Isaac Blesses Jacob Again, and This Time He Knows It (Genesis 28:1–9)

May God Almighty bless you

Isaac gave Jacob the blessing of Abraham: God Almighty's promise of many descendants and of the land. "May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, so that you may become a company of peoples" (Genesis 28:3). "And may He give the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants, so that you may possess the land where you dwell as a foreigner" (Genesis 28:4).

Every phrase of that blessing came from God first. When Abram was ninety-nine, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless" (Genesis 17:1), and then, "I will make you exceedingly fruitful" (Genesis 17:6). Abraham was dead, and what God had said to him was still the most valuable thing Isaac had to give. Now Isaac is old and blind, and he gives his son the promise God spoke to his father, almost word for word.

A chapter ago Isaac meant the blessing for the son he preferred. Here he makes it agree with what God said over the twins before they were born: "the older will serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23). In his old age Isaac has come to know God well enough to want His word, above anything of his own, in his son's hands.

Esau watched his father's face

Esau married Ishmael's daughter because he saw that his father disliked his Canaanite wives and hoped a bride from Abraham's family would please him. "And seeing that his father Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women" (Genesis 28:8), "Esau went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael, in addition to the wives he already had" (Genesis 28:9).

Esau learns three things in these verses: Isaac has blessed Jacob, Isaac has forbidden him a Canaanite wife, and Jacob has obeyed and gone. He reads his father's mood with great care and answers it with a third wife. The blessing Isaac gave Jacob named God Almighty and the promise to Abraham, and Esau answers it by trying to please his father. Jacob is already on the road to Haran, and at a certain place on the way the God of his fathers will speak to him in the dark.

The blessing of Abraham reaches us

Genesis 28:1–9 points to Jesus because the blessing of Abraham that Isaac handed to Jacob is the blessing Christ gives to everyone who belongs to Him. Paul writes that Christ "redeemed us in order that the blessing promised to Abraham would come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit" (Galatians 3:14).

Isaac prayed that Jacob would become a company of peoples. Paul tells believers from every one of those peoples, "And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29). Jacob left his father's tent with a promise he would not see fulfilled in his lifetime, and God kept every word of it in His Son.

Hand on what He said

Isaac spent the strength of his old age passing on words God had spoken to his father. Years later God spoke the same blessing to Jacob in His own voice at Bethel: "I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 35:11). What God has said to you is meant to be handed on too. Write it down in the Doxa app with the date and His exact words, read it back until you know it, and give it whole to the people coming after you.

We are the people who remember what God has said, and we put His promises into our children's hands.

Which promise from God would you want the next generation to hear in His own words?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the Hebrew word behind company of peoples, and the day Israel first heard it about itself. Read it here.