Genesis 27:36 Daily Devotional & Meaning – Hast Thou Not Reserved a Blessing for Me?
- Benjamin Michael Mcgreevy
- Jul 2
- 8 min read
Daily Verses Everyday! Day 147
“And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?”
This verse shows Esau trying to make sense of the devastation that has just fallen on him. He has come to his father expecting blessing, honor, inheritance, and affirmation, only to discover that Jacob has already received what he thought was his. The cry of verse 34 now becomes an accusation in verse 36. Esau turns his grief toward Jacob and says, “Is not he rightly named Jacob?” In other words, Esau is saying, “His name fits him. He really is Jacob. He really is a supplanter. He really is a deceiver. He really is one who grabs what belongs to another.”
The name Jacob is connected to the idea of taking by the heel, supplanting, or overtaking another. This connection goes all the way back to Jacob’s birth. Genesis 25:26 says that Jacob came out holding Esau’s heel. From the very beginning, Jacob’s life was marked by struggle, grasping, and conflict. Even in the womb, Jacob and Esau struggled together. Now Esau looks back over their history and says, in effect, “This is who he has always been. He grabbed my heel at birth, he took my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing.”
There is something deeply tragic about Esau’s words because they are partly true and partly self-deceiving. Jacob really did deceive. Jacob really did come with subtilty. Jacob really did pretend to be Esau. Jacob really did take advantage of Isaac’s blindness. Jacob really did receive the blessing through a lie. Esau is not wrong to feel wounded by Jacob’s sin. He has been betrayed by his own brother, and that betrayal has torn through the family like a blade.
But Esau’s accusation is not the whole story. He says, “He took away my birthright.” Yet Genesis 25 shows that Esau sold his birthright. Jacob took advantage of Esau, but Esau also despised what was holy. Esau traded his birthright for bread and pottage of lentils. He treated the covenant privilege as though it were worthless in the moment of his hunger. So when Esau says Jacob “took away” his birthright, he is leaving out his own responsibility. He remembers Jacob’s manipulation, but he does not fully acknowledge his own disregard.
This is often how grief and regret work in the human heart. When the consequences of our choices finally arrive, we can become very clear about what others did wrong while becoming very cloudy about what we did wrong. Esau can see Jacob’s sin clearly. He can name it. He can describe it. He can feel the pain of it. But he struggles to admit that he himself had already treated the birthright as something cheap.
That does not excuse Jacob. It simply shows that this family tragedy is not the fault of one person only. Isaac was trying to bless Esau against the revealed direction of God. Rebekah plotted deception to secure what God had already promised. Jacob obeyed the scheme and lied repeatedly to his father. Esau had already despised the birthright and married in ways that brought grief to his parents. This was not one crack in the wall. The whole house was full of fractures.
Esau then says, “And, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing.” This is the wound that is fresh. The birthright may have happened earlier, but the blessing has just been taken. Esau went out hunting in obedience to his father’s request. He prepared the savoury meat. He came in expecting to receive the words of blessing. But by the time he arrived, the door had already closed. Jacob had entered before him. Jacob had worn his clothes. Jacob had covered himself with goat skins. Jacob had spoken his name. Jacob had received his kiss. Jacob had heard the blessing. Jacob had walked away with what Esau expected to receive.
The pain here is not just about inheritance. It is about identity. Esau is not simply asking, “What property is left for me?” He is asking, “Is there anything left for me as a son?” That is why his final question is so heartbreaking: “Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?” Esau is begging for something. He is asking his father whether there is any blessing left, any word left, any hope left, any place left for him.
This question reveals the deep human longing to be blessed. Every person wants to know that they are seen, loved, valued, and not forgotten. Esau is a strong hunter, a man of the field, a rugged man, but in this moment he is not strong. He is a son begging his father for a blessing. The strength of his arms cannot help him now. His skill with the bow cannot help him now. His ability to hunt cannot help him now. He is standing before his aging father with a broken heart, asking if there is anything left.
This is one of the painful lessons of sin: sin often leaves people fighting over what God intended to give in peace. God had already spoken before Jacob and Esau were born. The elder would serve the younger. The promise would continue through Jacob. But instead of trusting God’s word, this family tried to force, resist, manipulate, and control the outcome. Isaac tried to give the blessing to Esau. Rebekah tried to secure it by deception. Jacob tried to obtain it by lying. Esau tried to regain what he had already despised. Everyone is grasping, and everyone is grieving.
Jacob’s deception did not create God’s plan, and Esau’s loss did not overthrow God’s sovereignty. God’s purpose still stood. But the way Jacob received the blessing brought unnecessary sorrow into the family. This is important. The fact that God can accomplish His will through broken situations does not mean the brokenness was good. God can bring His purposes to pass even through human sin, but the sin still wounds, still divides, still grieves, and still leaves scars.
