Genesis 27:30
And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.
The moment is exact: Isaac had just made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from his father's presence, when Esau his brother came in from his hunting. It belongs to Jacob's obtaining by fraud the blessing of the firstborn that was intended for Esau, though the birthright was already his by God's promise. That resort to fraud to gain what God had promised was a sin that needed repentance.
The fraud was not approved by God; Rebekah and Jacob should have trusted God to fulfill His purposes in His own time and way rather than trying to secure the foretold outcome by their own deceptive working. The act stands for secret working to gain advantage by deception, with partiality and hypocrisy, turning men from their rights and wronging and disappointing them by deceptive reasoning for selfishness and covetousness. All such secret working is open to the eye of God, He will in no case justify it, and He will not tolerate handling men as machinery and ruling as lord over His heritage. The blessing of the firstborn would not by itself guarantee God's favor, for Esau's prosperity or adversity would depend on whether he loved and revered God or followed a corrupt course, and Jacob too would be blessed if he loved and feared God even without the privileges normally given to the firstborn.
Esau then learned that Jacob had received the blessing that would have been his had he not rashly sold his birthright, and he was greatly distressed with a regret that came too late to undo his choice. The deceit reaped its harvest in his brother's hatred and deadly anger, which forced Jacob to flee for his life, and fear of Esau's approach renewed Jacob's distress years later. The retribution continued through twenty years of exile in which Jacob was himself wronged and defrauded until at last forced to find safety in flight. It reaped a second harvest as the evils of his own character cropped out in his sons, proving that what a person does is the result of what he is and every deed reacts upon the doer.
Jacob repented of this fraud beforehand, and because he had repented God heard his later prayer for protection and deliverance and mercifully preserved his life. Without that prior repentance his unconfessed sin would have overwhelmed him with fear and cut off his faith so that he could not plead with God. The episode warns that those who trade their hope of heaven for selfish pleasure and harmful desires will find at the day of God that repentance cannot restore what they surrendered, so all sin must be repented of and blotted out beforehand in order to have confidence to plead with God for deliverance in the time of trouble. This calls for investigation of Christ's teachings to ancient Israel against such secret working, yet hope is not removed, because God will not contend forever nor be always wroth but heals and leads and restores comfort and peace to him that is far off and to him that is near.