Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised [his] birthright.
34. lentils ] The pottage here described is made of a small reddish kind of bean much in use for food in Palestine, Arab. ‘adas. Cf. 2Sa 17:28; 2Sa 23:11; Eze 4:9. It makes the reddish pottage now called in Palestine mujedderah, a very popular dish.
so Esau despised his birthright ] These words summarize the narrative. Esau’s character is portrayed as that of a careless, shallow man, living from hand to mouth, and paying no regard to things of higher or spiritual significance. It is this trait which is referred to in Heb 12:16, “or profane person as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright.” The advantage of the birthright may have been indefinite. But, as we may judge not only from the story in ch. 27, but also from that of Gen 38:28-30 and Gen 48:13-19 (cf. Deu 21:15-17), the privilege of the birthright was accounted sacred in the social life of the early Israelite. The Lat. paraphrases the sense of the last clause, parvi pendens quod primogenita vendidisset.
The birthright was Esau’s by God’s gift, not by his own merit. Hence it symbolized eternal blessing. Esau’s repudiation of the unseen and intangible, for the sake of immediate self-gratification, is the symbol of a large proportion of human sin and thoughtlessness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 34. Pottage of lentiles] See Clarke on Ge 25:29.
Thus Esau despised his birthright.] On this account the apostle, Heb 12:16, calls Esau a profane person, because he had, by this act, alienated from himself and family those spiritual offices connected with the rights of primogeniture. While we condemn Esau for this bad action, (for he should rather have perished than have alienated this right,) and while we consider it as a proof that his mind was little affected with Divine or spiritual things, what shall we say of his most unnatural brother Jacob, who refused to let him have a morsel of food to preserve him from death, unless he gave him up his birthright? Surely he who bought it, in such circumstances, was as bad as he who sold it. Thus Jacob verified his right to the name of supplanter, a name which in its first imposition appears to have had no other object in view than the circumstance of his catching his brother by the heel; but all his subsequent conduct proved that it was truly descriptive of the qualities of his mind, as his whole life, till the time his name was changed, (and then he had a change of nature,) was a tissue of cunning and deception, the principles of which had been very early instilled into him by a mother whose regard for truth and righteousness appears to have been very superficial. See on Ge 27:6-27
THE death of Abraham, recorded in this chapter, naturally calls to mind the virtues and excellences of this extraordinary man. His obedience to the call of God, and faith in his promises, stand supereminent. No wonders, signs, or miraculous displays of the great and terrible God, as Israel required in Egypt, were used or were necessary to cause Abraham to believe and obey. He left his own land, not knowing where he was going, or for what purpose God had called him to remove. Exposed to various hardships, in danger of losing his life, and of witnessing the violation of his wife, he still obeyed and went on; courageous, humane, and disinterested, he cheerfully risked his life for the welfare of others; and, contented with having rescued the captives and avenged the oppressed, he refused to accept even the spoils he had taken from the enemy whom his skill and valour had vanquished. At the same time he considers the excellency of the power to be of God, and acknowledges this by giving to him the tenth of those spoils of which he would reserve nothing for his private use. His obedience to God, in offering up his son Isaac, we have already seen and admired; together with the generosity of his temper, and that respectful decency of conduct towards superiors and inferiors for which he was so peculiarly remarkable; see on Ge 23:3-7, See Clarke on Ge 23:17. Without disputing with his Maker, or doubting in his heart, he credited every thing that God had spoken; hence he always walked in a plain way. The authority of God was always sufficient for Abraham; he did not weary himself to find reasons for any line of conduct which he knew God had prescribed; it was his duty to obey; the success and the event he left with God. His obedience was as prompt as it was complete. As soon as he hears the voice of God, he girds himself to his work! Not a moment is lost! How rare is such conduct! But should not we do likewise? The present moment and its duties are ours; every past moment was once present; every future will be present; and, while we are thinking on the subject, the present is past, for life is made up of the past and the present. Are our past moments the cause of deep regret and humiliation? Then let us use the present so as not to increase this lamentable cause of our distresses. In other words, let us now believe-love-obey. Regardless of all consequences, let us, like Abraham, follow the directions of God’s word, and the openings of his providence, and leave all events to Him who doth all things well.
