Genesis Chapter 27

Isaac plans to bless Esau in secret, Rebekah and Jacob deceive him, God’s purpose stands, and the family breaks apart.

Genesis 27:1-4

Isaac’s Private Plan

Genesis 27:5-17

Rebekah’s Counterplan

Genesis 27:18-29

Jacob Deceives His Father

Genesis 27:30-40

Esau’s Bitter Cry

Genesis 27:41-46

Hatred and Flight

Genesis 27:1

The chapter opens in decline. “When Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see” sets the conditions the whole plot will exploit. The chronology of Jacob’s later life places the scene late in Isaac’s years. Jacob told Pharaoh he was 130 (47:9); Joseph was then about thirty-nine, so Jacob was about ninety-one when Joseph was born, at the close of fourteen years of service for Leah and Rachel. Jacob therefore left home at about seventy-seven, and Isaac, sixty when the twins were born (25:26), was near 137. He would live to 180 (35:28). The man who feels death at the door still has more than four decades before him.

The failing eyes are literal, yet the narrator lets them carry a second weight. Isaac’s sight fades at the very time his spiritual perception is clouded. Before the twins were born the LORD had said, “the elder shall serve the younger” (25:23). Esau had since treated the birthright as worthless (25:34) and married two Hittite women who embittered his parents (26:34–35). Isaac still turns to the son he prefers. Elsewhere Scripture pairs dim eyes with dim discernment, as with Eli at Shiloh (1 Samuel 3:2; 4:15).

He calls “Esau his eldest son,” and the title reveals the frame of his thinking: rank by birth, rather than the purpose God had announced, governs his choice. Esau answers, “Behold, here am I,” the same reply Abraham gave when God called him to Moriah (22:1, 11) and Isaac himself spoke on the mountain path (22:7). There it expressed readiness to obey God. Here it opens a private conference between a father and his favorite that leaves God’s word out of the room. The family that once climbed Moriah together is dividing into camps.

Study Links

Cross References

Genesis 25:23Genesis 25:28Genesis 35:28

Word / Phrase Notes

וַתִּכְהֶיןָ עֵינָיו (vattikhena ʿenav) — his eyes were dim

The verb כָּהָה (kahah) means to grow faint or dull, and with eyes it describes sight weakened by age or sorrow. Moses at 120 is noted because his eye “was not dim,” and Eli’s eyes “began to wax dim” in old age. Here the word explains how a disguise could succeed, and the story lets Isaac’s physical dimness mirror his failure to see what God had already said.

Genesis 48:10

הִנֵּנִי (hinneni) — here am I

Literally “behold me,” the ordinary reply of someone ready to listen and act. It is the answer of Abraham to God at Moriah and of Isaiah at his call. Its use between Isaac and Esau recalls those moments of surrender while introducing a scene where God’s will is being sidestepped.

Genesis 22:1