(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 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; Icannot 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, but free men and free women.Accordingly, when the Apostolical Constitutions forbid a clergyman to marry perpetual servants or slaves, B.VI.ch.17., it is meant only of the former sort; as we learn elsewhere from the same Constitutions, ch.47.Can.LXXXII.But concerning these twelve sons of Jacob, the reasons of their several names, and the times of their several births in the intervals here assigned, their several excellent characters, their several faults and repentance, the several accidents of their lives, with their several prophecies at their deaths, see the Testaments of these twelve patriarchs, still preserved at large in the Authent.Rec.
Part I.p.294-443.
(36) I formerly explained these mandrakes, as we, with the Septuagint, and Josephus, render the Hebrew word Dudaim, of the Syrian Maux, with Ludolphus, Antbent.Rec.Part I.p.420; but have since seen such a very probable account in M.S.of my learned friend Mr.Samuel Barker, of what we still call mandrakes, and their description by the ancient naturalists and physicians, as inclines me to think these here mentioned were really mandrakes, and no other.
(37) Perhaps this may be the proper meaning of the word Israel, by the present and the old Jerusalem analogy of the Hebrew tongue.In the mean time, it is certain that the Hellenists of the first century, in Egypt and elsewhere, interpreted Israel to be a man seeing God, as is evident from the argument fore-cited.
(38) Of this slaughter of the Shechemites by Simeon and Levi, see Authent.Rec.Part I.p.309, 418, 432-439.But why Josephus has omitted the circumcision of these Shechemites, as the occasion of their death; and of Jacob's great grief, as in the Testament of Levi, sect.5; I cannot tell.
(39) Since Benoni signifies the son of my sorrow, and Benjamin the son of days, or one born in the father's old age, Genesis 44:20, I suspect Josephus's present copies to be here imperfect, and suppose that, in correspondence to other copies, he wrote that Rachel called her son's name Benoni, but his father called him Benjamin, Genesis 35:18.As for Benjamin, as commonly explained, the son of the right hand, it makes no sense at all, and seems to be a gross modern error only.The Samaritan always writes this name truly Benjamin, which probably is here of the same signification, only with the Chaldee termination in, instead of im in the Hebrew; as we pronounce cherubin or cherubim indifferently.Accordingly, both the Testament of Benjamin, sect.
2, p.401, and Philo de Nominum Mutatione, p.1059, write the name Benjamin, but explain it not the son of the right hand, but the son of days.