See to what a state of moral excellence the grace of God can exalt a character, when there is simple, implicit faith, and prompt obedience! Abraham walked before God, and Abraham was perfect. Perhaps no human being ever exhibited a fairer, fuller portrait of the perfect man than Abraham. The more I consider the character of this most amiable patriarch, the more I think the saying of Calmet justifiable: “In the life of Abraham,” says he, “we find an epitome of the whole law of nature, of the written law, and of the Gospel of Christ. He has manifested in his own person those virtues, for which reason and philosophy could scarcely find out names, when striving to sketch the character of their sophist – wise or perfect man. St. Ambrose very properly observes that ‘philosophy itself could not equal, in its descriptions and wishes, what was exemplified by this great man in the whole of his conduct.’ Magnus plane vir, quem votis suis philosophia non potuit aequare; denique minus est quod illa finxit quam quod ille gessit. The LAW which God gave to Moses, and in which he has proposed the great duties of the law of nature, seems to be a copy of the life of Abraham. This patriarch, without being under the law, has performed the most essential duties it requires; and as to the GOSPEL, its grand object was that on which he had fixed his eye – that JESUS whose day he rejoiced to see; and as to its spirit and design, they were wondrously exemplified in that faith which was imputed to him for righteousness, receiving that grace which conformed his whole heart and life to the will of his Maker, and enabled him to persevere unto death. ‘Abraham,’ says the writer of Ecclesiasticus, 44:20, c., ‘was a great father of many people: in glory was there none like unto him, who kept the law of the Most high, and was in covenant with him. He established the covenant in his flesh, and when he was tried he was found faithful.'” See Calmet.
As a son, as a husband, as a father, as a neighbour, as a sovereign, and above all as a man of God, he stands unrivalled so that under the most exalted and perfect of all dispensations, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he is proposed and recommended as the model and pattern according to which the faith, obedience, and perseverance of the followers of the Messiah are to be formed. Reader, while you admire the man, do not forget the God that made him so great, so good, and so useful. Even Abraham had nothing but what he had received; from the free unmerited mercy of God proceeded all his excellences; but he was a worker together with God, and therefore did not receive the grace of God in vain. Go thou, believe, love, obey, and persevere in like manner.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Secure and impenitent, without any remorse for his ingratitude to God, or the injury which he had done to himself and to all his posterity,
he went his way, despising his birthright, preferring the present and momentary satisfaction of his lust and appetite before Gods and his fathers blessing, and all the glorious privileges of the birthright.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles,…. This shows what the pottage was made of, of which see Ge 25:30; and that Jacob gave to Esau more than he asked and bargained for, bread as well as pottage; but neither of them until the bargain was made and swore to, and be had got the birthright secured unto him; as cunning as Esau, and as simple and plain as Jacob were, the latter outwitted the former, and was too crafty for him:
and he did eat, and drink, and rose up, and went his way; following his former course of life, without any remorse of conscience, reflection of mind, or repentance for what he had done; for though he afterwards carefully sought the blessing with tears he had parted with, yet not until his father was upon his deathbed, Heb 12:17;
thus Esau despised [his] birthright; by setting it at so mean a price, and by not repenting of it when he had so done; having no regard especially to spiritual blessings, to the Messiah, and to the heavenly inheritance, eternal glory and happiness by Christ: the Jerusalem Targum adds,
“and he despised his part in the world to come, and denied the resurrection of the dead;”
and the Targum of Jonathan on Ge 25:29 says, that
“on that day he committed five transgressions; he performed strange worship (or committed idolatry), he shed innocent blood, he lay with a virgin betrothed, he denied the life of the world to come (or a future state), and despised the birthright;”
which confirms the character the apostle gives of him, that he was a fornicator and a profane person, Heb 12:16.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
