessing, but because he has come between him and his father. It is after all a sentimental resentment at root. Esau knew that the blessing did not belong to him even though he was the oldest. His conscience must have told him that though he had his father’s indulgence on his side, he did not have the divine oracle on his side. That word of prophecy given before his birth still stood firm and he ought rather to have submitted himself to it instead of trying to overturn it. Furthermore he had sold his birthright to his younger brother and could not now demand the blessing of the firstborn by right. That status which he had treated so casually on one occasion could not now be easily reclaimed. Isaac pours out his heart to Esau as one who has now been placed beyond his reach by the Lord. He had perhaps for many years contemplated this act but now that the moment had come it had worked out very differently to his plan. He regretted immensely what had happened, but it was not just a matter of reversing what he had done before. In his response to this discovery his awareness of God’s overruling appears most clearly. Isaac felt bound by his own action therefore it is certain that this was not just a father’s blessing, but one which Isaac knew that God had given through him. Though he might have changed his own mind, he could not change God’s mind. But his act of stealth had been nullified.