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Results from: Notes Author: CWT Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | In what way did Isaac try to deceive bot | Gen 24:1 | CWT | 168176 | ||
HI Doc, Pleased to meet you, I'm new here. The qestion itself and my answer to it depends on several presuppositons. The first of which is; was Issac's actions in giving his blessing to Easu actually deceptive. "The Law of Primogeniture provided that at least a double share of the father's property be given to the first born."(See NIV study notes on Gen 25:5) However, Rebekah had been told by the LORD Himself in Gen 25:23 that "the older would serve the younger." Considering the fact that Rebekah loved Jacob, the younger, (Gen 25:28), she would have probably tried to have influenced Issac's favor towards the son she loved. So, I believe that it is resonable to assume that in doing this she would have told Issac about what the LORD had said to her in Gen 25:23. This however, is again supposition. Note that as part of the blessing that Issac thought he was giving to Esau, but who was in fact Jacob, he says, in part, "Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you" Gen 27:29. If Issac was aware of what the LORD had told Rebekah as to which brother would be in serveitude to the other. And if it is logical to assume that the brother in the position of authority should have the birthright and blessing, wouldn't it have deceptive on Issac's part to give this blessing to Esau? I think that Issac may have placed the love he had for his son Esau (Gen 25:28) in greater esteem then what God had said was going to happen in relation to who was going to be serving who. I think that there is other evidence as well as to who should have received the birthright and blessing. The fact that Esau held his birthright in little esteem is shown in Gen 25:29-34 when he sells it for a bowl of soup. Would he have held the blessing in any higher esteem? The fact that he was probably disobedient to his parents as well is demonstrated in his marriage to two Hittite womem in Gen 26:34-35 and the grief that this caused his parents. It's obvious that Issac, like his father Abraham, who established the marriage principle in Gen 24, was prepared to follow that principle with his own sons (see Gen 28:1-2). Considering this, wouldn't it have been more prudent to give birhtright to Jacob in the first place? After all Issac did have the responsibility to honor the covenant that his father Abraham had made with the LORD, and also the responsibility, as we all have, to use his resorces to the best of his ability in relation to God's purposes. Regardless of the common law, I think Jacob would have been the better choice to carry on in the autoritative position simply because of the negative charecter traits that Esau had exhibited. This Law showing favor to the eldest brother was evidently not written in stone. Abraham himself cast out his first born Ishmael, the son of human effort, in favor of his second born Issac, the son of the promise, albiet that this was done at the direction of God Himself. This too should have made it particularly obvious to Issac that he was not bound to give either the birthright or the blessing to Esau simply because he was the first born. In any event, and as I mentioned, this is based on circumstantial evidence at best. But, won't it be great when one day we can ask Issac what was going on in his mind when he did this? In HIs Love CWT |
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