34. Then Jacob gave. Although, at first sight, this statement seems to be cold and superfluous, it is nevertheless of great weight. For, in the first place, Moses commends the piety of holy Jacob, who in aspiring to a heavenly life, was able to bridle the appetite for food. Certainly he was not a log of wood; in preparing the food for the satisfying of his hunger, he would the more sharpen his appetite. Wherefore he must of necessity do violence to himself in order to bear his hunger. But he would never have been able in this manner to subdue his flesh, unless a spiritual desire of a better life had flourished within him. On the other side, the remarkable indifference of his brother Esau is emphatically described in few words, he did eat and drink, and rose up and went his way. For what reason are these four things stated? Truly, that we may know what is declared immediately after, that he accounted the incomparable benefit of which he was deprived as nothing. The complaint of the Lacedemonian captive is celebrated by the historians. The army, which had long sustained a siege, surrendered to the enemy for want of water. After they had drunk out of the river, O comrades, (he exclaimed,) for what a little pleasure have we lost an incomparable good! He, miserable man, having quenched his thirst, returned to his senses, and mourned over his lost liberty. But Esau having satisfied his appetite, did not consider that he had sacrificed a blessing far more valuable than a hundred lives, to purchase a repast which would be ended in half an hour. Thus are all profane persons accustomed to act: alienated from the celestial life, they do not perceive that they have lost anything, till God thunders upon them out of heaven. As long as they enjoy their carnal wishes, they cast the anger of God behind them; and hence it happens that they go stupidly forward to their own destruction. Wherefore let us learn, if, at any time, we, being deceived by the allurements of the world, swerve from the right way, quickly to rouse ourselves from our slumber.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(34) He did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way.These words graphically describe Esaus complete indifference to the spiritual privileges of which he had denuded himself. There is no regret, no sad feeling that he had prolonged his life at too high a cost. And if Jacob is cunning, and mean in the advantage he took of his brother, still he valued these privileges, and in the sequel he had his reward and his punishment. He was confirmed in the possession of the birthright, and became the progenitor of the chosen race, and of the Messiah; but henceforward his life was full of danger and difficulty. He had to flee from his brothers enmity, and was perpetually the victim of fraud and the most cruel deceit. But gradually his character ripened for good. He ceased to be a scheming, worldly-minded Jacob, and became an Israel, and in his pious old age we see a man full of trust and faith in God, unworldly and unselfish, and animated by tender and loving feeling. Purified from his early infirmities, and with all his better nature strengthened and sanctified by sorrow, he shows himself worthy of his second name, and becomes a prince with God.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
34. Esau despised his birthright “In these graphic touches the sacred writer paints the ‘profane’ Esau’s unfitness for the spiritual headship of the chosen people, yet with equal faithfulness depicts the craft and selfishness of the ‘supplanter,’ who afterwards became the ‘warrior of God’ (Israel.)” Newhall.
In these growing divergences of character, here manifest in the two brothers, Lange observes what he calls “the Hebraic, or profoundest conception of history. All history develops itself from personal beginnings. The personal is predominant in history.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised [his] birthright.
Ver. 34. He did eat and drink, and rose up, &c. ] Hac verborum congeri, impoenitentia Esaui deseribitur. a Away he went, without showing the least remorse or regret for what he had done. Lysimachus soon repented him for parting with his crown for a draught of cold water, in his extreme thirst. b Wine is a prohibited ware among Turks; which makes some drink with scruple, others with danger. The baser sort, when taken drunk, are often caned on the soles of their bare feet. And I have seen some, saith mine author, c after a fit of drunkenness, lie a whole night, crying and praying to Mohammed for intercession, that I could not sleep near them; so strong is conscience, even where the foundation is but imaginary, to the shame of many profligate professors – cauterised Christians.
a Piscator.
b O dii, quam brevis voluptatis gratia ex rege me feci servum!
c Blount’s Voyage, p. 105.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Genesis
A BAD BARGAIN
POTTAGE VERSUS BIRTHRIGHT
Gen 25:34
Broad lessons unmistakable, but points strange and difficult to throw oneself back to so different a set of ideas. So
I. Deal with the narrative.
a Birthright.-What?
