Deceived and Decreed

As we come to Genesis 27, there is no character here being held out for our sympathy. But neither is there any character being held out for our self-righteous condemnation. Instead, we must remember the biblical truth that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9) That is a universal statement. It applies to all human beings after the line of Adam.

• All Begin as Deceivers and Deceived

• All Will Be Awakened to What God Has Done

Doctrine. The deceitful heart of man plans its ways, but the Lord establishes even these outcomes.

All Begin as Deceivers and Deceived

It has been asked: If Rebekah was told about Jacob being the eventual true heir, Isaac knew. So why the ruse? I think that’s the wrong question. Consider that there are a few logical possibilities about what Isaac heard: (1) He did not hear the original message; (2) He heard it (whether directly or secondhand from Rebekah) and didn’t take it seriously; (3) He heard it and despised it; (4) He heard and forgot. The first is most unlikely, and none of the other choices leave Isaac excusable. The question then should not be: Why the ruse? But rather, Why the resistance? In other words, the first question should be directed toward Isaac—namely, What did he think he was doing in going against God?

A. W. Pink gives an interesting angle with an even more earthy question:

“Why was it that Isaac desired to partake of venison from Esau before blessing him? Does not Gen. 25:28 answer the question—‘And Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison.’ In view of this statement it would seem, then, that Isaac desired to enkindle or intensify his affections for Esau, so that he might bless him with all his heart.”1

In other words, Isaac tried to numb his spirit and pretend that the worst wasn’t real, and just go through with it.

When Rebekah took matters into her own hands, what did she take into her own hands? God’s will. But God does not need the help of any creature, much less the “help” of sin. As Saul attempted to harness God’s power with a sacrifice before battle (1 Sam. 13:9), and the prophet Samuel likened such disobedience to witchcraft (1 Sam. 15:23), so even with Rebekah we see that a true believer can fall into the disbelief of thinking God needs our help. We can picture her, as one commentator does, lurking behind the peephole, listening in to the conversation at the beginning of the chapter, in a home that had become a place where no one trusted each other.2 And Jacob’s hesitation had nothing to do with horror for the sin, but in the fear of getting caught:

“Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing” (v. 12).

Both she and Jacob sowed further discord and hatred. And she showed the opposite of true fear of God in saying to Jacob, ‘Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice’ (v. 13).

With Esau things are more straightforward by now. Taking Hittite wives didn’t just make life bitter for his parents (26:35), which is intensified in Rebekah’s words here, ‘I loathe my life because of the Hittite women’ (v. 46). The ultimate reason that it made for bitterness was that it signaled his reprobation. He cared nothing for the plan and promises of God. It isn’t what animated even his most important life decisions, like who to take for a wife. He was the ultimate practical atheist described by the Psalmist: “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. 10:4).

But this is all our condition at first. Not just sin, but deceitful sin. Paul describes all unbelievers as filled with “deceit” (Rom. 1:29), or “led astray” (Titus 3:3). The Psalmist says, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3).

If this is true even about those religious webs of deceit we get ourselves into, then we cannot go congratulating ourselves for the outcomes.

All Will Be Awakened to What God Has Done

Note the reactions of Isaac and Esau. It begins with the contrasting descriptions: ‘Then Isaac trembled very violently’ (v. 33a) and ‘As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry’ (v. 34a). At first glance, these two seem to be the same basic response to having been foiled. But they issue forth into two very different kinds of awakening. The main reason we know that Isaac was awakened now in a spiritual way is yet another New Testament commentary back: “By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau” (Heb. 11:20). There BLESSINGS is treated generically over them, but also specifically as to Isaac’s own act of faith.

What exactly did Isaac now see? First, in the same breath as he trembled, Isaac added, ‘Yes, and he shall be blessed’ (v. 33b). In other words, there is no undoing of where this is coming from. He knows now that it is not of his own doing. Boice sees this as the breaking of Isaac’s will at the end of his own long, wrestling with God.3 Then, after Esau’s protest, what did Isaac answer?

“Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you grow restless you shall break his yoke from your neck” (vv. 39-40).

He had no choice but to faithfully represent the consequences for Esau, even if in the same breath he had regained his sight of the real Promise Land.

Absolutely everyone will be fully awakened one day to the ultimate reality of God. That will either come by regeneration or else a rude awakening. Of those that are “awakened” in this lifetime, it is a seeing into the kingdom, that Jesus says, “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom” (Jn. 3:3). But there will come a day in the end where “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev. 1:7).

This awakening is part of the decree. There is no escaping this awakening. Scripture treats the decree of God as falling out in a moment. The specific decree of reprobation does this by a moment of unbelief—of despising the gospel promise—“They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do” (1 Pet. 2:8). So we are warned not to be,

“unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears” (Heb. 12:16-17).

That passage also immediately shuts down the objection that the reprobate at least try to repent or have affections in this lifetime consistent with repentance. NO—the author of Hebrews uses the expression “chance to repent” only to say what he did not experience, not for something hypothetical that he would have if only he had another “chance.” When people see this showing Esau’s sincere attempt, they ignore the words of the text—AFTERWARD, WHEN HE DESIRED TO INHERIT THE BLESSING. Is that talking about the essential inheritance? No, not at all. It is recalling the Genesis narrative, when that was denied, afterward, Esau appealed for any temporal part of the inheritance. This was not a spiritual desire for the blessing of Abraham, or, in other words, the blessing of Christ.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Instruction. All the best (and worst) laid plans of man can never escape the causal power of God, or the glorious ends of God. Even of the worst act ever, it says, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). This too is a universal truth: “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Prov. 16:9); and there is another way that chapter says this: “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand” (Prov. 16:21). It can be easy to acknowledge this about the events of biblical history; but much harder about those things we see going on around us.

Use 2. Correction. What could Rebekah have done differently? She could have prayed. She could have spoken directly to Isaac. Perhaps we may not hatch some elaborate plan to deceive, but we could take the road of being passive-aggressive. There are less elaborate ways to be manipulative. But why do we opt for these? It is that same fear of man—or fretting over the outcomes—rather than fear of God or trust in God. “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil” (Ps. 37:8).

Use 3. Admonition. That passage from Hebrews is itself a warning. Do not be like unholy Esau in this sin. True repentance, as Thomas Watson wrote about, must involve, a sight and sorrow for sin, the confession of it, shame and hatred for that sin and a turning from it. And Godly sorrow is “sorrow for the offense rather than for the punishment.”4 It is to say, “I hate every false way” (Ps. 119:104). But the unholiness itself in the warning—what is it? Pink explains, “How many today are, like Esau, bartering Divine privileges for carnal gratification?”5 Again, we cannot serve two masters or have two ultimate treasures. If we structure our whole lives so as to receive our reward from this world, then we will surely have it. But the end of that is to be awakened too late in bitter tears.

Use 4. Consolation. Those words from Hebrews are bigger than we think, until we find ourselves having been in a fog—perhaps not literally blind, but having forgotten the promise.

“By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau” (Heb. 11:20).

Many will dismiss this. Many will say that such a faith excuses Isaac’s years of drifting and resisting. But it glorifies God when we place all of our trust in Him for what He has promised. When we get all the salvation, He gets all the glory. Paul says, “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring” (Rom. 4:16).

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1. A. W. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1922), 240-41.

2. Boice, Genesis, II:754.

3. Boice, Genesis, II:756.

4. Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2012), 21.

5. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis, 244.