The Blessing (Genesis 25:19 – 28:9)

 

Photo:Trac Vu (@ unsplash)

We tend to understand the dead backwards, that is, we look first at who they were at the end of their lives when assessing their character; we look at their deaths to form an opinion about their lives.

With our current subject this is difficult, for we do not know when, where and how he died; nor do we know where and by whom he was buried. Friends and family agree that as he got older he spent more and more time outdoors, just walking, resting by the stream, napping in the orchard. These absences from home became more frequent and longer. One day he simply did not return, but no one can say exactly when that was.

One can surmise that this behaviour constituted a return to the ways of his childhood, as it were, for the child loves to sleep in the field, his small back leaving an gentle impression in the still-warm soil, his eyes roaming among the stars, his heart growing wild and strong. He can distinguish most plants by their smell, he learns the routes animals take, and soon he can catch rabbits in his snares with the greatest ease. He does so not for sport or entertainment, but to please his father who is fond of the rabbit stew the youngster has learned to make. He cares nothing for abstract concepts, legal claptrap that promises him a special position as the older son, he knows his father loves him. That is enough.

His mother does not love him. She has cast her lot in with his younger brother, the two of them spending their days in the tent whispering back and forth, exchanging small secret smiles.

In truth, he finds women strange. Marries a couple of Hittites, and later, in an effort to appease his family, he marries his cousin Mahalath. But he is happier spending time outdoors by himself, just walking and thinking.

Nor does he care for his sibling, and once he gets so angry he wants to kill him. But when they meet many years later, he runs with outstretched arms to embrace his brother. Ties that bind.

But that is later. At the time of the incident, aware that death is coming fast for his father, and that they are saying their good-byes, he acknowledges the moment with Hineini, the utterance that more than any other speaks of here-ness, of being fully present to the moment and the Other. Betrayed, he lifts up his voice and weeps (Genesis 27:38) in exactly the same way his grandfather’s concubine Hagar, rejected and alone in the desert, once wept for her child apparently dying of thirst (Genesis 21:16).

Have you no blessing for me? Not even one, Dad? Bless me too.

He weeps aloud. Father is silent.