Study Desk

But Isaac asked his son, "How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?" "Because the LORD your God brought it to me," he replied.

So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau."

Isaac did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him.

Then his father Isaac said to him, "Please come near and kiss me, my son."

So he came near and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothing, he blessed him and said: "Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.

As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father's presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt.

He too made some tasty food, brought it to his father, and said to him, "My father, sit up and eat of your son's game, so that you may bless me."

But his father Isaac replied, "Who are you?" "I am Esau, your firstborn son," he answered.

When Esau heard his father's words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, "Bless me too, O my father!"

But Isaac answered Esau: "Look, I have made him your master and given him all his relatives as servants; I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?"

Esau said to his father, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, O my father!" Then Esau wept aloud.

His father Isaac answered him: "Behold, your dwelling place shall be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of heaven above.

You shall live by the sword, and serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will tear his yoke from your neck."

Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau said in his heart: "The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob."

and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram.

And seeing that his father Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women,

On reaching a certain place, he spent the night there because the sun had set. And taking one of the stones from that place, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone that he had placed under his head, and he set it up as a pillar. He poured oil on top of it,

Jacob resumed his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.

"Is he well?" Jacob inquired. "Yes," they answered, "and here comes his daughter Rachel with his sheep."