The Crooked Stick of Providence
Introduction: God's Straight Lines
We come now to one of those passages in Scripture that makes modern, tidy Christians nervous. It is a story of blatant deception, of a son lying to his blind father, of a mother scheming against her husband, and of a blessing obtained through fraud. It is a tangled mess of family dysfunction, carnal ambition, and sensory confusion. And right in the middle of it all, the sovereign purposes of God are being accomplished, precisely as He had ordained. This is a hard truth for us, because we like our heroes to be clean and our stories to be simple. We want God's will to be accomplished by people in white hats, not by conniving matriarchs and mama's boys in goatskins.
But the Bible is not a collection of moralistic fables for children. It is the unvarnished history of God's redemptive work in a fallen world, and God has never been shy about using crooked sticks to draw straight lines. He does not approve of the crookedness, mind you. The sin is always sin, and it is always judged. But God is such a master weaver that He can take the tangled, knotted, and sinful threads of human choices and weave them into the glorious tapestry of His sovereign decree. This is the doctrine of providence, and it is on full display here.
Before Jacob and Esau were ever born, before they had done anything good or evil, God had declared His purpose. He told Rebekah, "Two nations are in your womb... and the older shall serve the younger" (Gen. 25:23). This was God's stated intention. The blessing belonged to Jacob by divine election. But notice how everyone in this story conspires, through their own sinful means, to fight against this decree. Isaac, in his carnal favoritism, wants to give the blessing to Esau, defying the prophecy. Rebekah and Jacob, knowing the prophecy, refuse to trust God to fulfill it His way and take matters into their own deceitful hands. Esau, for his part, had already despised his birthright and is only interested in the blessing as a material possession. Everyone is in the wrong. And yet, God's will is done.
This story forces us to grapple with a profound reality: God's sovereignty does not negate human responsibility. The sin is real, and the consequences will be severe. Jacob will spend the next twenty years as a fugitive and an exile, himself deceived by his uncle Laban. But God's purpose is also real, and it is invincible. He will get the right blessing onto the right head, even if He has to do it through a ridiculous charade of smelly clothes and hairy arms.
The Text
Then he came to his father and said, "My father." And he said, "Here I am. Who are you, my son?" And Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Rise up, please, sit and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me." Then Isaac said to his son, "How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?" And he said, "Because Yahweh your God caused it to happen to me." Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not." So Jacob came near to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." And he did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands; so he blessed him. And he said, "Are you really my son Esau?" And he said, "I am." So he said, "Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's game, that my soul may bless you." And he brought it near to him, and he ate; he also brought him wine, and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, "Please come near and kiss me, my son." So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and then he blessed him and said, "See, the smell of my son Is like the smell of a field which Yahweh has blessed; Now may God give you of the dew of heaven, And of the fatness of the earth, And an abundance of grain and new wine; May peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you; Be master of your brothers, And may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, And blessed be those who bless you."
(Genesis 27:18-29 LSB)
A Cascade of Deception (vv. 18-23)
The scene opens with Jacob's arrival at his father's bedside, and the lies begin immediately.
"Then he came to his father and said, 'My father.' And he said, 'Here I am. Who are you, my son?' And Jacob said to his father, 'I am Esau your firstborn...'" (Genesis 27:18-19)
The first lie is a direct contradiction of reality. "I am Esau." This is not a clever half-truth; it is a bald-faced lie. Jacob, whose name means "supplanter" or "deceiver," is living up to his name. He follows this with another lie, claiming to have hunted game when he has simply slaughtered a goat from the flock. But Isaac is suspicious. His hearing is still sharp, even if his sight is gone.
"Then Isaac said to his son, 'How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?' And he said, 'Because Yahweh your God caused it to happen to me.'" (Genesis 27:20)
This is where the deception descends into outright blasphemy. Jacob not only lies about who he is and what he has done, but he wraps his lie in a cloak of piety. He brings the Lord's name into his deceit. He is essentially saying, "God helped me lie to you, father." This is a profound sin. He is using God's name to sanctify his own treachery. We should tremble at this. How often do we dress up our own selfish ambitions in spiritual language? How often do we claim God's providence for outcomes we manipulated into existence? This is a dangerous game to play.
