Isaac and the Blessing

This year I have been learning about ancient history. One of the subjects I have been studying is Bible history. This was for one of my writing assignments. (see Genesis chapter 27 for the whole story)

                                 

Isaac was staring at the back of his eyelids.

He thought he had heard a noise.

The soft breeze blew through his long beard as he lay perfectly still, listening carefully.

But all he could hear was the faint braying of the sheep out in the pasture, the tent flap flapping in the wind and the hushed coo of a mourning dove.

    

     Isaac opened his eyes but all that he could see was an overwhelming blur of shapes and colors that made his head hurt. He clamped them shut again and rolled over to go back to sleep, the noise was nothing…..

     

     Wait, there it was again! He listened silently…. yes there it was! He could hear hushed whispers coming from outside.

“Esau must be home with my meal!” he thought “Now I can eat and give him my blessing so I may die in peace.”

Someone entered the tent.

“My Father” said a voice softly.

Isaac sat up. The voice was not the deep burly voice of Esau, his oldest son. Esau, who always brought him good meat from the fields and cooked it just the way he liked it. Esau, who was so strong and manly; Esau, though only by a few moments was nevertheless, his first born son who would receive his special blessing.

    

    No, this voice was soft and gentle. This voice was not Esau’s but Jacob’s. Jacob, Isaac’s scrawny young son. Jacob, who cared for the sheep and cattle. Jacob, who would rather sit with lambs than shoot a bow. Jacob, who would always be subject to his twin brother.

“Who art thou my son?” said Isaac

“I am Esau, thy first-born. I have done as thou commanded me. Arise, sit and eat of my hunt, that thy soul may bless me.”

Isaac’s mind raced.

He was sure this was Jacob, for it sounded nothing like Esau. But he was a very sick old man, were his senses just deceiving him?  “That must be the case” he thought, for Jacob never hunted game. When he was hungry he always cooked up a bowl of porridge for himself but never did he hunt! And besides, he had summoned Esau not Jacob. Jacob would never go against his father’s wishes, he knew that Esau was the oldest; he knew the blessing was rightfully his.

    

Surely this was Esau.

But how did he find, kill and cook the meal so quickly? It was a few mere minutes ago that Isaac had told him to go out and hunt.

“How did thou find it so quickly, my son?” asked Isaac.

“It was the will of God that what I sought came quickly my way” replied the voice that sounded so much like Jacob’s.

Isaac opened his eyes once more. The blurry picture came flooding back and all that he could make out of the crossing lines and colors was a fuzzy outline of a person that gave him no clue to which son this was. He shut his eyes and coughed.

“Come hither that I may feel thee, my son, and prove whether thou be my son Esau or not.” he said.

He heard the bowl of meat being placed on the ground and the shuffling of sandals in the dirt and all at once a head was thrust in his lap.

“Here I am Father” said his son.

Isaac felt him all over. He felt skin that was coarse and hairy just like Esau’s.

“The voice is indeed the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” he pondered out loud.

The voice told him it was Jacob, but the skin convinced him it was Esau. He could not get this wrong. This was the blessing he would give to his son before he died that would wish him good farming, land, success and victory. This was the blessing that would make him the head of the family and all others subject to him. He could not get this wrong.

“Art thou my son Esau?”

“I am”

Isaac sighed. It must be Esau.

“Come; bring me the meal that you have prepared so that I may bless you.”

Isaac ate his fill of the delicious meal that was cooked just the way he liked it. After he had he had eaten every morsel his son came near him and kissed him. Immediately the sweet smell of Esau’s clothes wafted into his nostrils.

“Surely my senses deceived me for this is certainly Esau, my oldest son.”

Then as Esau knelt before him Isaac blessed him:

“May God give you dew from heaven and make your fields fertile! May he give you plenty of grain and wine! May nations be your servants, and may peoples bow down before you. May you rule over all your relatives, and may your mother’s descendants bow down before you. May you those who curse you be cursed, and may those who bless you be blessed.”

And as Isaac murmured these words he was filled with contentment.

But little did he know that this really was Jacob and that the real Esau was on his way home and that he had been completely deceived