024. Isaac--The Blessing of His Sons

Isaac--The Blessing of His Sons

Gen 27:1-5. And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son. And he said unto him, Behold, here am I. And he said, Behold, now I am old, I know not the day of my death. Now, therefore, take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; and make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son: and Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it.

There is a generous principle in human nature, which commonly disposes us to take part with the weakest. We feel an honest indignation at seeing weakness oppressed by might, honesty over-reached by cunning, and unsuspecting goodness played upon by selfishness and knavery. God himself feels the insults offered to the destitute and the helpless; declares himself “the judge of the widow, the protector of the fatherless, the shield of the stranger.” He aims his thunder at the head of him who putteth a “stumbling-block in the way of the blind and planteth a snare for the innocent.” And though, in the sovereignty of his power, and the depths of his wisdom, he is sometimes pleased to employ the vices of men to execute his purposes of goodness and mercy, he loves and approves only “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.”[*]Php 4:8 and the persons who love and practice them.

It is not the least profitable part of the study of both providence and Scripture, to trace the conduct of a righteous God in punishing the offender, though he has subdued the offence into a servant of his own will; chastening his children by a rod of their own preparing; tumbling the wicked into the pit which themselves have digged, and bringing backsliders again to himself, by making them to eat the bitter fruit of their own doings. Happy it is for the children of men, if their deviations from the path of rectitude meet their correction in a temporal punishment. But woe to that man, whom justice permits to thrive in his iniquity, and to grow hardened through impunity; whose retribution is deferred, till repentance can produce no change. Chastise me, O Father, as severely as thou wilt. Let me not fall asleep under my transgression, and thy hot displeasure.--Dispose as thou wilt of my body, my estate, my worldly comfort; but let my soul live before thee. Let me see my sin, and purge me thoroughly from it.

We are now to attempt the illustration of these reflections, from history. The life of Isaac may be divided into three periods. The first, containing seventy-five years, from his birth to the death of Abraham; during which, being under parental government, and of a meek, unaspiring disposition, his history is blended with, and included in that of his father. The second, commencing at his father’s death, and ending in his one hundred and thirty-seventh year: when it pleased God to visit him with extreme weakness, or total loss of eye-sight. This contains the space of sixty-two years, which may be termed his active period. To it succeeds a heavy period of forty-three years, up to the day of his death. During which we see a poor, dark old man, at the disposal of others, moving in a narrow sphere; “knowledge” and comfort “at one entrance, quite shut out.” We behold a man, who, when “he was young, girded himself, and walked whither he would; but now become old, stretching forth his hands, and another girding him, and carrying him whither he would not.” This portion of his history, accordingly, is blended with, and swallowed up in that of his two sons. At the beginning of this period, we find Isaac sensible of his growing infirmities, feeling the approach of death, though ignorant of the day of it, and anxious to convey the double portion, the patriarchal benediction and the covenant promise, according to the bent of his natural affection, to his elder and more beloved son. He calls him with accents of paternal tenderness, and proposes to him the mingled gratification of pursuing his own favorite amusement, of ministering to his fond father’s pleasure, and of securing to himself the great object of his ambition and desire, the blessing, with all its valuable effects.

Behold of what importance it is, that our propensities be originally good, seeing indulgence and habit interweave them with our very constitution, till they become a second nature, and age confirms, instead of eradicating them. We find, the two great infirmities of Isaac’s character predominant to the last, a disposition to gratify his palate with a particular kind of food, and partiality to his son Esau. Time has not yet blunted the edge of appetite; and the eye of the mind, dim as the bodily organ, overlooks the undutifulness which had pierced a father’s heart, by unhallowed, inauspicious marriages with the Hittite; and Isaac discerns in his darling, those qualities only in which misguided affection bad dressed him out. Thus a strong and lively principle of grace may consist with much natural weakness.

Rebekah, equally attentive to the interest of her younger son, happened to overhear the charge which Isaac gave to Esau, and immediately, with the quickness of a female, determined, at all hazards, to carry a favorite point, she builds upon it a project of obtaining, by management and address, what she despaired of bringing about by the direct road of entreaty or persuasion. Unhappy it is for that family, the heads of which entertain opposite views, and pursue separate interests. One tent could not long contain two rival brothers, whose animosity was kept alive and encouraged by those whose wisdom and authority should have interposed to suppress it. It is affecting to think how little scrupulous even good people are, about the means of accomplishing what their hearts are set upon; how easily the understanding and the conscience become the dupe of the affections.--The apologists of Rebekah charitably ascribe her conduct on this occasion to motives of religion. She is supposed to be actuated throughout by zeal for supporting the destination of Heaven, “The elder shall serve the younger;” a destination which she observed her husband was eager to subvert. I am not disposed to refuse her, to a certain degree, the credit of so worthy a principle; for the piety of her spirit, on other occasions, is unquestionable. But I see too much of the woman, of the mother, of the spirit of this world, in her behavior, to believe that her motives were wholly pure and spiritual. Religion, true religion, never does evil that good may come.

