The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 402

EXPOSITION. Ver. 30.-And it came to paBB (literally, his supposed wr/lngs, sometimes P.revents a and it was), as soon as Isaao had made an just appreciation of the oxact position occu- end of bleBBing J'acob, and J'acob was yet pied by the latter in this extrordinary trans- scarce gone out-literally, and i.t uxu, (sc. actio!L Instead of branding Jacob ns n as soon as, or when) Jacob only going jorth shameless deceiver, and hurling against his had gone; i e. had just gone out (Ewald, fair fame the most opprobrious epithets, may Keil), rather than was in the act of coming it not be that, remembering the previously- out (Murphy), since the narrative implies expressed will of Heaven, the real supplanter that the brothers did not meet on this occa- was Esau, who as an accomplice of his sion-from the presence of Isaac his father, father was seeking secretly, unlawfully, and that (literally, and) Esau his brother came feloniously to appropriate to himself a bless- in from his hunting. ing which bad already been, not obscurely, Ver. 31.-And he also had made savoury designated as Jo.cob's Y On this hypothesis meat (vick ver. 4), and brought it unto the miserable craft of Jacob and Robeknh his father, and eaid unto him, Let my was a lighter crime than that of Isaac nnd father arise, and eat of his son's venison- Esau. compared with Jacob's exhortation to his Ver. 32.-And Isaac his father said unto aged parent (ver. 19), the language of Esau him, Who art thou t The language indicates has, if anything, more affection in its tones- the patriarch's surprise. And he said, I am that thy soul may bleBB me. Esau was at thy son, thy flrstbom Esau. The emphatic this time a man of maturo age, being either tone of Esau's answer may have been dic- fifty-seven or seventy-seven years old, and tatccl by a suspicion, alrcndy nw..,nned by must have been acquainted with the heavenly Isaac's question, thnt all was not right oracle (eh. :u:v. 23) that assigned the pre- (Inglis). Esau's claim to be regarded as cedence in the theocratic line to Jacob. Isaac's firstborn, after having bartered awny Either, therefore, he must have supposed that his birthright, is considered by some to bo his claim to the blessing was not thereby unwarranted (Wordsworth); but it is doubt- !L!fected, or he was guilty of conniving at ful if Esau attached tho importance to tbo Isaac's scheme for resisting the Divine wilL term "firstborn" which this objoction prn- lndi1,'Ilation at JaCtJu'~ duplicity nnd base• supposes. :Qcss, cnm l,ine<l with 11,r-npathy for Esaq in Yer, 3~.--4nd 1'.so.o.o trem'l}lc4 very e:,;. Cl!. Xll.VII. 30-40.) 'r'Hl B001t OF OtNEStS. 841