A Story of the Five Senses? - Part 1

The old man’s eyesight had steadily worsened, and now the curtains had completely fallen on his vision. He was blind and bent over by old age.

Realising that the end would not be far away, Isaac felt the urgent need to bless his beloved son. This was not only his duty as a father but also his desire, for he loved Esau and favoured him more than Esau’s younger twin brother, Jacob (Genesis 27). Esau was simpler and preferred the rugged life of a hunter. He was an earthy sort of man – the kind of heir Isaac wanted.

Isaac asked Esau to prepare a delicious meal for him. He planned to shower Esau with his patriarchal blessing after the meal. But Jacob (favoured by his mother), plotted to deceive his father in order to grab the blessing that was meant for Esau. Jacob prepared the meal with his mother’s assistance and brought the food to Isaac.

This story is also about Isaac’s five senses. His eyesight was gone, but his other four senses were still intact and functioning.

Firstly, Isaac used his sense of hearing by engaging Jacob in conversation. Although he was used to hearing his sons speak, Isaac began to doubt whether this was really Esau’s voice, and not Jacob’s.

So he tried to verify his suspicions. He invited Jacob to come closer so that he could touch the man’s hands which he knew were hairy. However, he did not realise that his crafty wife and younger son had conspired to deceive him by covering Jacob’s hands and neck with goatskin. Isaac felt the hairy hands for himself. His sense of touch assured him that it was Esau, but his ears were still not convinced.Again he asked if it was indeed Esau, and Jacob blatantly lied to him.

When Isaac tasted the food set before him, he was more certain that it was Esau who was standing near him. To be doubly sure, he kissed his son and smelled Esau’s clothes that Jacob was wearing, and so Isaac became convinced that it was indeed his beloved elder son.

In a vote of the five senses, the sense of sight had been disqualified, but three others (touch, smell and taste) joined together to vote in the affirmative that the son who was standing before his father for the special blessing was in fact Esau.

The lone dissenting voice was the sense of hearing. But in the face of the majority vote, what Isaac heard was discarded, and he sadly made a serious error in his judgement.

Discussion Questions:

Do you agree that the biblical religion is the religion of the ear, as opposed to the religion of the eye? Discuss the example of Moses and Aaron mentioned in this chapter. Why do you think God forbids idolatry, and what modern forms of idolatry are rampant in the world and in the church?