Admitting that Isaac was to blame, for misunderstanding, forgetting or endeavoring to contradict the oracle which gave the preference to Jacob; surely, surely, it belonged to the wife of his youth to have employed other means to undeceive and admonish him. Was the deception which she practiced upon his helplessness and infirmity, the proof she exhibited of the love, honor, and obedience which she owed her lord? Was it consistent with genuine piety, to take the work of God out of his hands? As if the wisdom of Jehovah needed the aid of human craft and invention. And, could a mother, not only herself deviate into the crooked paths of dissimulation and falsehood, and become a pattern of deceit, but wickedly attempt to decoy, persuade, constrain her own son, to violate sacred truth? “It is not, and it cannot come to good?”

Having planned her scheme, and over persuaded Jacob to assist in the execution of it, Rebekah loses not a moment; and Isaac’s favorite dish is ready to be served up, long before the uncertainty of hunting, and the dexterity of Esau could have procured it. Jacob, arrayed in goodly raiment of his elder brother, disguised to the sense of feeling, as much as art could disguise him, and furnished with the savory meat which his father loved, advances with trembling, doubtful steps to his apartment. In the conversation that ensued, which is most to be wondered at--the honest, unsuspecting simplicity of the father; or the shameless, undaunted effrontery of the son? But, in thinking of the one, our wonder is mingled with respect and esteem; the other excites resentment and abhorrence. It shows the danger of getting into a wrong train. One fraud must be followed up with another; one injury must support and justify another; and simple falsehood, by an easy progress, rises up to perjury. Who is not shocked, to hear the son of Isaac interposing the great and dreadful name of the “LORD God of his father,” not to confirm the truth, but to countenance and bear out a willful and deliberate lie! What earthly good is worth purchasing at such a price? Surely his tongue faltered when it pronounced those solemn, those awful words. The good old man’s suspicions were evidently alarmed, either by the tone of Jacob’s voice, or by the hesitating manner in which he spoke. And, apprehending he had an infallible method of detection, if a fallacy there were, he appeals from the testimony of his ears, to his feeling. But behold, craft is too deep for honesty. Rebekah and her son have not contrived their plot so ill, as to fail at this stage of the business; and Isaac is too good himself to imagine that others could be so wicked. He suffers himself, therefore, to be at length persuaded; and, refreshed with meat and drink, pronounces the blessing which he had promised. had he not been blinded, when he saw, with ill judged favor to Esau, and seduced by the flavor of his venison, he had not been exposed to this imposition, in his helpless state. Could Jacob have trusted in God, and waited to be conducted of Providence, he had arrived at his end no less certainly, and with much less dishonor. But “God is true, though every man be found a liar.”

It is worthy of observation, that though Isaac, by the spirit of prophesy which was in him, foresaw and foretold the future fortunes of his family; though he could clearly discern objects at the remotest distance, his natural discernment was so small, and even his prophetic knowledge so partial, that he could not distinguish the one branch of his family from the other; and, impelled by a will more powerful than his own, he involuntarily bestowed dominion and precedency where he least intended it. “For the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”[*]2Pe 1:21 Thus, Balaam afterwards prophesied, not what he would, but as the Spirit of God constrained him; and thus, Caiaphas predicted the death of Christ for the sins of the people; but “this spake he not of himself’; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.”[*]John 6:51

Thus was Isaac deceived, in having Jacob imposed upon him for Esau. Nor was Rebekah less disappointed. For the blessing which she had surreptitiously obtained for her favorite, instead of producing the immediate benefits expected from it, plunged him into an ocean of distress, exiled him from his country and his father’s house, exposed him, in his turn, to imposition and insult; and, but for the care of a superintending Providence, the success which he had earned by the sacrifice of a good conscience, must have defeated and destroyed itself. But “the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.”[*]Psa 33:11 “His decree may no man reverse.” “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God;” but the wisdom and righteousness of God, can easily bend the wrath of man to their purpose.

