When they had grown to manhood’s estate, we are informed that “Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.” The free and easy life in the chase developed in Esau a robust appearance, and for that reason, and also “because he did eat of his venison,” Isaac loved Esau. Jacob is represented to us as of a more delicate make-up and naturally appealed more to the mother heart. “Rebekah loved Jacob.” From merely a parental standpoint, both were wrong. Even though the characteristics of these boys were wide apart, the parents should have been united in their love, and impartially discharged their duties, and let God, in his own good time, make His selection. But here, as in the lives of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah delayed the blessing God designed they should have, and brought sorrow into their own lives. It is evident that the ardent Rebekah, by her animated, energetic declarations, formed a very significant complement to Isaac, confiding more in the divine declarations as to her boys than Isaac did, and therefore better able to appreciate the deeper nature of Jacob. But when Isaac shows his preference for Esau to be the heir, the courageous woman forgets her vocation, and with artifice counsels Jacob to steal the blessing from Isaac--a transgression for which she had to atone in not seeing her favorite son after she sent him away, out of reach of his brother’s anger. She had only Esau left, and he must have made her feel that it was her partiality that had robbed him of what he prized most highly. His heathen wives had been a “grief of mind” to her. She said, in her diplomatic effort to get Jacob off to a place of safety, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob take a wife from the daughters of Heth, such as these which are the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?” Probably Esau did not mend matters by adding to his family the Ishmaeltish woman. Rebekah’s habit of managing affairs may be more common than we think. It is the fault of energetic souls. She loved Jacob with the passionate, tropical strength of her fervid heart. She would not trust God to give him what she believed he ought to receive. It is very hard for such as she to wait patiently for the Lord when His delays are developing faith.