4.

[29] It seems both here, and in God's parallel blessing to Jacob, ch.
19. sect. 1, that Josephus had yet no notion of the hidden meaning of
that most important and most eminent promise, "In thy seed shall all
the families of the earth be blessed. He saith not, and of seeds, as of
many, but as of one; and to thy seed, which is Christ," Galatians 3:16.
Nor is it any wonder, he being, I think, as yet not a Christian. And had
he been a Christian, yet since he was, to be sure, till the latter part
of his life, no more than an Ebionite Christian, who, above all the
apostles, rejected and despised St. Paul, it would be no great wonder if
he did not now follow his interpretation. In the mean time, we have in
effect St. Paul's exposition in the Testament of Reuben, sect. 6, in
Authent. Rec. Part I. p. 302, who charges his sons "to worship the seed
of Judah, who should die for them in visible and invisible wars; and
should be among them an eternal king." Nor is that observation of a
learned foreigner of my acquaintance to be despised, who takes notice,
that as seeds in the plural, must signify posterity, so seed in the
singular may signify either posterity, or a single person; and that
in this promise of all nations being happy in the seed of Abraham, or
Isaac, or Jacob, etc., it is always used in the singular. To which I
shall add, that it is sometimes, as it were, paraphrased by the son of
Abraham, the son of David, etc., which is capable of no such ambiguity.

[30] The birth of Jacob and Esau is here said to be after Abraham's
death: it should have been after Sarah's death. The order of the
narration in Genesis, not always exactly according to the order of time,
seems to have led Josephus into this error, as Dr. Bernard observes
here.

[31] For Seir in Josephus, the coherence requires that we read Esau or
Seir, which signify the same thing.

[32] The supper of savory meat, as we call it, Genesis 27:4, to be
caught by hunting, was intended plainly for a festival or a sacrifice;
and upon the prayers that were frequent at sacrifices, Isaac expected,
as was then usual in such eminent cases, that a divine impulse would
come upon him, in order to the blessing of his son there present, and
his foretelling his future behavior and fortune. Whence it must be,
that when Isaac had unwittingly blessed Jacob, and was afterwards
made sensible of his mistake, yet did he not attempt to alter it, how
earnestly soever his affection for