Genesis 27:11-17

27:11 “But Esau my brother is a hairy man,” Jacob protested to his mother Rebekah, “and I have smooth skin! ¹  27:12 My father may touch me! Then he’ll think I’m mocking him ²  and I’ll bring a curse on myself instead of a blessing.” 27:13 So his mother told him, “Any curse against you will fall on me, ³  my son! Just obey me! ⁴  Go and get them for me!”

27:14 So he went and got the goats ⁵  and brought them to his mother. She ⁶  prepared some tasty food, just the way his father loved it. 27:15 Then Rebekah took her older son Esau’s best clothes, which she had with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 27:16 She put the skins of the young goats ⁷  on his hands ⁸  and the smooth part of his neck. 27:17 Then she handed ⁹  the tasty food and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.

[27:11]  ¹ tn Heb “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, ‘Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man, but I am a smooth [skinned] man.’” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[27:12]  ² tn Heb “Perhaps my father will feel me and I will be in his eyes like a mocker.” The Hebrew expression “I will be in his eyes like” means “I would appear to him as.”

[27:13]  ³ tn Heb “upon me your curse.”

[27:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “only listen to my voice.”

[27:14]  ⁴ tn The words “the goats” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[27:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “his mother.” This has been replaced by the pronoun “she” in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[27:16]  ⁵ tn In the Hebrew text the object (“the skins of the young goats”) precedes the verb. The disjunctive clause draws attention to this key element in the subterfuge.

[27:16]  ⁶ tn The word “hands” probably includes the forearms here. How the skins were attached is not specified in the Hebrew text; cf. NLT “she made him a pair of gloves.”

[27:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “gave…into the hand of.”