None of them any notion of sacred, spiritual aspect of it.
To all, merely material advantages: headship of the clan. All the loftier aspects gone from Isaac, who thought he could give it for venison, from Esau, and from the scheming Rebekah and the crafty Jacob.
b The Bargain.
It is not clear whether the transaction was seriously meant, or whether it only shows Jacob’s wish to possess the birthright and Esau’s indifference to it.
At any rate, the barter was not supposed to complete Jacob’s title, as is shown by a subsequent piece of trickery.
Isaac’s blessing was conceived to confer it; that blessing, if once given, could not be revoked, even if procured by fraud and given in error.
The belief would fulfil itself, as far as the chieftainship was concerned.
It is significant of the purely ‘secular’ tone of all the parties concerned that only temporal blessings are included in Isaac’s words.
c The Scripture judgment on all parties concerned.
Great mistakes are made by forgetting that the Bible is a passionless narrator of its heroes’ acts, and seldom pauses to censure or praise-so people have thought that Scripture gave its vote for Jacob as against Esau.
The character of the two men.
Esau-frank, impulsive, generous, chivalrous, careless, and sensuous.
Jacob-meditative, reflective, pastoral, timid, crafty, selfish. Each has the defects of his qualities.
But the subsequent history of Jacob shows what heaven thought of him.
This dirty transaction marred his life, sent him a terrified exile from Isaac’s tent, and shook his soul long years after with guilty apprehensions when he had to meet Esau.
All subsequent career to beat his crafty selfishness out of him and to lift him to higher level.
II. Broad General Lessons.
a The Present versus The Future.
Suppose it true that to both brothers the birthright seemed to secure merely material advantage, yet even so the better part would have been to sacrifice material present for material future. Even on plane of worldly things, to live for to-morrow ennobles a man, and he is the higher style of man who ‘spurns delights and lives laborious days’ for some issue to be realised in the far future.
The very same principle extended leads to the conviction that the highest wisdom is his who lives for the furthest, which is also the most certain, Future.
b The Seen versus The Unseen.
However material the advantages of the birthright were supposed to be, they then appealed to imagination, not sense. There was the pottage in the pan: ‘I can see that and smell it. This birthright, can I eat it ? Let me get the solid realities, and let who will have the imaginary.’
So the unseen good things, such as intellectual culture, fair reputation, and the like, are better than the gross satisfactions that can be handled, or tasted, or seen.
And, on the very same principle, high above the seeker after these-as high as he is above the drunkard-is the Christian, whose life is shaped by the loftiest Unseen, even ‘Him who is invisible.’
2. The grim absurdity of the choice.
The story seems to have a certain undertone of sarcasm, and a keen perception of the immense stupidity of the man.
Pottage and a full belly to-day-that was all he got for such a sacrifice.
‘This their way is their folly.’
3. How well the bargain worked at first, and what came of it at last.
No doubt Esau had his meal, and, no doubt, when a man sells his soul to the devil the mediaeval form of the story, he generally gets the price for which he bargained, more or less, and oftentimes with a dash of vinegar in the porridge, which makes it less palatable.
What comes of it at last. Put side by side the pictures of Esau’s animal contentment at the moment when he had eaten up his mess, and of his despair when he wailed, ‘Hast thou not one blessing?’
He finds out his mistake. A sense of the preciousness of the despised thing wakes in him.
And it is too late. There are irrevocable consequences of every false choice. Youth is gone: cannot alter that. Opportunities gone: cannot alter that. Strength gone: cannot alter that. Habits formed, associations, reputation, position, character, are all determined.
