Scripture Daily

Context No. 3859 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 27:18-24: in context

18He came to his father, and said, “My father?” He said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” 19Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done what you asked me to do. Please arise, sit and eat of my venison, that your soul may bless me.” 20Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He said, “Because the LORD your God gave me success.” 21Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 22Jacob went near to Isaac his father. He felt him, and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23He didn’t recognize him, because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him. 24He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He said, “I am.”

This is the deception at its boldest. Jacob stands before his blind, aged father, wearing his brother's clothes and goatskins on his hands, and lies to his face: I am Esau your firstborn. When Isaac wonders how the hunt was so quick, Jacob compounds the lie with something worse, dragging God into it: because the LORD your God granted me success.

He uses the name of God to make his deception more convincing. It is a sobering picture of how one lie leads to another, and of the special wrong of invoking God to cover a falsehood. Jacob was so committed to his deception that he did not scruple to claim God's help for it, taking the Lord's name in vain in a very literal way, using it to prop up a lie. There is a warning here worth heeding. Deception has a way of deepening; one falsehood requires another to sustain it, and in the tangle we can even find ourselves dragging God's name into the service of our lies, claiming his blessing on what he never sanctioned. Truthfulness guards us from this whole descent.

Am I careful to keep truthfulness, aware that one deception leads to another, and that the descent can reach even to invoking God's name to cover what he never approved?

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