Isaac and the stolen blessing
Sight lost and not given back. Sight not restored. Genesis 27:1-4; Genesis 27:18-27; Genesis 27:30-35.
What led up to it
Isaac is the son of Abraham and the father of twins, Esau and Jacob. Esau is the firstborn and his father's favourite; Jacob is his mother Rebekah's. Isaac is old, cannot see, and believes he may die soon, so he prepares to give Esau the blessing of the firstborn. Rebekah overhears and sends Jacob in first, dressed in Esau's clothes with goatskins on his hands and neck.
What happens
Jacob brings the meal and says he is Esau. Isaac is not sure. He asks how the hunt went so quickly, asks to touch him, says the voice is Jacob's but the hands are Esau's, asks again, and finally smells his clothing. Then he gives the blessing. Esau comes in moments later, and Isaac trembles violently when he understands what has happened.
In their shoes
Isaac does everything a blind man can do to be sure. He questions, he listens, he touches, he smells. He notices that the voice is wrong and says so out loud. What defeats him is not his blindness but his own family, who know exactly which senses he will rely on and prepare a disguise for each one. The passage shows what it is to depend on the honesty of the people in the room, and what it feels like when that trust is used against you.
How much could he see?
Genesis says Isaac's eyes were so weak that he could no longer see. That is the Bible's way of describing sight lost to age, and it may mean dim sight rather than none. Either way, the story turns on what he could not see, and the page reads it that way. See what blind means here.
From Brian
Isaac suffered from more than vision loss if he could not tell the difference in a man's hands. His sense of touch must also have been affected. The voice he could tell apart, which is standard, and smell can be fooled by clothing, but feeling a person's hand, covered in wool or not, would be difficult to fool.
Later, Jacob proves the point by knowingly placing his hands on the opposite sons of Joseph.
The place and the time
What the old books and the archaeologists can add. Each paragraph names its source.
Blindness in old age appears three times in the Old Testament, with Isaac, Eli and Ahijah, and the 1915 Bible encyclopedia thought cataract the likely cause in each case. That is a physician's guess from a century ago; the text itself gives no cause. The same entry notes that an Egyptian medical text of about 1500 BC already listed many eye diseases and a hundred prescriptions for them, so failing eyes were a familiar part of life in Isaac's world.
Source: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), entry "Blindness."
Josephus, retelling the story in the first century, has Jacob wear a goat's skin on his arm so that its hairy roughness would persuade his father he was Esau. He also has Isaac explain that his blindness and great age kept him from offering sacrifice, which is why he asked for the meal before giving the blessing. Those details are Josephus's additions to Genesis.
Source: Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (Whiston translation), Book I, chapter 18.
What was at stake was more than a father's good wishes. The 1915 encyclopedia explains that when Isaac blessed Jacob he spoke as if in God's place, so that the blessing was part prayer and part prediction of the good named in it. That is why it could not simply be taken back when the deception came out.
Source: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), entry "Bless."
The passage
Genesis 27:1-4
1 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied.
2 “Look,” said Isaac, “I am now old, and I do not know the day of my death.
3 Take your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out into the field to hunt some game for me.
4 Then prepare a tasty dish that I love and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”
Genesis 27:18-27
18 So Jacob went to his father and said, “My father.” “Here I am!” he answered. “Which one are you, my son?”
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 bless me.”
20 But Isaac asked his son, “How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?” “Because the LORD your God brought it to me,” he replied.
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 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 Isaac 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 “Serve me,” said Isaac, “and let me eat some of my son’s game, so that I may bless you.” Jacob brought it to him, and he ate; then he brought him wine, and he drank.
26 Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come near and kiss me, my son.”
27 So he came near and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothing, he blessed him and said: “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.
Genesis 27:30-35
30 As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father’s presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt.
31 He too made some tasty food, brought it to his father, and said to him, “My father, sit up and eat of your son’s game, so that you may bless me.”
32 But his father Isaac replied, “Who are you?” “I am Esau, your firstborn son,” he answered.
33 Isaac began to tremble violently and said, “Who was it, then, who hunted the game and brought it to me? Before you came in, I ate it all and blessed him—and indeed, he will be blessed!”
34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!”
35 But Isaac replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”