READING: Genesis 25:27-28:5
It is amazing how far human beings will go in deceit. In today’s reading, Rebekah led her son, Jacob, to deceive his father and gain his blessing. Getting there took some work, however. Jacob had to secure the goats for his mother to prepare his father’s meal. Because Jacob’s brother Esau was a hairy man, Rebekah covered Jacob’s arms and the smooth part of his neck with the skin of young goats. She gave Jacob some of Esau’s favorite clothes to wear, simply so his father Isaac would “smell” Esau when Jacob was deceiving him.
Jacob followed suit, first lying to his father about his identity: “It’s Esau, your firstborn son” (Gen 27:19). Then, in what seems almost hard to believe, he gave God credit for helping him so quickly find the wild game to feed his father. Commentators have noted that Jacob called God “your God”—referring to the fact that He was the God of Isaac, but not yet claiming God as his God. Some have even suggested that perhaps Jacob could not in the same breath claim to follow God and tell a lie, though that conclusion is debated. Either way, he lied to cover up other lies—and that’s just what happens when we embark on telling untruths. Deceit quickly breeds more deceit.
The better solution? Simply tell the truth.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you a person of truth? Have you ever attributed to God what you know you manipulated a situation to get?
PRAYER: “God, make me a person who lives and speaks truth today.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Genesis 28:6-30:24
