Day 24

Concerning things to come

To Start

“What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue.”

-St. John of the Cross

Be still before your great God. Quiet your wants and silence your voice.

Pray

Yahweh, open my eyes that I might see wondrous things in Your Word. Give me strong sight to see truth. Make me blind to what’s false.

Read

Read Hebrews 11:20 & (if you have time) Genesis 27:1-41.

As you read…

• Ask God to reveal to you truths you haven’t yet considered.

• Jot down a character profile for Isaac. Who is he? What stories did he grow up hearing? Who does he know God to be?

• What is a blessing? Why is it so important?

• Why does it take faith for Isaac to bless his sons?

Hebrews 11:20 (CSB)

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

Genesis 27:1-41

27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could not see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.”

And he answered, “Here I am.”

² He said, “Look, I am old and do not know the day of my death. ³ So now take your hunting gear, your quiver and bow, and go out in the field to hunt some game for me. ⁴ Then make me a delicious meal that I love and bring it to me to eat, so that I can bless you before I die.”

⁵ Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac said to his son Esau. So while Esau went to the field to hunt some game to bring in, ⁶ Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Listen! I heard your father talking with your brother Esau. He said, ⁷ ‘Bring me game and make a delicious meal for me to eat so that I can bless you in the Lord’s presence before I die.’ ⁸ Now, my son, listen to me and do what I tell you. ⁹ Go to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, and I will make them into a delicious meal for your father—the kind he loves. ¹⁰ Then take it to your father to eat so that he may bless you before he dies.”

¹¹ Jacob answered Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am a man with smooth skin. ¹² Suppose my father touches me. Then I will be revealed to him as a deceiver and bring a curse rather than a blessing on myself.”

¹³ His mother said to him, “Your curse be on me, my son. Just obey me and go get them for me.”

¹⁴ So he went and got the goats and brought them to his mother, and his mother made the delicious food his father loved. ¹⁵ Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were in the house, and had her younger son Jacob wear them. ¹⁶ She put the skins of the young goats on his hands and the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷ Then she handed the delicious food and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.

¹⁸ When he came to his father, he said, “My father.”

And he answered, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”

¹⁹ Jacob replied to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may bless me.”

²⁰ But Isaac said to his son, “How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?”

He replied, “Because the Lord your God made it happen for me.”

²¹ Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau or not?”

²² So Jacob came closer to his father Isaac. When he touched him, he said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” ²³ He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. ²⁴ Again he asked, “Are you really my son Esau?”

And he replied, “I am.”

²⁵ Then he said, “Bring it closer to me, and let me eat some of my son’s game so that I can bless you.” Jacob brought it closer to him, and he ate; he brought him wine, and he drank.

²⁶ Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come closer and kiss me, my son.” ²⁷ So he came closer and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothes, he blessed him and said:

Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field
that the Lord has blessed.
²⁸ May God give to you—
from the dew of the sky
and from the richness of the land—
an abundance of grain and new wine.
²⁹ May peoples serve you
and nations bow in homage to you.
Be master over your relatives;
may your mother’s sons bow in homage to you.
Those who curse you will be cursed,
and those who bless you will be blessed.

³⁰ As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau arrived from his hunting. ³¹ He had also made some delicious food and brought it to his father. He said to his father, “Let my father get up and eat some of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.”

³² But his father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?”

He answered, “I am Esau your firstborn son.”

³³ Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably. “Who was it then,” he said, “who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it all before you came in, and I blessed him. Indeed, he will be blessed!”

³⁴ When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, my father!”

³⁵ But he replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

³⁶ So he said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me twice now. He took my birthright, and look, now he has taken my blessing.” Then he asked, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?”

³⁷ But Isaac answered Esau, “Look, I have made him a master over you, have given him all of his relatives as his servants, and have sustained him with grain and new wine. What then can I do for you, my son?”

³⁸ Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” And Esau wept loudly.^[c]

³⁹ His father Isaac answered him,

Look, your dwelling place will be
away from the richness of the land,
away from the dew of the sky above.
⁴⁰ You will live by your sword,
and you will serve your brother.
But when you rebel,
you will break his yoke from your neck.

⁴¹ Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

From JL

“By faith Isaac blessed…”

There are many impressive feats in this chapter—offering your son as a sacrifice, building an ark, waiting a lifetime for a child. Isaac’s act of faith seems small in comparison. Maybe even inconsequential. He blessed his sons.

Why does it take faith to give a blessing?

Genesis 27 gives us a good look at an answer.

Like his father before him, Isaac is committed to transferring the blessing of God from his own head to one of his son’s. This blessing isn’t simply good wishes. It’s not a note jotted in a graduation card. A blessing is the holy offspring of prayer and prophecy. Particularly for Isaac, inheritor of a great, multigenerational promise, blessing his son was like passing down wealth, but instead of money, Isaac was passing down the favor of God almighty.

That’s why he freaks out when he mishandles the blessing and gives it to the wrong son. The blessing is precious and singular. It comes from somewhere beyond him, somewhere unseen.

When Isaac finds out that he’s given the blessing to Jacob, he begins “to tremble uncontrollably.” He knows what he’s done matters. Those words he speaks over Jacob will change the material world. Isaac says, “I blessed him. Indeed, he will be blessed!”

Indeed. That’s faith—confidence in the unseen.

But the verse doesn’t say that Isaac blessed Jacob. It says he blessed Jacob and Esau.

Esau’s reaction to Jacob’s deceit is to beg for a blessing. ^“He cried out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, ‘Bless me too, my father!’” Then, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?” And again, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” After he’d begged, “Esau wept loudly.^”

A few things are true in this moment:

The blessing Esau wants has been assigned to someone else. It cannot be transferred.

Isaac will only tell the truth to his son.

There is, evidently, a God-revealed blessing for Esau, and Isaac has the courage to speak it, despite it sounding like bad news and despite his own disappointment at giving Jacob the better blessing.

Isaac bravely gives what God’s given him to his son.

The verse says that Isaac blessed his sons “concerning things to come.” That’s always the way it is with a blessing; blessings are all forward-looking. Isaac believed that God had something for his sons in the future. He believed it with so much assurance that he considered it an inheritance, something worthy of a ceremony, something that can’t be given lightly, something that, once given, cannot be taken away.

And though the blessings are different in value, Isaac, child of God, recognized God’s desire that both sons should have one.

Pray

Pray a blessing over someone you love. First ask, God what do You want for this person? Once you feel like you know a thing or two that God desires to give them (joy peace, a homeland…), proclaim it over them.

Resources

A few months ago I wrote a little essay on being blessed. It’s mostly just the story of our family travels abroad. In two years we worshipped with five churches in four countries and on our last Sunday in the country, each church surrounded us and blessed us. Magical experience. Read more here if you’re blessing-intrigued.

In the Comments

If you had all the faith in the world, what would you say to your children/grandchildren/the next generation about their future?

Godspeed,

JL