NOTES for Gen 27:1-46
The story of Jacob’s blessing may seem strange, to say the least, to a modern reader. What possible meaning can a stolen blessing have? As for the deception itself, there is no question: that is clear. Although for Jacob it most likely was not a matter of deception: he had taken Esau’s sale of his firstborn’s right, his “birthright,” entirely seriously and therefore could consider himself entitled to receive his father’s blessing as well.
In those days such a blessing meant the choice of a successor to whom the chief’s power was eventually to pass. By blessing Jacob, Isaac was thus handing on to him precisely what the right of the firstborn implied: the position of tribal chief after Isaac’s death. This naturally raises a question: why could Isaac not change his decision after learning that he had been deceived?
To answer this question, it is important to bear in mind how a blessing was understood in those days. It was not merely authorization for the transfer of power. A blessing was not a purely ritual moment, a simple formality with a religious coloring. It was viewed above all as an act of transmitting power: the very power that everyone knew about in those days, the power underlying the universe, whose source Isaac and his fellow tribesmen considered to be the God of Abraham.
People knew that this power manifested itself in a special way in certain places, just as they knew that gods and spirits possessed it: it was precisely what endowed them with superhuman abilities and qualities. Some chosen human beings possessed the same power. They did not, of course, become gods or spirits, but the power gave them certain abilities or unusual qualities. It could, for example, help a person become a great warrior, strong not only physically but also skilled in special techniques of battle magic. It could enable him to communicate with spirits and see the spiritual world—the fallen spiritual world, of course.
This power was also required to be a chief, for a chief needed special qualities that could not be acquired without it. Someone who possessed the power could give it to another—but only once, because it could not afterward be taken back. This transmission of power was called a blessing, whereas a curse was, by contrast, an action intended to deprive a person of power. It was with such a blessing that Isaac blessed Jacob, so after learning of the deception he could no longer change anything. Jacob was certain that power was now in his hands: Esau had sold him his firstborn’s right, and his father had given him his power as chief.