Genesis 26
DOYLYGenesis 26:4
- — make me savoury meat.] For the eldest son of a family to be so employed, may seem to shew that the family was possessed of no great wealth or magnificence. Such however was the simplicity of those times, that it was customary for men of the highest rank to submit to meaner offices than this. The Sacred History, in all its accounts and descriptions, agrees with the sense of the most ancient writers, and is conformable to the manners and customs that then prevailed. Stackhouse.
Genesis 26:16
- — put the skins of the kids &c.] Bochart observes, that in the Eastern countries goats’ hair was very like that of men. Bp. Patrick.
In this chapter is shewn, how Jacob deceived his father. He was a good man; but every thing that
good men have said or done through infirmity, must not be imitated: the Law of God being our sure and never-failing rule.
A while hence we shall see Jacob himself imposed upon by Laban, in the case of Rachel his espoused wife: and in his old age we shall see him imposed upon by his own sons, and with the blood of a kid, with which they dyed his son’s coat. So exact, so wonderful, so instructive are all the ways of Providence! Bp. Wilson.
Genesis 26:23
- — so he blessed him.] Jacob and his mother were justly to be praised, for having a due esteem of the paternal benediction, as a means instituted by God for the conveyance of His covenant with Abraham. And if this blessing was, as some suppose, an appendage to the birthright, Jacob, in purchasing the one, had acquired a just title to the other. Pursuant to the Divine desig-