... unlike Genesis, however, this narrative is careful not to make Jacob a liar. I am your son, he tells his blind father, rather than “I am Esau your firstborn” (Genesis 27:19). A widespread, somewhat tongue-in-cheek tradition held that Isaac’s preceding question, “Who are you my son?” was actually to be read as two: “Who are you? My son?” In that case, Jacob’s answer could likewise be divided in two: “I am [indeed your son; but] Esau is your firstborn,” in which case Jacob did not lie. If, despite recognizing that the voice is Jacob’s voice (Genesis 27:22), Isaac blessed him, it was because there was a turn of affairs from heaven (that is, direct, divine intervention) in order to distract his [Isaac’s] mind. In other words, this was no shabby deception on Jacob’s part, but part of the divine plan. ...

... Just as the event that drove a final wedge between the northern and southern sections of the nation Israel may seem to have occurred through human actions and folly though God directed it, so the plan of Rebekah, however deceptive and clumsy, was actually the will of the Lord, who intervened to make sure it succeeded in order that Jacob, not Esau, would receive the blessing. Isaac would have made a disastrous mistake had God not forced events such that he acted contrary to his original intent; as a result, even the implausible disguise concocted by Rebekah was successful. ...