Gen 27:46; Gen 28:1-9

So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.” Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth. (Genesis 28:1-9)

God’s wooing never ceases while there’s the least chance of winning. Isaac’s blessing— in the very language used—was a reminder to scheming Jacob that only through God’s blessing could he be blest or succeed. His cunning bargaining would fail. Its results wouldn’t be worthwhile when the final reckoning was made. They would only embitter his last years. He goes stupidly on scheming and bargaining, depending on himself alone, but the wooing goes on, too, and finally wins.

“The Bent Knee Time” Samuel D. Gordon