1 Isaac was old and going blind. He called for Esau, his oldest son, and said, “My son.” “I'm here,” Esau replied. 2 “I'm old now,” said Isaac, “I may die soon, who knows? 3 So please take your bow and arrows and go hunting in the countryside for some meat for me. 4 Make me that tasty food that I love and bring it to me to eat, so I can bless you before I die.” 5 Rebekah heard what Isaac told his son Esau. So when Esau left to go hunting in the countryside for wild game, 6 Rebekah told her son Jacob, “Listen! I heard your father tell your brother, 7 ‘Get me some wild game and make me some tasty food so I can eat it and then bless you in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ 8 Now then, my son, listen to me and do exactly what I tell you. 9 Go to the flock and bring me two nice young goats. I'll cook them and make the tasty food your father loves. 10 Then you take it to your father to eat, so he can bless you in the presence of the Lord before he dies.” 11 “But listen,” Jacob replied to his mother Rebekah, “my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I'm a smooth man. 12 Maybe my father will notice when he touches me. Then it will look like I'm deceiving him and I'll bring a curse down on myself instead of a blessing.” 13 “Let the curse fall on me, my son,” his mother replied. “Just do what I tell you. Go and get the young goats for me.” 14 So Jacob went and got them and took them to his mother, and she made some tasty food, the way his father loved. 15 Then Rebekah went and got her older son Esau's best clothes that she had at home and put them on Jacob her younger son. 16 She put the goatskins on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she'd made. 18 He went in to see his father, and called out, “My father, I'm here.” “Which son are you?” Isaac asked. 19 “It's me Esau, your firstborn son,” Jacob told his father. “I did what you told me. So please sit up and eat some of my wild game meat so you can bless me.” 20 “How did you find an animal so fast, my son?” Isaac asked. “Because the Lord your God sent it my way,” Jacob replied. 21 “Come over here so I can touch you, my son,” Isaac told Jacob, “so I can tell if you're really my son Esau or not.” 22 Jacob went over to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “It's Jacob's voice but Esau's hands.” 23 Isaac didn't realize it was really Jacob because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's, so Isaac got ready to bless him. 24 “It's really you, my son Esau?” he asked again. “Yes, it's me,” Jacob replied. 25 Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your wild game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.” Jacob brought some for him to eat, as well as some wine for him to drink. 26 Afterwards he said to Isaac, “Come here and kiss me, my son.” 27 So Jacob went over and kissed him, and Isaac could smell the clothes Jacob was wearing. So he went ahead with the blessing, saying to himself, “See—the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.” 28 “May God use the dew of heaven and fertile land to give you rich harvests of grain and new wine! 29 May the people of different nations serve you and bow down to you. May you rule over your relatives, and may they bow down to you. May everyone who curses you be cursed, and may everyone who blesses you be blessed.” 30 After Isaac finished blessing Jacob—in fact Jacob had just left his father—Esau returned from his hunting trip. 31 He had also made some tasty food, and took it to his father. Esau said to Isaac, “Sit up, my father, and eat some of my wild game so you can bless me.” 32 “Who are you?” Isaac asked him. “I'm your son, your firstborn son, Esau,” he replied. 33 Isaac started to shake all over and asked, “So who was it who went hunting game and then brought it to me? I ate it all before you came back and I blessed him. His blessing will remain.” 34 When Esau heard his father's words, he cried out in great anger and bitterness, and pleaded with his father, “Please bless me too, my father!” 35 But Isaac replied, “Your brother came and deceived me—he stole your blessing!” 36 “Isn't he well named—Jacob the deceiver!” said Esau. “He's deceived me twice. First he took my birthright, and now he's stolen my blessing! Haven't you kept a blessing for me?” 37 Isaac replied to Esau. “I have made him ruler over you, and have said that all his relatives will be his servants. I have declared that he will be well supplied with grain and new wine. So what is left that I can do for you, my son?” 38 “Do you only have one blessing, my father?” Esau asked. “Please bless me too!” Then Esau began to cry very loudly. 39 Then his father Isaac declared, “Listen! You will live far away from fertile land, far from the dew of heaven that falls from above. 40 You will make a living by using your sword, and you will be your brother's servant. But when you rebel, you will throw off his yoke from your neck.” 41 From then on Esau hated Jacob because of his father's blessing. Esau said to himself, “Soon the time will come when I'll mourn my father's death. Then I'll kill my brother Jacob!” 42 However, Rebekah found out what Esau was saying, so she sent for Jacob. “Look,” she told him, “your brother Esau is making himself feel better by making plans to kill you. 43 So, my son, listen carefully to what I tell you. Leave immediately and go to my brother Laban in Haran. 44 Stay with him for a while until your brother's anger cools down. 45 Once he's cooled down and forgets what you did to him, I'll send for you to come back. Why should I lose both of you in a single day?” 46 Then Rebekah went and told Isaac, “I'm so sick of these Hittite women—they're ruining my life! If Jacob also marries a Hittite woman like them, one of the local people, I'd rather die!”
