The Sin of Isaac

Genesis chapter 27 has been the object of misinterpretation amongst fundamentalists for years. Jacob is seen as a deceiver and in the wrong. My question is, why do supposedly God-honoring fundamentalists honor Esau's accusations over what God has said?

Genesis 25:21 - 28 gives us an account of Esau's and Jacob's birth and character. First off, we find Jacob and Esau wrestling with each other in the womb. Already God has set apart Jacob before Rebekah conceives the children. We know this from the text, in verse 23. The fact that this was God's choosing whom would be blessed before conception is further confirmed by Paul in Romans 9:10-13:

And not only this, but when Rebekah also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger. As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” NKJV

Further more, we read in Genesis 25:27 “Jacob was a mild man.” This contains a rather serious mistranslation. The word translated as 'mild' is the hebrew word תּם (transliterated as tawm) which really means 'just' or 'perfect'. It is the same word used to describe Noah as being righteous in Genesis 6:9, and Job being blameless in Job 1:1. Jacob was not a mild man, but a perfect, blameless, righteous man, and this is said of him very early on.

But what do we read about Isaac after this? In verse 28, “And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.” Sound familiar? This is a recapitulation of the fall of man. Why does Isaac favor Esau? Because he was upright? No, because of the food. Same reason Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. With the mistranslation of Jacob being a mild man, you get the impression that the reason Isaac loved Esau more was because he was a man's man. A man of the woods, who hunts. While Jacob is a bit of a mamma's boy dwelling in tents. But that is not what the text is telling us at all. Isaac loved Esau for the wrong reasons. Isaac was not driven by righteousness, but by his stomach, we are swuppose to get that. Isaac is clearly at fault here, and at least temporarily, has sided with the serpent against whom God had promised the blessing.

Isaac's sin does not stop here, because Isaac intends to give Esau the blessing he received from his father Abraham. What Isaac should have learned by now, from his father, is that the blessing is not his to give to whomever he pleases. Abraham pleaded with God that Ishmael may live before Him, although God granted Abraham's wish, he was not to be the seed God had promised Adam in Genesis chapter 3. There is nothing magical about God's promises and blessings. He renders them to whom He pleases. And these things should never be rendered to God's enemies. Esau had become an enemy of God, he intermarried with the Caananites, he despised his birth right, God hated him (Malachi 1, Romans 9).

That would mean that Rebekah's rouse to get Jacob the blessing was an attempt to deceive the serpent (at this point in time, Isaac!) and get the blessing to the righteous. I think there is good reason here to think that Rebekah really wanted Isaac to repent, which he does do, and then gives Jacob the proper blessing before sending him off to his brother-in-law, Laban (Gen 28:1-4).