Esau’s lost blessing
I’ve been participating ever weekday in Morning Prayer via the Zoom meeting on dailyoffice.org. The Morning Prayer services are based on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer used by the Episcopal Church.
Yesterday’s Old Testament reading was from the story of Jacob and Esau and contains what I find to be one of the most emotionally heartrending passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. Through his and his mother’s chicanery, Jacob has once again stolen from his twin brother: earlier in the story, it was Esau’s birthright that he stole, and this time he manages to steal the blessing that Isaac has promised to Esau.
As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau came in from his hunting. He also prepared savory food, and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.” His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your firstborn son, Esau.” Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, “Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him? — yes, and blessed he shall be!” When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, me also, father!” But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” Isaac answered Esau, “I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.
I’ve long thought how tragic it is in the story that Isaac, who appears to love Esau deeply, feels (due to the cultural restraints of the time) that he can only bless one son. And even though he knows that Jacob earned the blessing on false pretenses, he apparently is unable to rescind the blessing that he has just given to the wily Jacob. But the thing that really tugs at my heartstrings is that moment when Esau says, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” I can almost hear in my head the anguish of that cry.
I had two younger brothers, one of whom died ten years ago at the age of 40. But when he was alive, he and my other younger brother all got along pretty well. I can’t imagine doing to my brothers the things Jacob does to Esau. I certainly can’t imagine doing what Cain does to Abel towards the very beginning of the Bible, but that’s a different story…
Some people love to talk about “family values” that they think Scripture teaches. Actually, there aren’t a whole lot of positive family relationships in much of the Bible. I’ve mentioned Cain and Able, Esau and Jacob. But think also of Joseph and his brothers, David and his brothers, and the bickering between James and John in the Gospels. In Scripture we find manipulative mothers, clueless fathers, jealous brothers, and bitter sisters (the story of Rebekah and Leah is coming up a little after the Jacob/Esau story).
I’m not saying there aren’t lessons about love and family in Scripture: obviously there are positive lessons to be found. However, much of the teaching of the Bible on the subject of family dynamics seems to come as cautionary tales (DON’T do this!). May we do better than many of the patriarchs of the Bible did in their family lives.
