Sunday Sermonette: It speaks for itself

Sorry about the light posting, I've been very busy with my course. (I was assigned a large lecture course on short notice and I'm basically trying to stay 1 week ahead. I'll come up for air soon.) Anyway, Genesis 27 is very long, and very famous for its bizarreness and absurdity.

The underlying metaphysical lesson is that Isaac has the power to command God; that the command, once given, cannot be rescinded; and that God can't do anything about it prospectively, concurrently, or retrospectively. God is stuck with Isaac's command, whether God, or Isaac, likes it or not. Since we need to get on with this show, I'll post the whole thing.

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” he answered.
² Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death. ³ Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. ⁴ Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”
⁵ Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back, ⁶ Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, ⁷ ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ ⁸ Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: ⁹ Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. ¹⁰ Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.”
¹¹ Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin. ¹² What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.”
¹³ His mother said to him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”

Nice people, no?

¹⁴ So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. ¹⁵ Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. ¹⁶ She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. ¹⁷ Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.
¹⁸ He went to his father and said, “My father.”
“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”
¹⁹ Jacob said 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 give me your blessing.”
²⁰ Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”
“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied.
²¹ Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”
²² Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” ²³ He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him. ²⁴ “Are you really my son Esau?” he asked.
“I am,” he replied.

As it happens, I am a hairy man. But believe me, the hairiness of a human is not mimicked by a goatskin. 

²⁵ Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.”
Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. ²⁶ Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.”
²⁷ So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of 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 you heaven’s dew
    and earth’s richness—
    an abundance of grain and new wine.
²⁹ May nations serve you
    and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
    and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed
    and those who bless you be blessed.”

³⁰ After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. ³¹ He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

³² His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?”
“I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.”
³³ Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!”
³⁴ When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”
³⁵ But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”
³⁶ Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob^[a]? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”
³⁷ Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?”
³⁸ Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.
³⁹ His father Isaac answered him,

“Your dwelling will be
    away from the earth’s richness,
    away from the dew of heaven above.
⁴⁰ You will live by the sword
    and you will serve your brother.
But when you grow restless,
    you will throw his yoke
    from off your neck.”

⁴¹ Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

⁴² When Rebekah was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is planning to avenge himself by killing you. ⁴³ Now then, my son, do what I say: Flee at once to my brother Laban in Harran. ⁴⁴ Stay with him for a while until your brother’s fury subsides. ⁴⁵ When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I’ll send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”
⁴⁶ Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.”

Footnotes:

1. Genesis 27:36 Jacob means he grasps the heel, a Hebrew idiom for he takes advantage of or he deceives.

Like Abraham, Rebekah can't stand the thought of her son marrying a Hittite. No indication of why, in either case; this seems to be an early example of ethnic prejudice.  In any case, the morality of this tale is as warped as the functioning of the universe. Once Isaac knows he has been deceived, why can't he just transfer the blessing to Esau? In fact he proclaimed that he was blessing Esau in the first place. Evidently the way the magic works the physical presence of the blessee takes precedence over the intent of the blesser. Furthermore there is no evident reason why God has to go along with this gag. As we shall see, he does. He is evidently a dupe. And how are the Jews supposed to feel about all this? Rebekah and Jacob are both psychopaths. Nevertheless many parents name their children Jacob and Rebecca (the more popular current spelling) but nobody names their boy Esau. Nobody likes a loser, I guess.