But there is a blessed contrast between Esau’s experience and what may be ours. The desire to have the birthright is sure to bring it to us. No matter how late the desire is of springing, nor how long and insultingly we have suppressed it, we never go to our Father in vain with the cry, ‘Bless me, even me also.’
‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
and. Figure of speech Polysyndeton. Four “ands” marking the deliberateness of Esau’s acts, and their solemn significance. He despised grace. See App-10.
despised. Hence in Heb 12:16 he is called “a profane person”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The Bartered Birthright
And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: so Esau despised his birthright.Gen 25:34.
In view of the popular misapprehension of the story of Esau and Jacob, and the lessons which that story contains, it is desirable, before approaching the study of it, to draw attention to two things.
1. The writers purpose.The sacred narrator comments only on the heedlessness with which Esau, for the sake of satisfying an immediate appetite, barters away what would otherwise have been an inalienable right: the modern reader is more impressed by the avarice and selfishness shown by Jacob in taking such a mean advantage of his brothers need. But in truth neither Esau nor Jacob can be called an ideal character. Esau is frank, straight-forward, generous, but without depth of character or farsightedness of aim: he is governed by the impulses and desires of the moment; a profane person (Heb 12:16), i.e. unspiritual, a man without love or appreciation of worthier possessions, and heedless of what he is throwing away. Jacob is selfish, scheming, and clutches at every advantage; but he looks beyond the immediate moment; he has ambition and perseverance. Jacobs character is thus a deeper one (in both a good and a bad sense) than Esaus; it contains sound and genuine elements, which, when purified from purely personal and selfish aims, are capable of consecration to the service of God and of being made subservient to carrying out His purposes. No doubt, if history told us more about the Edomites, we should find their national characteristics reflected in Esau, as those of Israel are reflected in Jacob.
2. The effect of that purpose.It is the worst side of both brothers that we see. Were this all that we knew of them, we might be justified in saying that Jacobs was the worse sin. But we cannot fail to perceive both from this and from their after-history that there was in Jacob a constancy, a determination, a perseverance, which Esau had not; and that, while Esau never looked beyond the present, Jacob had his eye always fixed upon the future. Jacobs faults, of course, cannot for a moment be excused. On the contrary, they were faults deserving the strongest condemnation, and in their own time they brought upon him the severest punishment and shame. Yet even thus early Jacob had become convinced that a great future was in store for him. He saw and appreciated the blessings which belonged to the birthright, and was determined to do all in his power to gain possession of them. But Esau despised his birthright. His one concern was with the pleasures of the moment. He could not raise his thoughts above the excitement of hunting, or the gratification of his bodily desires. About the future he did not trouble himself. The present was enough for him.
I
The Birthright
A crisis arrives in the lives of these two young men which reveals the thoughts of their hearts. Esau comes in hungry from hunting, so hungry that he cannot wait till food is prepared for him. Jacob has a savoury mess of lentil pottage in his hands. Esau greedily clamours for ityou can still hear his greed in his words, Give me of that red, that red there; and Jacob seizes the opportunity of making a shrewd bargain with him: Give me, first of all, thy birthright. Esau replies, What good shall this birthright do me? Probably neither of them knew what good it would do. But Jacob is glad of any chance of securing it. Somehow, in the remote future, it may be of use to him; it may help him to the superior place assigned him by the Divine promise; it can hardly fail to yield him some advantage over his brother. And so, though he too is hungry, he balks his appetite to secure a future indefinite good.
1. The first-born enjoyed the birthright. He succeeded his father as head of the family, and took the largest share of the property; this was fixed in Deu 21:17 as a double portion. The right of the first-born, however, was often disturbed, owing to jealousies and quarrels, in the course of Israels history. The superiority of Jacob over Esau (symbolizing the superiority of Israel over Edom) is described as having been foretold before their birth (Gen 25:23), and as brought about by Esaus voluntary surrender of the birthright.
