Anosmia. If you work in the medical profession or just have trivial facts floating in your mind, you will know what this word means. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it or read of it until I was doing some studying to find an illustration for today’s devotional. This is National Anosmia Day, established in 2012 by Daniel Schein.
On his website, www.anosmiaawareness.org, Daniel writes, “Growing up with anosmia, I never knew anyone else with the disorder and it was just something I accepted and lived with. But I soon learned that there were many people all over the world in the same situation and different groups doing important research. I started Anosmia Awareness as a way to bring together everyone interested in anosmia, encourage research and spread awareness.”
People who have had COVID may have had a bout of temporary anosmia. Anosmia is the loss of the ability to smell.
At first, we might think of all the positives to this condition. Those working in recycling and refuse wouldn’t have to smell garbage. School custodians wouldn’t have to smell the bathrooms they clean or the vomit-filled trash cans (sorry for the image!). Going down the road, you wouldn’t have to smell the skunk that just sprayed. New parents wouldn’t have to smell the dirty diapers. We can see a lot of plusses, can’t we?
There are more negatives than positives, though, to losing your smell. Anosmics miss out on the wonderful smells of food cooking and bread baking. Without smell, their taste is affected, making all foods bland and boring. The smell of flowers in the
spring, fresh cut grass and hay, the turned soil in the spring, and the smell of rain is missing. Smells also serve to provide warnings. Without being able to smell smoke or other noxious fumes would be detrimental to a firefighter.
The anosmic’s nose doesn’t know what it is missing!
Isaac didn’t have any problem smelling. His problem was his eyesight. While the smell was right, he couldn’t confirm it with his eyes. Before looking at the verse, let’s get a bit of the story.
Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob had already gotten Esau to give up his birthright. Now, Jacob is trying to get his elderly father’s end-of-life blessing, a blessing that should have gone to Esau.
To accomplish this, Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, schemes a plan to deceive her husband, a decrepit old man with eyesight that has dimmed. She made his favorite meal, venison stew (they used goat meat instead) that Isaac loved. Then, she clothed Jacob in the skins of the goat so that he would feel hairy like his brother. Deceptively, Jacob presents himself to his dad with the stew as if he were Esau.
Though Isaac couldn’t see, he wasn’t deaf. The voice was the voice of Jacob even though Jacob introduced himself as Esau. The food was good, but Isaac wasn’t convinced. In Genesis 27:26-27, we read, “And his father Isaac said unto him, Come 
near now, and kiss me, my son. (27) And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed.”
Isaac blessed Esau, thinking it was Jacob. Once the blessing was bestowed, Jacob quickly left. Soon afterward, the real Esau shows up. Isaac is distraught and Esau is crushed and angry that the blessing has been given to Jacob. Long before the phrase “elder abuse” came into our vocabulary, Isaac experienced it. He has been deceived by his wife and son. It would take years before the rift between Jacob and Esau was mended and before the Lord could get ahold of Jacob’s heart.
It makes you wonder – if Isaac would have had anosmia, how might this story have turned out differently? Just something to think about as you go about your day.
