Isaac Blessing Jacob

Now, my son, listen carefully as I instruct you. Go to the flock and fetch me two choice kids, and I will make of them a dish for your father, such as he likes. Then take it to your father to eat, in order that he may bless you before he dies.” Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “But my brother Esav is a hairy man and I am smooth-skinned. If my father touches me, I shall appear to him as a trickster and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.” But his mother said to him, “Your curse, my son, will be upon me! Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.” He got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a dish such as his father liked. Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esav, which were there in the house, and had her younger son Jacob put them on; and she covered his hands and the hairless part of his neck with the skins of the kids. Then she put in the hands of her son Jacob the dish and the bread that she had prepared. He went to his father and said, “Father.” And he said, “Yes, which of my sons are you?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esav, your first-born; I have done as you told me. Pray sit up and eat of my game, that you may give me your innermost blessing.” Isaac said to his son, “How did you succeed so quickly, my son?” And he said, “Because the LORD your God granted me good fortune.” Isaac said to Jacob, “Come closer that I may feel you, my son—whether you are really my son Esav or not.” So Jacob drew close to his father Isaac, who felt him and wondered. “The voice is the voice of Jacob, yet the hands are the hands of Esav.” He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; and so he blessed him. He asked, “Are you really my son Esav?” And when he said, “I am,” he said, “Serve me and let me eat of my son’s game that I may give you my innermost blessing.” So he served him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come close and kiss me, my son”; and he went up and kissed him. And he smelled his clothes and he blessed him, saying, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that the LORD has blessed. “May God give you Of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth, Abundance of new grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, And nations bow to you; Be master over your brothers, And let your mother’s sons bow to you. Cursed be they who curse you, Blessed they who bless you.” No sooner had Jacob left the presence of his father Isaac—after Isaac had finished blessing Jacob—than his brother Esav came back from his hunt.

[Jacob responded to Isaac by mixing his words and thoughts in the following way:] I am the one who is bringing you this food and Esav is your first-born.

Others have suggested that when Jacob said "I am.." he was whispering and then he raised his voice to declare out loud "Esav is your firstborn."

There are some who suggest that Jacob considered this moment [of getting the blessing of the firstborn] so important and necessary that he felt it was permitted to lie, just like Avraham had once done when he lied about Sarah being his sister and not his wife.

Rabach suggested the following interpretation: "I am here instead of Esav your firstborn." Jacob felt completely justified in calling himself the firstborn because, in fact, Esav had previously sold him the birthright and therefore Isaac had every right to receive this blessing in place of Esav.

Some people wonder how Jacob, a righteous person, could say something like this, an outright lie. Actually, the matter is not so strange seeing that Jacob knew that he was entitled to the blessing more than his brother...Furthermore, his mother Rivka told him to do this and the Torah specifically commands us to “be in awe of your mother and father.” Also, his mother Rivka was a prophet.