Esau might incline him to wish it
might be altered, because he knew that this blessing came not from
himself, but from God, and that an alteration was out of his power. A
second afflatus then came upon him, and enabled him to foretell Esau's
future behavior and foretell Esau's future behavior and fortune also.

[33] Whether Jacob or his mother Rebeka were most blameable in this
imposition upon Isaac in his old age, I cannot determine. However the
blessing being delivered as a prediction of future events, by a Divine
impulse, and foretelling things to befall to the posterity of Jacob and
Esau in future ages, was for certain providential; and according to
what Rebeka knew to be the purpose of God, when he answered her inquiry,
"before the children were born," Genesis 25:23, "that one people should
be stronger than the other people; and the elder, Esau, should serve
the younger, Jacob." Whether Isaac knew or remembered this old oracle,
delivered in our copies only to Rebeka; or whether, if he knew and
remembered it, he did not endeavor to alter the Divine determination,
out of his fondness for his elder and worser son Esau, to the damage of
his younger and better son Jacob, as Josephus elsewhere supposes, Antiq.
B. II. ch. 7. sect. 3; I cannot certainly say. If so, this might tempt
Rebeka to contrive, and Jacob to put this imposition upon him. However,
Josephus says here, that it was Isaac, and not Rebeka, who inquired of
God at first, and received the forementioned oracle, sect. 1; which, if
it be the true reading, renders Isaac's procedure more inexcusable. Nor
was it probably any thing else that so much encouraged Esau formerly to
marry two Canaanitish wives, without his parents' consent, as Isaac's
unhappy fondness for him.

[34] By this "deprivation of the kingdom that was to be given Esau
of God," as the first-born, it appears that Josephus thought that a
"kingdom to be derived from God" was due to him whom Isaac should bless
as his first-born, which I take to be that kingdom which was expected
under the Messiah, who therefore was to be born of his posterity whom
Isaac should so bless. Jacob therefore by obtaining this blessing of the
first-born, became the genuine heir of that kingdom, in opposition to
Esau.

[35] Here we have the difference between slaves for life and servants,
such as we now hire for a time agreed upon on both sides, and dismiss
again after he time contracted for is over, which are no slaves, bu