Discovery BoxGenesis 27:11-17 
Context27:11 “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.
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.
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.”
3 tn Heb “upon me your curse.”
4 tn Heb “only listen to my voice.”
5 tn The words “the goats” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “his mother.” This has been replaced by the pronoun “she” in the translation for stylistic reasons.
7 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.
8 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.”
9 tn Heb “gave…into the hand of.”