John Bunyan, the inspired dreamer, has told us that he used to hear voices in his hours of temptation whispering to him, Sell Christ, sell Christ, sell Him for a pin, sell Him for a pin. Of course it was not a pin that tempted him; it was something much bigger and more attractive. Possibly it was money, or some enticing form of pleasure; maybe a companion, a woman, the entreaties of his wife, the imperilled happiness of his children, or escape from persecution and suffering in times when it was not easy to be a Christian. It was a big thing, but his conscience measured it properly; it was only a pin compared with the love and saving power of Christ.1 [Note: J. G. Greenhough.]
2. Esau, in virtue of being a few minutes older than Jacob, was Isaacs natural heir. He had the rights of primogeniture, and believed that no man could wrest them from him. If ever he parted with them, it could only be by an act of his own free will. Esaus birthright, moreover, meant more than an ordinary first-born sons privilege. He was in a unique position, which afforded him brilliant prospects and golden opportunities. He was born to an inheritance which all the worlds wealth would not buy. To be in the patriarchal succession with Abraham and Isaac, to be the recipient of great and precious promises, to be the founder of a holy nation, to be the minister of a covenant by which all the families of the earth were to be blessedthis was within his reach. But Esau despised the birthright. If he had been a religious man, if he had been in the least like his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, he would have treasured up this promise as they did, and would have thought it more valuable than all his earthly possessions. But how different was his behaviour from theirs. He sold his birthright unto Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and went his way. Well may the holy writer go on to say, Thus Esau despised his birthright. He could not hold it more cheaply than to part with it, wilfully and knowingly, for a dish of broth.
In Romola, in the picture of the crisis of Titos lifeTito, you remember, the genial nature which was gradually led to crime by daily indulgence in little selfishnessesGeorge Eliot says: He hardly knew how the wordsTito had just denied his father, and the denial was useless as well as criminalhe hardly knew how the words had come to his lips: there are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation. So it happened with Esau.1 [Note: G. A. Smith.]
3. The lost birthright is the one thing that is irretrievable. Esau could never regain it, though he sought it with many tears, though in after life he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, when he found that it could not be recovered. In the history, the Will of God was against Esaus having back his birthright. The will of the dissembling mother was against it. The better and the worst parts of his brothers nature were against it. And so it is always. Neither good men nor bad men consent that a forfeited birthright should be restored. There is not one thing in favour of restoration; nothing at least but the weak wish of decrepit Isaac and the passionate desire of Esau, to have back for nothing, as a gift, that which had once been his by right. He had said, Where was the good of Knowledge as Knowledge? What was the good of Religion as Religion? And neither God nor Man attempted to demonstrate to him the truth of what he had known by instinct, but what he hid his eyes from seeing.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, It might have been.
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: It might have been!2 [Note: J. G. Whittier, Maud Muller.]
There is a very true sense in which what we lose, whether by misuse or by neglect, we cannot regain. How was it with Esau? We cannot forget those verses in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, often misunderstood, have given unnecessary pain to many, but which, nevertheless, convey a very clear and decided warning: looking diligently lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears (Heb 12:15; Heb 12:17). We must not supposeit would be contrary to the teaching of all Scripturethat what Esau sought and could not find was repentance. Repentance is always possible, ever open, to those who seek it aright. The words for he found no place of repentance should rather, as in the Revised Version, be placed in a parenthesis, and then we see that it after sought refers not to repentance, but to the blessing, which, by his careless despising of the birthright, Esau had forfeited. He could not regain lost opportunities. He could not, even with those bitter tears of his, wipe out wholly the effects of past sin. He must abide by the consequences of his folly. And so always. Wasted time, misused opportunities, are gone, never to return. The boy, who at school idles away his time, learns too late, as a man, that he cannot make up for the precious hours of youth misspent. The poor slave to intemperance finds, even when most eager to cast the snare from him, that not all his efforts can bring back the fresh innocence and manly energy he had before he fell. It is one of the most awful consequences of sin that, even when the sin itself is repented of, its effects remain, dogging a mans footsteps, seemingly utterly unable to be wholly cast off. As the poet Longfellow puts it
Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache,
The reddening scars remain, and make
Confession;
Lost innocence returns no more;
We are not what we were before
Transgression.1 [Note: G. Milligan.]
