Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/277

 kept back, but whom Jehovah had chosen, when he was about to send him away to Haran (Gen 28:3-4).

verses 30-40
Jacob had hardly left his father, after receiving the blessing (יצא אך, was only gone out), when Esau returned and came to Isaac, with the game prepared, to receive the blessing. The shock was inconceivable which Isaac received, when he found that he had blessed another, and not Esau-that, in fact, he had blessed Jacob. At the same time he neither could nor would, either curse him on account of the deception which he had practised, or withdraw the blessing imparted. For he could not help confessing to himself that he had sinned and brought the deception upon himself by his carnal preference for Esau. Moreover, the blessing was not a matter of subjective human affection, but a right entrusted by the grace of God to paternal supremacy and authority, in the exercise of which the person blessing, being impelled and guided by a higher authority, imparted to the person to be blest spiritual possessions and powers, which the will of man could not capriciously withdraw. Regarding this as the meaning of the blessing, Isaac necessarily saw in what had taken place the will of God, which had directed to Jacob the blessing that he had intended for Esau. He therefore said, “ I have blessed him; yea, he will be ( remain) blessed” (cf. Heb 12:17). Even the great and bitter lamentation into which Esau broke out could not change his father's mind. To his entreaty in Gen 27:34, “ Bless me, even me also, O my father!” he replied, “ Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.” Esau answered, “ Is it that (הכי) they have named him Jacob (overreacher), and he has overreached me twice?” i.e., has he received the name Jacob from the fact that he has twice outwitted me? הכי is used “when the cause is not rightly known” (cf. Gen 29:15). To his further entreaty, “Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?” (אצל, lit., to lay aside), Isaac repeated the substance of the blessing given to Jacob, and added, “and to thee (לכה for לך as in Gen 3:9), now, what can I do, my son?” When Esau again repeated, with tears, the entreaty that Isaac would bless him also, the father gave him a blessing (Gen 27:39, Gen 27:40), but one which, when compared with the blessing of Jacob, was to be regarded rather as “a modified curse,” and which is not even described as a blessing, but “introduced a disturbing element into Jacob's blessing, a retribution for the