A helpful way to understand this is to picture a man who has been promised a house by a trustworthy father. The father has already signed the papers. The house will be his. But instead of waiting for the father to give it to him, the son breaks into the house at night, smashes a window, lies to the neighbors, steals the key, and then says, “See, the house is mine.” Yes, the house may have been promised to him, but the way he took possession caused damage that never needed to happen. That is what Jacob did. The blessing was connected to God’s promise, but Jacob grabbed for it through deception instead of waiting for God to establish him in righteousness.
Esau’s pain also warns us about delayed regret. When Esau sold his birthright, he did not seem broken over it. He ate, drank, rose up, and went his way. Genesis 25:34 says, “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” At that moment, he treated it lightly. But now, when the blessing is gone, he weeps bitterly. The tragedy is that he wants the benefits of what he once despised. He wants the blessing connected to the birthright, but earlier he did not treasure the birthright itself.
This happens spiritually as well. A person may neglect the things of God for years, treating worship, obedience, repentance, Scripture, prayer, and covenant faithfulness as small things. Then, when consequences arrive, they grieve the loss of peace, stability, blessing, and direction. The grief may be real, but the warning is serious: do not wait until the harvest to care about the seed. Do not wait until something is gone to realize it was precious. Do not despise holy things in a moment of appetite and then expect there to be no sorrow afterward.
Yet this verse should not make us look at Esau with coldness. His cry is still painful. His loss is still real. His question, “Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?” is the cry of someone who feels shut out. There is a deep sadness in watching someone awaken too late to the weight of what has happened. Esau is responsible for despising his birthright, but he is also genuinely wounded by Jacob’s deception. Scripture is honest enough to show both.
This verse also forces us to consider the damage caused by deceit within a family. Jacob’s lie did not simply affect a transaction. It broke trust. It humiliated Esau. It shook Isaac. It placed Rebekah in a position of future sorrow. It sent Jacob down a path that would eventually lead him away from home. Deception may seem useful in the moment, but it often costs far more than expected. A lie may open a door quickly, but it can also close years of peace behind it.
Sin is never as private as we pretend. Jacob lied with his voice, but the whole family felt the consequences. Rebekah planned in secret, but the family would suffer openly. Isaac favored Esau, but the household would fracture. Esau despised his birthright, but later he would weep over the blessing. The sins of one person became the sorrow of many.
Still, even in this painful verse, we can see why the story of Jacob matters so much. Jacob is not chosen because he is morally superior. He is not chosen because he is naturally noble, honest, or faithful. At this point in the story, Jacob is a deceiver. He is a man who grasps, schemes, and hides behind disguise. And yet God will not leave Jacob as he is. The same Jacob who deceives his father will later be humbled. The same Jacob who grasps for blessing will later wrestle with God. The same Jacob whose name is associated with supplanting will later be renamed Israel.
That is grace. God does not choose perfect people because there are no perfect people. God takes sinners and transforms them. Jacob’s story is not the celebration of deception. It is the story of God’s mercy working through a deeply flawed man until the deceiver is changed by the God he cannot manipulate.
Genesis 27:36 therefore shows the bitterness of sin, the pain of regret, the destructiveness of deception, and the longing for blessing. Esau asks if anything has been reserved for him. That question echoes the ache of the human heart apart from God: “Is there any blessing left for me?” And the answer of the gospel is that in Christ, there is mercy for sinners who come in repentance and faith.
Jacob stole a blessing by pretending to be the beloved son. But the gospel shows us something greater: believers receive blessing because they are united to the true Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We do not have to come disguised in animal skins, pretending to be someone else. We come clothed in Christ. We do not receive blessing because we fooled the Father. We receive blessing because the Son willingly gave Himself for us.
This verse should humble us. It should make us hate deception. It should make us treasure spiritual inheritance. It should make us take responsibility for our own choices. It should make us careful not to despise what God calls holy. And it should make us grateful that, though human families are often marked by favoritism, rivalry, sin, and sorrow, God is still able to carry His promise forward.
Esau’s question was, “Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?” For those who are in Christ, the answer is yes. There is blessing, not because we deserve it, not because we can seize it, and not because we can manipulate our way into it, but because God has provided it through His Son. Human blessing can be stolen, lost, twisted, or fought over. But the blessing found in Christ is secure, gracious, and freely given to all who come to Him by faith.
If you would like to explore Genesis in a sustained, verse-by-verse way with space to reflect, journal, and trace how these foundational truths unfold through Scripture the Verse by Verse book expands these reflections into a unified reading experience. The book gathers these meditations into a structured journey through Genesis, designed to help readers linger in the text and engage God’s Word more deeply over time.
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