Isaac's suspicion is not quelled. He relies on his remaining senses. "Please come near, that I may feel you." (v. 21). The ruse with the goatskins works. The deception is tactile. Isaac is caught in a sensory trap. His ears tell him one thing, but his hands tell him another. He utters that famous, tragic line: "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau" (v. 22). Here is a man at war with his own senses, and his desire for his savory stew, his carnal appetite, overrides his auditory warning system. He chooses to believe his hands over his ears. Because his hands were hairy, "so he blessed him" (v. 23). The deception has succeeded, but not without leaving a trail of sin and suspicion.
The Irreversible Blessing (vv. 24-29)
Even after the physical examination, a flicker of doubt remains in Isaac's mind. He asks one more time, a final, poignant question.
"And he said, 'Are you really my son Esau?' And he said, 'I am.'" (Genesis 27:24 LSB)
Jacob doubles down on the lie. With this final, verbal confirmation, Isaac resigns himself and proceeds with the meal and the blessing. He eats the food, drinks the wine, and prepares to pronounce the patriarchal blessing. This was not just a father's well-wishes. In the economy of the covenant, this was a prophetic, binding, and irreversible act. Isaac was functioning as a prophet, speaking forth the purposes of God, even though he was personally deceived about the recipient.
The blessing itself is rich with covenantal promise. It begins with the sense of smell. "See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which Yahweh has blessed" (v. 27). This is deeply ironic. The smell he thinks is the earthy scent of his hunter son, Esau, is actually the smell of Esau's clothes on Jacob, mixed with the smell of a domestic goat. Yet, through this deception, a true prophecy is spoken. Jacob's line will indeed be a fruitful field that the Lord has blessed.
The blessing has three main components. First, it is a blessing of prosperity: "May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of grain and new wine" (v. 28). This is a promise of agricultural bounty, of God's provision for His people in the promised land. It is the blessing of Eden partially restored.
Second, it is a blessing of power and dominion: "May peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you; Be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you" (v. 29a). This is the core of the birthright. This is the promise of rule, of preeminence. It is a direct fulfillment of the prophecy that "the older shall serve the younger." Isaac, intending to give this to Esau, prophetically gives it to Jacob, and in so doing, speaks God's will against his own.
Third, it is the blessing of Abraham, the covenantal seal: "Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you" (v. 29b). This echoes God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3. It establishes Jacob and his descendants as the line of the covenant, the people through whom God will bless or curse the other nations of the earth. To be identified with Jacob's seed is to be blessed; to be set against them is to be cursed. This is the messianic line. Isaac has just placed Jacob, not Esau, in the direct line of the coming Christ.
Conclusion: Grace for Deceivers
So what are we to make of this sordid affair? We must first affirm that the deception of Jacob and Rebekah was sinful. The Bible reports it; it does not commend it. The consequences for Jacob were severe: exile, hardship, and being on the receiving end of deceit for two decades. Sin always bears bitter fruit. We cannot use this story to justify doing evil that good may come. God does not need our lies to accomplish His will.
And yet, the central lesson is the staggering sovereignty of God. God wanted the blessing to go to Jacob. He had said so. And it did. Isaac tried to thwart it, and failed. Jacob tried to secure it by his own sinful striving, and in a sense, he succeeded, but at great personal cost. God's purpose was accomplished not because of their sin, but through it and in spite of it. He is the master chess player who incorporates all of His opponent's foolish moves into His own winning strategy.
This should be a profound comfort to us. Not because it gives us a license to sin, but because it assures us that our salvation does not depend on our own flawless performance. Look at the patriarchs. Abraham lied about his wife. Isaac did the same. And Jacob was a swindler. These are the fathers of our faith. They were not chosen because they were morally superior. They were chosen by grace.
And this points us ultimately to the true and better Jacob, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob put on his brother's clothes to receive a blessing he did not deserve. We, in Christ, are clothed in the righteousness of our elder brother, Jesus, to receive a blessing we did not deserve. Jacob deceived his father with the skin of a goat. Jesus is the Lamb of God, slain for us, whose blood covers our sin so that we can be brought near to the Father. Jacob received the blessing through a lie. We receive the blessing because of the one who is the Truth.
The story of Jacob's stolen blessing is a messy, uncomfortable story. But it is our story. It is the story of how God works all things, even our foolishness and sin, together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. It is the story of a grace that is greater than all our sin. It is the story of a God who brings blessing out of blasphemy, and life out of a lie.