Smelling Good by Martin Wiles
The smell took me back. Not long ago, while visiting the local grocery store for some
Prior to Isaac’s death, when the time came for him to give
items, I walked to the pharmacy department. Sure enough,
his final blessing to his firstborn, he told Esau to kill some
there they sat on the shelf as I remembered — three bars of
wild game, prepare it, and bring it to him. He would eat it
Ivory soap. I picked them up and ran them beneath my nose.
and bless him. But Jacob, the younger brother and a trickster,
The smell took me back, back to a time when I was a young
dressed as his brother, prepared the game, and took it to his
boy taking baths instead of showers.
father. Blindness initially confused Isaac, but the smell of
It took me back to the time when I stayed with my
the outdoors convinced him Jacob was Esau.
grandparents. I would run the bathwater, jump in, wet the
I love campfires, but one thing I don’t care for is the smell of
washrag, and look for the bar of soap. Ivory soap, of course.
smoke that clings so pervasively.
Not only was it the cleanest smelling, but it also had a very useful feature. It floated. Finding other bars of soap proved difficult. I remember running my hand beneath my body and around the bottom of the tub. But not if it was Ivory. Since it floated, I could easily find it. And when I finished my bath—no matter how dirty I had been when I started—I smelled clean.
It was not so with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar gave the three Hebrew men another chance to fall down and worship his statue—after they disobeyed the first time—then he had the furnace heated seven times hotter and tossed the disobeyers in. But he didn’t watch them disintegrate. Instead, he saw a fourth Man in the fire with them, and he saw them all walking
It's amazing what smells can do. For Isaac, it identified his
around. When he called for the three to come out, they
son—or so he thought. So Jacob went over and kissed him.
did—and without the smell of smoke or a singed hair on
"And when Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he was finally
their bodies. (Daniel 3:27 NLT).
convinced, and he blessed his son" (Genesis 27:27 NLT).
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