Story of Jacob

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3. The Hands Of Esau



The hands are the hands of Esau.

So Jacob went where his blind father was sitting and said, "My father." And Isaac replied, "Here am I; who art thou, my son?" Then Jacob told him that he was his son Esau, and that he had brought the food as he had been asked to do. Isaac asked him how the meat could have been found and prepared so quickly, and Jacob replied, "Because the Lord thy God brought it to me."

Still Isaac was not satisfied and had him come nearer that he might feel of him, but the disguise was good and Isaac said, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." But before he ate he made one more appeal. "Art thou," he asked, "my very son Esau?" and Jacob, forced by the first lie to tell another and then another, replied, "I am."

Isaac ate the food and then blessed Jacob, whom he supposed to be Esau. He promised a great and prosperous future for him. People and nations should serve him, and his brothers should bow down to him. Scarcely had Jacob left his father, when Esau came back with the food his father had asked him to bring and claimed the blessing.

When Isaac realized that he had been deceived he told Esau that he could not recall the promises he had made to the one who had brought him the food, and then Esau, who had sold his birthright, and now had been tricked out of the blessing that was rightfully his, cried out bitterly, "Bless me, even me also, O my father."

Then Isaac told him that it was his brother Jacob who had robbed him, and Esau replied, "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?" And then in the bitterness of his heart he wept.

Moved by Esau's distress, Isaac did bless him, but the promises he made were different from those he had given Jacob. He told Esau that he should live by the sword, that he should serve his brother, but that the time would come when he would break away from his brother's rule.

Esau hated his brother after this and made threats that he would kill him after their father died. His mother heard of these threats and was afraid he would carry them out, so she proposed that Jacob should go to her brother Laban and stay with him until Esau's anger had cooled. Isaac agreed to this and told him also to choose a wife among Laban's daughters.

Before Jacob's departure Isaac blessed him, once more telling him that he and his descendants should have the land which God had promised to Abraham and his family. So the mother and her favorite son parted. Their deceit had given Jacob the blessing that should have been Esau's, but Rebekah was never to see Jacob again.

Jacob started on his journey to his uncle's house, and when night came lay down to sleep, making a pillow of stones for his head. In his sleep a wonderful dream or vision came to him. He saw a ladder with its foot resting on the earth and its top reaching to heaven. Upon this ladder angels went up and down, while at the top stood God Himself, who promised Jacob that He would be with him wherever he went, and that he and his children should have the land in which he was at that time.