Genesis 27:46 Commentary and Bible Study

It is sad that there is cunning mixed up in this complaint to Isaac, though both Isaac and Rebekah had a genuine hatred of the Hittite women. As far as she was concerned, this disgust at Esau’s wives came at a convenient time for it provided an ideal excuse for sending Jacob away. Isaac would be sympathetic to this request for just as Rebekah herself had been brought from the area where Abraham’s family lived, so she was suggesting that Isaac should go there to procure a wife for Jacob. She hid the real reason for sending him away: she wished to protect him from his brother’s anger which might at any moment break out in a fresh way.The problem was one that Isaac should have thought about already, knowing his own very similar circumstances. Perhaps he delayed taking action because he was still unsettled at the Lord’s choice of Jacob. There was however no doubt now and the chosen line must be kept pure and a wife provided. Providentially Esau’s profane choice of Canaanite wives would have focused the minds of Isaac and Rebekah on the evil of Jacob making a similar choice. They both knew that Abraham had seen the issue very clearly and had been convinced that the chosen line must not be corrupted by intermarriage with those whom they were called to be separate from.