Gallery

Jacob went to his father and said “Father.” And Isaac said, “Yes, which of my sons are you?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your first-born; I have done as you told me. Pray sit up and eat of my game, that you may give me your innermost blessing.” … Isaac said to Jacob, “Come closer that I may feel you, my son—whether you are really my son Esau or not.” So Jacob drew close to his father Isaac, who felt him and wondered, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, yet the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; and so he blessed him.

Genesis 27:18–23

In the Bible, Jacob leaves Isaac’s presence as soon as he has received his father’s blessing. But in this 1998 oil painting, the second in a series of three, the Israeli-born artist Niv Mor (b. 1973) imagines a tense meeting between father and son as they realize what each has done. “The impact of their actions has just set in, and they are forced to deal with their feelings,” Mor says.

The elderly Isaac sits quietly in a stiff wooden chair, resting his head on his hand, while a tall, thin, flannel-shirted Jacob leans over the radiator as he gazes out the window. Disconsolate, they cannot even look at each other.