Genesis 27:29

Let people serve thee - "However alike their temporal advantages were to each other," says Bp. Newton, "in all spiritual gifts and graces the younger brother was to have the superiority, was to be the happy instrument of conveying the blessing to all nations: In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed; and to this are to be referred, in their full force, those expressions: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee. Cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. The same promise was made to Abraham in the name of God: I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, Gen 12:3; and it is here repeated to Jacob, and thus paraphrased in the Jerusalem Targum: 'He who curseth thee shall be cursed as Balaam the son of Beor; and he who blesseth thee shall be blessed as Moses the prophet, the lawgiver of Israel.' It appears that Jacob was, on the whole, a man of more religion, and believed the Divine promises more, than Esau. The posterity of Jacob likewise preserved the true religion, and the worship of one God, while the Edomites were sunk in idolatry; and of the seed of Jacob was born at last the Savior of the world. This was the peculiar privilege and advantage of Jacob, to be the happy instrument of conveying these blessings to all nations. This was his greatest superiority over Esau; and in this sense St. Paul understood and applied the prophecy: The elder shall serve the younger, Rom 9:12. The Christ, the Savior of the world, was to be born of some one family; and Jacob's was preferred to Esau's, out of the good pleasure of Almighty God, who is certainly the best judge of fitness and expedience, and has undoubted right to dispense his favors as he shall see proper; for he says to Moses,…

Let people serve thee--fulfilled in the discomfiture of the hostile tribes that opposed the Israelites in the wilderness; and in the pre-eminence and power they attained after their national establishment in the promised land. This blessing was not realized to Jacob, but to his descendants; and the temporal blessings promised were but a shadow of those spiritual ones, which formed the grand distinction of Jacob's posterity.

Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee,.... Which was literally true in the times of Joshua and the judges, when the Canaanites were conquered and subdued, and those that remained became tributary to the Israelites; and still more so in the times of David, a son of Jacob, in the line of Judah, when the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites, and Edomites, became subject to him, his servants and tributaries; and yet more so in the times of the Messiah that was to spring from Jacob, and did, to whom many nations have been already subject, and all will in the latter day, Psa 72:11. And this passage is applied to the Messiah, and his times, by the Jews, in an ancient book (y) of theirs, at least said to be so. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it of the children of Esau or the Edomites, and of the children of Keturah; and that of Jerusalem, of the children of Esau, and of Ishmael: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee; these seem rather to be the children of Esau, Jacob's brother, and his mother's sons; the Targum of Jerusalem interprets the latter of the sons of Laban, his mother's brother, the Arabians and Syrians; which will be more fully accomplished when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, Rev 11:15; who will then appear to be King of kings, and Lord of lords, Rev 17:14, even the King of the whole earth: cursed be everyone that curseth thee; it signifies, that those who were the enemies of Jacob, or would be the enemies of the church and people of God, his spiritual Israel, and of the Messiah, would be reckoned the enemies of God, and treated as such: and blessed be he that blesseth thee; and that those that were his friends, and the friends of the people of God, and heart…

In this chapter we return to the typical story of the struggle between Esau and Jacob. Esau had profanely sold the birthright to Jacob; but Esau hopes he shall be never the poorer, nor Jacob the richer, for that bargain, while he preserves his interest in his father's affections, and so secures the blessing. Here therefore we find how he was justly punished for his contempt of the birthright (of which he foolishly deprived himself) with the loss of the blessing, of which Jacob fraudulently deprives him. Thus this story is explained, Heb 12:16, Heb 12:17, "Because he sold the birthright, when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected." For those that make light of the name and profession of religion, and throw them away for a trifle, thereby forfeit the powers and privileges of it. We have here, I. Isaac's purpose to entail the blessing upon Esau (Gen 27:1-5). II. Rebekah's plot to procure it for Jacob (Gen 27:6-17). III. Jacob's successful management of the plot, and his obtaining the blessing (Gen 27:18-29). IV. Esau's resentment of this, in which, 1. His great importunity with his father to obtain a blessing (Gen 27:30-40). 2. His great enmity to his brother for defrauding him of the first blessing (Gen 27:41, etc.).