Genesis 27:16

Hebrew Bible

13 So his mother told him, “Any curse against you will fall on me, my son! Just obey me! Go and get them for me!” 14 So he went and got the goats and brought them to his mother. She prepared some tasty food, just the way his father loved it. 15 Then Rebekah took her older son Esau’s best clothes, which she had with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She put the skins of the young goats on his hands and the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the tasty food and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.

Genesis 37:32

Hebrew Bible

30 returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy isn’t there! And I, where can I go?” 31 So they took Joseph’s tunic, killed a young goat, and dipped the tunic in the blood. 32 Then they brought the special tunic to their father and said, “We found this. Recognize* now whether it is your son’s tunic or not.” 33 He recognized it and exclaimed, “It is my son’s tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!” 34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days.

 Notes and References

"... Jacob’s second action is to appropriate the blessing that his father intends for Esau, a blessing of prosperity and dominion. Isaac, now old and dim-eyed, not knowing when he will die, asks Esau to hunt some game and prepare a meal for him, after which he will bless him. Rebekah prepares a similar meal and sends her preferred son, Jacob, to pose as Esau to his dim-eyed father and thus to get the blessing. Jacob wears his brother’s clothing and the hides of goats to imitate his brother’s smell and hairy skin, and Isaac gives him the blessing meant for Esau. When the deception becomes known, Isaac trembles, and Esau cries in anguish, “Was his name really called Jacob [meaning ‘to catch, usurp’]! And he’s usurped me two times now!” (Genesis 27). Years later, Jacob is paid back for this as well. When his own sons, jealous of his preferred son Joseph, sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt, they dip Joseph’s coat of many colors in the blood of a goat, and they say to their father, “Recognize this.” He says, “My son’s coat. A wild animal ate him. Joseph is torn up!” (Genesis 37:32–33). Jacob had deceived his father with his brother’s clothing and the meat and hide of a goat. Now his sons deceive him with their brother’s clothing and the blood of a goat ..."

Friedman, Richard Elliott The Hidden Book in the Bible (p. 46) Harper San Francisco, 1998

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