By Dr. Ben Stubblefield
Visiting assistant professor of Christian Studies, University of Mobile
A DECEIVER
Genesis 27:18–30
“God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.” Ever heard that phrase? It’s true, but that very biblical idea is, to us, a little counter-intuitive. It’s right and normal to suppose that God works through those who live righteously. Indeed, “the prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). But it is not right to suppose that God works only through those who live righteously. He often blesses and uses the broken, the wayward and those whom we might deem unfit for it.
Trap set (18–20)
The conflict-drama between the two brothers is intense. It begins in utero. Esau and Jacob wrestle as womb mates (25:22), and their tension becomes prophetic for the peoples who would come from the bloodline (25:23).
Moreover, each son captures the affection of a different parent. Isaac prefers Esau the firstborn outdoorsman, and Rebekah prefers Jacob the second-born domesticant.
As the story progresses, Jacob barters — we might say snookers — Esau’s birthright from him (25:34). And toward the end of Isaac’s life in Chapter 27, we see scheming, deception and more conflict between two brothers who’ve been at it since their conception.
Jacob takes advantage of his dying father’s poor eyesight, which takes some gall, and then has the even greater audacity to invoke the name of God during his deception (v. 20).
Jacob is crafty, a little too much like another slithery figure in the Bible, described in Genesis 3.
Esau is not a wise or God-fearing man (Heb. 12:16). He causes his parents and future generations a lot of problems (26:35). But that doesn’t make what Jacob did right. Like Abraham with Hagar, he’s going about getting God’s blessing his way rather than God’s way.
Deception carried out (21–27)
Isaac suspects a problem and investigates further, but Jacob still manages to pass the smell test and so Jacob blesses him with all his favor.
I remember listening to a famous coach tell a group of athletes that there are “some games you just lose. You’ve done everything right, you’ve prepared, you’ve executed, you’ve given it all you’ve got but sometimes, you just get whipped. And that’s life.”
Isaac did everything he could to prevent what Jacob did but it happened, and I’m sure he thought it was a mess. But what he could not envision was what God was going to do in and through Jacob’s lineage that would not only bless the future of his family but also the future of our world.
Sometimes you lose even though you tried to do everything to prevent it. But God, you see, is up to something on your behalf and down the road, something bigger and better than you could expect or envision.
Blessing granted (28–30)
Isaac mistakenly awards Abraham’s blessing to Jacob, and Esau is bitter, sad and full of hatred (v. 41). Like Cain and Abel, he plots his brother’s murder.
This is a dysfunctional family, with child favorites, mothers conspiring, foolish sons, lies, polygamy, hatred and spite between Rebekah and her daughters-in-law. I doubt the family reunions were fun, to say the least, and yet God is graciously, mercifully, powerfully plotting a course of blessing for them through it all.
Aren’t you grateful for a God who doesn’t give up on the dysfunctional but brings beauty from the chaos and draws straight lines with crooked sticks?
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