Genesis 27:9, commentary and pictures

Rebekah directed her younger son to bring two choice young goats from the flock so she could cook the favored savory dish for his father to lead him to bless Jacob as if he were Esau. She acted to secure for Jacob what she believed God had promised when He declared the elder would serve the younger, and Jacob yielded to her plan after first resisting it. The scheme was wrong and was never prompted by God, who needed no such selfish trickery and could have blessed Jacob in His own time and way if he had trusted and obeyed. It brought terror, flight from his brother's wrath, long exile, and lifelong separation from his mother, until repentance and pleading for mercy alone preserved his life and answered his prayer. That same secret scheming to gain advantage over others still lies open before God, who will not excuse it, and it must be cleansed away because it injures and finally ruins all who practice it.

The Plan to Deceive

Rebekah told Jacob to go to the flock and fetch two good young goats so she could prepare the savory meat his father loved, like Esau's venison. The food was to enable Jacob to impersonate Esau, so that Isaac would mistake him for Esau and give him the blessing intended for Esau. Jacob was at first unwilling to take part in the fraud but then agreed to his mother's plan.

Rebekah acted because she believed Jacob was entitled to the blessing under the divine word that the elder would serve the younger. She sought by her own scheming to secure for him God's promised outcome. Afterward Isaac became convinced that the blessing rightly belonged to Jacob.

Distrust, Consequences, and Mercy

The fetching of the two young goats to make the savory food Isaac loved was part of a sinful and wrongful fraud to obtain the blessing by impersonation, which God never prompted. God does not connive at selfish scheming to carry out His plans and will not work with any devising or planning after that example. He was fully able to provide for Jacob after His own methods without such scheming, and Jacob should have trusted Him to fulfill the promise in His own way and time rather than showing lack of faith in God's power. The prosperity and blessing attached to the firstborn do not guarantee divine favor, for God gives blessing or adversity according to a person's course, and Jacob could have been blessed by God even without the privileges of the firstborn if he loved and feared God.

That wrong counsel and fraud brought danger upon Jacob and forced him to flee for his life from his brother's deadly anger and threats into many years of exile. It separated Rebekah from Jacob for the rest of her life because of her counsel, while he went away knowing he had sinned. When he later faced Esau's approach, terror was joined by the crushing weight of self-reproach because his own sin had brought the danger. His earlier fraud was a sin for which he needed to repent, and he had to repent of that wrong before God would hear his prayer and mercifully save and preserve his life. His only hope was the mercy of God and his only defense was prayer, yet he left nothing undone on his own part to atone for the wrong to his brother and to avert the threatened danger.

That guilt left him guilty before God and gave Satan ground to accuse him before the angels of God and claim the right to destroy him, and Satan moved Esau to march against him. During the long night of wrestling Satan pressed that guilt upon him to discourage him and break his hold upon God. The heavenly Messenger reminded him of his sin to try his faith. Having learned that God is merciful, Jacob cast himself upon His mercy, pointing back to his repentance for that sin and pleading for deliverance, and because he had previously repented God could hear his prayer and mercifully preserve his life, which without that repentance He could not have done.

Warning Against Present Deception

The secret trickery in which a mother sent her son to fetch two young goats to prepare a counterfeit meal to gain the blessing by advantage still lives on in present practice. It appears as partiality and hypocrisy and as deceptive reasoning that bends work out of God's straightforward channels into crooked paths. It handles men as machinery, binds their freedom, harnesses and drives them, corrupts others by its reasoning, and sets up human council decisions as the voice of God while turning away from obedience to God's Word.

All such secret working lies open to the eye of God. He will not tolerate it as an offense, will in no case justify turning a man aside from his rights, and will not excuse grasping all that can be gotten by deception without regard to agreements or to the disappointment and wrong inflicted on others. The spirit of rivalry, conniving at evil, and underhand dealing to gain advantage over brethren must therefore be cleansed from mind and heart by God's commandment-keeping people, because this unholy work injures and at last ruins every soul that engages in it.