From the same author, on #Ge 27:11, etc.
It is proper here to admire also the good will of his mother, who confessed herself willing to take upon herself the cause for his sake, in order that her son might have the honour to which the two were entitled, for she is carried away by her affection for both of them; for she had feared his father, lest she should be looked upon as imposing on him, and to be filching away the honour to which the other was entitled; and his mother, lest he should be considered by her as disobedient to her when she urged him vehemently; on which account he says, with great prudence and propriety, Will not my father curse me? and I shall be bringing a curse on myself. He had confidence because of the promise of God, which said, “The elder shall serve the younger.” But, on the other hand, he feared as a man, lest the blessing of his father, as a just man, should overturn the assertion of God.
From the same author, on #Ge 27:30.
He is not so indignant at his disappointment in not obtaining the blessings, as at the fact of his brother having been thought worthy of them; for being of an envious disposition, he regarded his want of success as more desirable than even his own advantage, and he shows this by his great and bitter lamentations, and by his subsequent exclamation, “Bless me now also, O my father.”
From the same author.
But if he obtained it by fraud, a man will be inclined to say, he was not to be praised. What then does his father say? “And he shall be blessed.” But he appears by what he here says to intimate, in an enigmatical and obscure manner, that it does not follow that every stratagem is blameable, since guardians of the night when they lie in wait for robbers, and generals when they form ambuscades for enemies whom they would not be able to subdue by open force, appear to act rightly: and what are called stratagems proceed on the same principle as the contests of wrestlers, for in these cases too tricks are accounted honourable; and those who by trickery get the better of their antagonists are thought worthy of the prize, and of the crown of victory; so that it is not a charge against a man to say, he has done a thing by trick, but it is rather a panegyric, being equivalent to saying, he has done it skilfully, for the virtuous man does not do anything unskilfully.
Page 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142