Dear Catholic Exchange,
When Jacob blessed his sons, who received the “blessing” and who received the “birthright”? Can you support your answer from Scripture, please? Thank you.
Mrs. Ertyl
Dear Mrs. Ertyl,
Peace in Christ!
It seems pretty clear from Genesis 27:36 that Jacob received both the “birthright” and the “blessing.” Perhaps your question is really getting at what the difference between the two is.
The Hebrew word for “birthright” is becorah and belongs by custom to the firstborn male who opens the womb. The becorah legally entitles the first born to a double portion of the father’s inheritance (see Deut. 21:17). The Hebrew word is itself related to the verb for “bear new fruit.” Since Esau was the firstborn the “birthright” was legally his. Unfortunately, he proved that he despised the becorah by selling it to his younger brother for a mess of pottage (cf. Gen. 25:29-34).
The blessing or beracah includes within it the notion of the birthright but also more generally a prophetic wish from father to son of long life, fertility, prosperity. Sometimes the beracah was actually a litany of curses and hardship for ill-favored children. Usually the blessing would serve as a last will and testament and was given to the children by the father near his death. The firstborn would receive his blessing first and would usually receive the best blessing. Then other lesser blessings might follow. A good text to see this is Genesis 49:33 when Jacob prophetically blesses all his sons near his death. Something similar happens in Genesis 27: 27-29 when Isaac blesses Jacob and then blesses his older son Esau in Genesis 27:39-40. The point of the whole story is that the firstborn has been passed over and so has forfeited both the birthright and the blessing that might have been his. St. Paul sees in this an allegory for Israel, who is God’s firstborn (Ex. 4:22), who in rejecting her Messiah, rejected her firstborn status and saw her blessings go to the “younger” Gentile nation (see Romans 9-11).
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