We pass on to Isaac. Why was his old age blighted by what promised to be a fatal quarrel between his two sons? What was the cause? I think those words “savory meat such as I love” give us a clue to the answers to these questions.
Isaac was a very wealthy man. He had never “endured hardness” as his father had done. He was what we call a “soft” man. He had lapsed into the habit of luxury and self-indulgence. “Savory meat, such as I love” are words utterly unworthy of the saint of God. Like Noah, his son’s fall was largely due to his own self-indulgence.
But this was not all the trouble in Isaac’s house. How unspeakably sad to see Rebekah deliberately arranging to deceive her husband. When we remember the story of Rebekah in Gen. 24, how she left home and kindred and all she had, to cross the desert sands to become the bride of the beloved, only-begotten son, who was heir of all things: then our hearts thrilled at one who loved, with the object of that love still unseen, (but not unknown), and so she became the exquisite picture of Christ and His church. But now her love has grown cold. She and Isaac each have a favorite child, and the wife deliberately takes advantage of her husband’s blindness, to deceive him. How far all this is from the home of a man of God, as it should be. Nor may we expect the blessing of God on our homes, if husband and wife are not one. And the children are given to bind the home together, to cement those Divine bonds which make husband and wife one. These children may not become favorites, and so divide the home, without sorrow and shame to all.