Genesis 27 Free Bible Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
People
Esau
Isaac's elder son, who traded his birthright for a bowl of stew.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 25–27; 36
Isaac
The long-promised son, nearly offered on Moriah, through whom the covenant continued.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 21–27
Jacob
He wrestled with God through the night and rose as Israel, father of twelve tribes.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 25–35; 46–49
Rebekah
Wife of Isaac and mother of the twins Jacob and Esau.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 24-27
Cross references (38)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 1 Samuel 3:2; Genesis 48:10; Genesis 25:23–25; Ecclesiastes 12:3; John 9:3
- 2 James 4:14; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Mark 13:35; Proverbs 27:1; Genesis 48:21
- 3 Genesis 25:27–28; Genesis 10:9; 1 Corinthians 6:12
- 4 Hebrews 11:20; Genesis 48:9; Genesis 49:28; Genesis 27:25; Luke 24:51
- 6 Genesis 25:28
- 7 Joshua 6:26; Deuteronomy 33:1; 1 Samuel 24:19
- 8 Ephesians 6:1; Genesis 27:13; Acts 5:29; Genesis 25:23; Genesis 27:43
- 9 Judges 13:15; 1 Samuel 16:20
- 11 Genesis 25:25
- 12 Deuteronomy 27:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:22; 2 Corinthians 6:8; Job 12:16; Malachi 1:14
- 13 Matthew 27:25; 1 Samuel 25:24; 2 Samuel 14:9; Genesis 25:33; 1 Samuel 14:36–45
- 14 Luke 21:34; Genesis 27:9; Genesis 27:17; Proverbs 23:2–3; Genesis 25:28
- 15 Genesis 27:27; Luke 20:46; Luke 15:22
- 19 Matthew 26:70–74; Isaiah 28:15; Zechariah 13:3–4; Genesis 27:24–25; Genesis 27:21
- 20 Exodus 20:7; Job 13:7; Genesis 24:12
- 21 Isaiah 57:19; James 4:8; Genesis 27:12; Psalm 73:28
- 23 Hebrews 11:20; Genesis 27:16; Romans 9:11–12
- 24 Colossians 3:9; Proverbs 12:22; Ephesians 4:25; Job 13:7–8; 1 Samuel 21:2
- 25 Genesis 27:4
- 27 Hebrews 6:7; Psalm 65:10; Hebrews 11:20; Genesis 26:12; Hosea 14:6–7
- 28 Deuteronomy 33:28; Deuteronomy 33:13; Psalm 133:3; Hosea 14:5–7; Psalm 65:9–13
- 29 Numbers 24:9; Genesis 12:3; Isaiah 49:23; Genesis 9:25–26; Romans 9:12
- 31 Genesis 27:4
- 32 Genesis 27:18
- 33 Genesis 28:3–4; Romans 11:29; Job 21:6; Ephesians 1:3; Job 37:1
- 34 Hebrews 12:17; Proverbs 1:31; 1 Samuel 30:4; Proverbs 19:3; Luke 13:24–28
- 35 1 Thessalonians 4:6; Job 13:7; Malachi 2:10; 2 Kings 10:19; Romans 3:7–8
- 36 Genesis 25:26; Genesis 25:31–34; Genesis 32:28; John 1:47
- 37 Genesis 27:28–29; Genesis 25:23; 2 Samuel 8:14; Romans 9:10–12
- 38 Hebrews 12:17; Genesis 27:34; Isaiah 65:14; Genesis 27:36; Proverbs 1:24–26
- 39 Genesis 27:28; Hebrews 11:20; Joshua 24:4; Genesis 36:6–8
- 40 Genesis 25:23; 2 Kings 8:20–22; 2 Samuel 8:14; 2 Chronicles 25:11–12; 2 Chronicles 21:10
- 41 1 John 3:12–15; Genesis 37:4; Genesis 50:3–4; Ephesians 4:26–27; Genesis 32:6
- 42 1 Samuel 30:5; Psalm 64:5; Proverbs 4:16–17; Proverbs 2:14; Genesis 42:21–22
- 43 Genesis 11:31; Genesis 27:8; Genesis 27:13; Genesis 24:29; Proverbs 30:17
- 44 Genesis 31:38; Genesis 31:41
- 45 Proverbs 19:21; Genesis 27:35; Genesis 4:8–16; Lamentations 3:37; Acts 28:4
- 46 Genesis 26:34–35; Genesis 24:3; Genesis 28:8; Genesis 34:1–2; Job 14:13
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
Through envy, also, our father Jacob fled from the face of Esau his brother. Envy made Joseph be persecuted unto death, and to come into bondage.
The blessing of Isaac with which he blessed his younger son Jacob has the same meaning, when he says, "Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed." But "the field is the world." And therefore he added, "God give to thee of the dew of heaven, and of the …
… the fruitfulness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: let nations serve thee, and princes adore thee: and be lord of thy brethren, and let thy father's sons adore thee: cursed be he that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee." The blessing of Jacob is therefore a proclamation of Christ to all nations.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)
"Who then," he says, "hath hunted me venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him, and he shall be blessed?" Who would not rather have expected the curse of an angry man here, if these things had been done in an earthly manner, and not by inspiration from above?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)