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might make supplication to God to be to him a sup-bestow. Make him terrible to his enemies, and porter, and an assister, during the old time of his honourable and beloved among his friends." life: saying, that it was uncertain when he should die, and that he was desirous, by his prayers for him, to procure, beforehand, God to be merciful to

him.

Accordingly Esau went out a-hunting. But Rebeka* thinking it proper to have the supplication made for obtaining the favour of God to Jacob, and that without the consent of Isaac, bade him kill kids of the goats, and prepare a supper. Jacob obeyed his mother, according to all her instructions, and when the supper was ready, he took a goat's skin, and put it about his arm, that by reason of its hairy roughness, his father might believe him to be Esau; for they being twins, and in all things else alike, differed only in this thing. This was done out of his fear, that before Isaac had made his supplications, he should be caught in his evil practice, and thereby provoke his father to curse him. So he brought in the supper to his father. Isaac perceiving, by the peculiarity of his voice, who he was, called his son to him; who gave him his hand, which was covered with the goat's skin. When Isaac felt that, he said, "Thy voice is like the voice of Jacob; yet because of the thickness of thy hair, thou seemest to be Esau." So suspecting no deceit, he ate the supper, and offered up his prayers and intercession to God, and said, “O Lord of all ages, and creator of all substance, it was thou that didst propose to my father great plenty of good things, and hast vouchsafed to bestow on me what I have; and hast promised to my posterity to be their kind supporter, and to bestow on them still greater blessings. Do thou therefore confirm these thy promises, and do not overlook me because of my present weak condition, on account of which I more earnestly pray to thee. Be gracious to this my son, preserve him, and keep him from every thing that is evil. Give him a happy life, and the possession of as many good things as thy power is able to

*Whether Jacob or his mother Rebeka were most blamable in this imposition upon Isaac in his old age, I cannot determine. However, the blessings being delivered as a prediction of future events, by a divine impulse, and according to what Rebeka knew to be the purpose of God, when he answered her inquiry, before the children were born, Gen. xxv. 23, that one people should be stronger than the other; and that the elder, Esau, should serve the younger, Jacob. Whether Isaac knew, or remembered this oracle, delivered, in our copies, only to Rebeka; or whether if he knew or remembered it, he did not endeavour to alter the divine determination, out of his fondness for his elder son, Esau, to the damage of his younger son, Jacob; as Josephus supposes, II. 7, I certainly cannot say. If so, this might tempt Rebeka to contrive, and Jacob to practise, this imposition upon him. However, Josephus says here, that it was Isaac, and not Rebeka, who inquired of God at first, and received the forementioned oracle; which, if it be the true

Thus did Isaac pray to God, thinking his prayers had been made for Esau. He had but just finished them, however, when Esau came in from hunting; and when Isaac perceived his mistake, he was silent. Esau earnestly requested that he might be made partaker of the blessing which his brother had received, but his father refused, because all his prayers had been spent upon Jacob. So Esau lamented the mistake; however, his father being grieved at his weeping, said, that "He should excel in hunting, in arms, in strength of body; and should obtain glory for ever on those accounts, he and his posterity after him; but still should serve his brother." Now the mother delivered Jacob, when he was afraid that his brother would inflict some punishment upon him because of the mistake about the prayers of Isaac: for she persuaded her husband to take a wife for Jacob out of Mesopotamia,† of her own kindred. Esau having already married Basemmath, the daughter of Ishmael, without his father's consent: for Isaac, not liking the Canaanites, disapproved of Esau's former marriage, which made him take Basemmath to wife, in order to please him; and indeed he had a great affection for her.

CHAP. XIX.

OF JACOB'S FLIGHT INTO MESOPOTAMIA.

Now Jacob was sent by his mother into Mesopotamia, in order to marry her brother Laban's daughter, (which marriage was permitted by Isaac, on account of his obsequiousness to the desires of his wife,) and he accordingly journeyed through the land of Canaan; and because he hated the people of that country, he would not lodge with any of them, but took up his lodging in the open air, and laid his head on a heap of stones that he had gathered together. Having fallen asleep, he dreamed

reading, renders Isaac's procedure the more inexcusable. Nor was it probable that any thing else so much encouraged Esau formerly to marry two Canaanitish wives, without his parents' consent, as Isaac's unhappy fondness for him.

N. B. Upon this occasion it may be necessary to caution the reader against a common prejudice of the moderns; as if the bare relation of what we should esteem the faults and blemishes of the patriarchs, and other very good men in the scripture, implied a justification of them. The scripture affords us faithful accounts of the great men with whom it is concerned; and relates their vices and follies as impartially as their good and wise actions; yet it does not always characterize those actions, but frequently leaves them to the readers' own judgment and censure; to their imitation of the good, and avoidance of the bad.

† Gen. xxvii. 46. Gen. xxviii. 11.

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