Jacob the priest

When Rebekah sends her younger son to her husband, she clothes him in goat skins (Genesis 27:15-16). To this point in Genesis, the only other people to be clothed were Adam and Eve, clothed with skins as they left Eden (3:21). Rebekah stands in the place of Yahweh to “invest” her son.

In the light of later uses of this verb, we can infer that Rebekah is clothing her son as a priest. She “fills his hand” with savory food, sends him into the inner room to his father, in hopes of winning a blessing.

(The investiture theme in Genesis culminates with the robing of Joseph in 41:42. His garments are not animal skins but linen, along with a ring and a gold necklace.)

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Letters

Joshua T. Katz’s (“Pure Episcopalianism,” May 2025) reason for a theologically conservative person joining a theologically liberal…

The Revival of Patristics

Stephen O. Presley

On May 25, 1990, the renowned patristics scholar Charles Kannengiesser, S.J., delivered a lecture at the annual…

The Enduring Legacy of the Spanish Mystics

Itxu Díaz

Last autumn, I spent a few days at my family’s coastal country house in northwestern Spain. The…