iah should come.
He was his mother's favorite boy, while Isaac clung to Esau.

When the fond father became weak and blind from age, feeling that death
was near, one day he called Esau, and told him as he might die suddenly,
to get him venison, and prepare for the solemn occasion of receiving his
parting blessing, which should secure the privileges and pre-eminence of
the first-born. The hunter went into the fields, and Rebekah recollected
that Jacob had purchased the birthright of his brother for a mess of
pottage one day when he came in from the chase faint with hunger and
exhaustion. She determined by a stroke of management to secure the
patriarchal benediction. She sent him to the flocks after two kids,
which were prepared with the savory delicacy his father loved, dressed
him up in Esau's apparel, covering his hands and neck to imitate the
hairiness of the rightful heir, and sent him to the beside of the dying
Isaac. When the patriarch inquired who he was, he replied, "I am Esau,
thy first-born." This was beyond belief, because even the skillful
hunter could scarcely, without a miracle, so soon bring in the game, and
dress it for his table. Jacob was called to his side, and he felt of his
hands; the disguise completed the delusion, although his voice had the
milder tone of the young shepherd to that father's ear. He repeated the
interrogation concerning his name, then embracing him, pronounced in a
strain of true poetry, the perpetual blessing of Jehovah's favor upon
his undertakings, and his posterity. The stratagem had succeeded, and
Jacob hastened to inform his mother of the victory, just as Esau
entered. When Isaac discovered the mistake, he trembled with excitement,
while his son cried in anguish, "Bless even me also, O my father!" That
cry pierced the breaking heart of the aged man, but it was a fruitless
lament, He was inflexible, and Esau wept aloud over his blasted hopes;
plotting at the same time, in his awakened enmity, the murder of Jacob.

This scene of deception, disappointment, and providential working, the
introductory picture brings vividly before us.

The patriarchs were generally shepherds, and when we read in the Bible
of shepherds, we have but a poor impression of their business, if we
think only of the keeping of the small flocks kept in the fenced fields
and yards of modern farmers. They made their wealth chiefly by feeding
immense flocks and herds. They had extensive open plains; and were
o