Jacob has hardly departed with his ill-gotten benediction, when Esau arrives in the triumph of success and hope; his heart overflowing with filial tenderness, and panting for the promised reward of his labors. The feelings of both the father and son, when the cheat was discovered, are more easily conceived than described: the shame of being over-reached, resentment against the impostor, the chagrin of disappointed hope, of disappointed ambition; bitter reflection on the folly and danger of resisting the high will of Heaven, and on the hard necessity of submitting to the irreversible decree. Nothing can exceed the tenderness of Esau’s expostulation, when he found the blessing was irrecoverably gone from him. The name of his brother; the occasion of its being given him; his conduct since he grew up; the repeated advantage he had taken, of his necessity at one time, of his absence at another, all rush upon his mind at once, and excite a tempest of passion which he is unable to govern. “And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father; and Esau lift up his voice and wept.”[*]Gen 27:38 The ability and the good will of an earthly parent have their limits. He has but one, or at most a second blessing to bestow. What he gives to this child is so much taken away from that other. But the liberality, and the power of our heavenly Father, are unbounded. “In our Father’s house there are many mansions.” With him “there is bread enough and to spare.” Isaac discovers at length, that he has been fighting against God; and while he resents Jacob’s subtilty, and the unkindness of Rebekah, he acknowledges and submits to the high will of Heaven. The blessing which he had pronounced unwittingly, and which he finds to be irrevocable, he now deliberately and cheerfully confirms. And now, behold the little spark of discord between the brethren blown up into a flame, which threatens destruction to the whole family. And, dreadful to think, Esau looks forward, with desire to the death of his old, kind father, that he might prosecute revenge against his brother unto blood. Hitherto we have seen in Esau an object of compassion: we now view him with detestation; and we find the righteous judgment of God prosecuting this murderous disposition in his posterity to their utter ruin. “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and then shalt be cut off for ever.”[*]Obadiah 1:10 “As I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: since thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. Thus I will make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth.”[*]Eze 35:6-7 “Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and kept his wrath for ever. But I will send a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah.”[*]Amo 1:11-12 Rebekah too, now that “a sword pierces through her own soul,” ready “to lose both her children in one day.” too late discerns how imprudently she has acted, and is glad to purchase the safety of her favorite at the price of his banishment. So uneasily do those possessions sit upon us which we have acquired by improper means. The threatening words of his elder son, must have speedily reached the ears of the aged patriarch also. And he has the inexpressible mortification of learning that the ungrateful wretch whom he had cherished in his bosom, and to whom his fondness would have given every thing, was enjoying the prospect of his approaching death, because it would afford a safer opportunity of practicing his meditated revenge. This indeed was the bitterness of death, to “feel how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. And, thus severely the unwise attachment of both the parents punished itself, by the effect which it produced. To prevent the dreadful mischief which hung over his hoary head, all his prospects concerning Esau, being now blighted by the heathenish alliances which he had formed, by his diabolical character, and by the rejection of Heaven, he gladly consents to the dismission of Jacob: and all his hopes, at length, settle on him whom he loved less. But, to part with the heir of the promise, at the age of one hundred and forty years, to send him away into a far country--was it not to part with him for ever? The fervor of his farewell benediction, pathetically expresses his despair of meeting him again, “God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people: and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave to Abraham.”[*]Gen 28:3-4 These are the last words, this the last action of Isaac’s life, upon record. But his latter end was at a greater distance than he or than Esau apprehended. He survived this event forty years. He lived to lose in communion with God, the disorder and dispersion of his family. He lived to shelter and to bless by his prayers, him whom the paternal roof could shelter and protect no longer. He lived to be refreshed with the good tidings of the success of the blessing, and the happy increase of Jacob’s family. He lived to “see him” again “in his touch,” and to embrace his grandchildren. This period of his life is a mere blank to posterity. But if we are ever admitted to read in “the book of God’s remembrance,” O how will these forty years of silence and oblivion arise and shine! At last, old and full of days, Isaac drops into the grave. “The days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years, and Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered unto his people.”[*]Gen 35:28-29 “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” Time, and a better spirit and the death of a father, have happily extinguished resentment between the brothers. Esau thinks no more of slaying Jacob. They mingle tears, as did Isaac and Ishmael, over their parent’s tomb, and their angry passions sleep in the dust with him.

Thus lived and died Isaac, the son of Abraham, a man of contemplation, piety, and peace. A man of few and slight infirmities; of many and eminent virtues. A man, whom Providence tried with multiplied and severe afflictions; and whom faith strengthened to bear them with patience and fortitude. His story comes home to the breast and bosom of every man. His excellencies are such as all may, by due cultivation, acquire; his virtue such as all may imitate. His faults are those, to which even good men are liable, and which they are the more concerned to avoid, or to amend. To young men, we would hold him up as a pattern of filial tenderness and submission. Isaac possessed in an eminent degree, that most amiable quality of ingenuous youth, dutiful respect to the mother who bare him. He cherished her with pious attention while she lived, and sincerely lamented her in death; till duty called him to drop the grateful and affectionate son, in the loving and faithful husband. So long as Abraham lived, Isaac had no will but the will of his father. The master of a family may learn of him domestic piety and devotion, conjugal fidelity, prudent foresight, persevering industry. The selfish and contentious are reproved, by the example of his moderation, by his patience under unkindness and injustice, by his meek surrender of an undoubted right, for the sake of peace. Let the aged consider him well, and imitate his sweetness of temper, his resignation under affliction, his gentle requital of deception and insult, his superiority to the world, his composure in the prospect of dissolution, and the faith which triumphed over death and the grave. Let the affluent and the prosperous learn of him, to adorn high rank and ample fortune, by humility and condescension; and the wretched, to endure distress with fortitude and resignation. Let his faults be forgotten, and his infirmities covered; or remembered only as a reproof and admonition to ourselves. And let us be followers together of him, and of all them who “through faith and patience inherit the promises.”