Although Rebekah told Isaac of the prophecy she received that Jacob, the second-born of her twins and her favorite, was to receive the blessing, as the boys matured Esau, the first-born and Isaac’s favorite, seemed to Isaac better able to carry any burdens his blessing might require.
In his old age with failing eyesight, Isaac decided to give the blessing to Esau rather than Jacob without telling Rebekah, but she overheard his plan and improvised one of her own. She prepared the meal Isaac requested from Esau, covered Jacob’s arms with fur to imitate Esau’s hairy skin and dressed him in Esau’s clothing to deceive her husband. Not even Jacob, willing though he was to go along with it, thought her plan would work, but it did.
After realizing he had been fooled, Isaac reluctantly remembered the prophecy and remained faithful to it reaffirming the blessing he unwittingly gave to Jacob. Esau, however, wanted revenge and so Rebekah convinced Isaac to send Jacob off on the pretext of finding a suitable wife, not one like Esau found among the locals, knowing that she would likely never see Jacob again.
Denise offers the prompt “improvise” for this week’s Six Sentence Story.
A more complete and accurate description of what happened to Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob begins at Genesis 25:19. The insight that Rebekah did not see Jacob again came from Pastor Colin Smith’s sermon last Sunday.


There’s also a little matter of pottage… 🙂 Such an odd story.
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Yes, there is more to this story and I agree that the part about Esau selling his birthright for pottage is odd. I still don’t understand what kind of deal they were making. Regardless, Isaac wasn’t making the right choice. Thank you, Chel!
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Great story. Very well done. I need to go back and refresh my memory a little on this one.
Blessings.
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I had to reread it again after listening to Pastor Smith’s sermon. I probably still missed critical details. Thank you, Michael!
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I like how you retold the story. 🙏
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Thank you, Cassa!
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Genesis (and the entire Bible) is full of stories of family problems…
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It is. It doesn’t hide what actually happened to make things look good. Thank you, Romi!
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There are so many layers of meaning to these stories.
Jacob did not return for many, many years, and when he did, he had 2 wives, 2 concubines, 11 sons and a daughter. Yes, by that time, probably Rebekah was not longer living.
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I didn’t realize that she might not have been alive until I heard it suggested by Pastor Collins, but she probably knew Jacob might be gone a long time.
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I googled for the reference. It would appear in the end, Rebekah’s wisdom and faith prevailed however, it was not without tremendous sacrifice.
An enlightening Six, Frank.
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She sacrificed a lot. Thank you, Denise!
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What an instructive use of the prompt, Frank. I believe we are all a little wiser about the story now.
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There are many such stories in Genesis. Thank you, Chris!
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nice job taking a story that I would offer, (in only the most charitable sense) was so not a Six Sentence Story and framing in a new(ish) style
liked it.
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That was me (the Anonymous comment above)
the wordpress as decided to follow you lead on the Bible update as applied to Comment, I fear they are looking to Job for inspiration
the Wakefield Doctrine
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I thought that was you. I don’t know why some people are labeled as “Someone”.
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I only picked a small piece of that story and hoped I did not distort it too much. Thank you!
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Great job
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Thank you!
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Loved the way you included the prompt in an existing piece.
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Thank you, Bernadette! It was a story going through my mind last Sunday.
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Timely since I just finished teaching my daughters this part of Genesis a few weeks ago!
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Genesis is a wonderful book to read. Thank you, Jim!
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You are welcome! I also appreciate you sharing my blog posts on Twitter!
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An excellent retelling of the story in an easy to follow style.
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Thank you, Keith!
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A complicated family dilemma with lots of deception. I didn’t know the references but enjoyed nonetheless.
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And the landscape photo on the mountain is just stunning, as is the Moore’s Cove Falls one.
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Thank you!
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As Sir Walter Scott said ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive,’
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Deception does weave a web. Thank you!
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