II
Jacob and Esau
The story of Esau and Jacob suggests a problem which many have found it hard to solve. Our instincts and sympathies all go with the frank daring hunter, and against the timid crafty shepherd. Gods sympathies go, or seem to go, the other way; He prefers the subtle shepherd to the bold hunter. That is to say, the Divine Ruler of men appears to place Himself on the side of cowardice, dissimulation, treachery; and to oppose Himself to manliness, veracity, courage. And even if we are quite sure that He must be right, we can hardly make out where and how we are wrong: we cannot vindicate His ways to these two boys and men. The question will rise: Must not morality suffer, must not our faith in goodness be put in jeopardy, if He who is the very Fountain of truth and righteousness favours the man whom in our conscience we condemn, and condemns the man whom in our conscience we approve?
I know at least one man of some culture and distinction, a perfectly sane and reasonable man, too, in all other respects, who in his earlier days was so disgusted by this apparent Divine preference for the meaner character of the two that he broke with religion altogether, and has never since been quite reconciled to it.1 [Note: Samuel Cox.]
1. Now the first thing to notice is that even in his selfishness and meanness, Jacob showed his sense of the superior value of things unseen and distant, and his willingness to make a sacrifice to secure them. He sinned; but so did Esau sin in casting away the birthright for a momentary gratification. He sinned; but he sinned, not for a sensual indulgence, but for what he conceived to be a future, and in some sense a spiritual, gainthe main value of the birthright being that it made a man an heir of the Covenant. This, indeed, is the point which we have to mark and to remember above all others, since our whole problem turns upon it, that, even in his wrong-doing, Jacob showed that he could prefer the future to the present, the spiritual to the sensual; while Esau showed no less plainly that he was content to sacrifice the future to certain sensual indulgence, a large remote hope to a small immediate gratification. For here we have a true test of character, a test by which we are accustomed to try our fellows; and a test which compels us to admit, whatever our prejudices may be, that in at least one great vital respect Jacob was by far the better man of the two.
This is the power of all appeal to passion, that it is present, with us now, to be had at once. It is clamant, imperious, insistent, demanding to be satiated with what is actually present. It has no use for a far-off good. It wants immediate profit. This is temptation, alluring to the eye, whispering in the ear, plucking by the elbow, offering satisfaction now. Here and nownot hereafter; this thing, that red pottage therenot an ethereal unsubstantial thing like a birthright. What is the good of it if we die? and we are like to die if we do not get this gratification the senses demand. In the infatuation of appetite all else seems small in comparison; the birthright is a poor thing compared with the red pottage.1 [Note: Hugh Black.]
2. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we are told expressly why Esau was punished: it was for being a profane person. Take heed, it says, lest there be among you any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright (Heb 12:16). Profaneness: that was Esaus sin. What is it that we properly mean by profaneness? It is when people know in their hearts that a thing is holy, and ought to be treated with religious reverence, and yet they treat it as a cheap and ordinary thing. It is different from the sin of Sodom, and in one respect perhaps it is worse: as our Lord Himself seems to intimate, when He says to wicked Capernaum, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment, than for you. The sin of Sodom was unbelief: they knew not God, and would not believe what He told them by His messengers. Esau could not say he knew not God. He had been brought up in Isaacs family, which was blessed as Abrahams had been. So far then he was worse than the Sodomites, as he had been better instructed and brought up, and knew more of Him against whom he was sinning.
The profane person is ever the same at heart, but he varies outwardly according to the time and country he lives in. John Earle, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in his Micro-Cosmo-graphie (editio princeps, 1628) gives a description of the prophane man of his day: A prophane man is one that denies God as farre as the Law giues him leaue, that is, onely does not say so in downeright Termes, for so farre he may goe. A man that does the greatest sinnes calmely, and as the ordinary actions of life, and as calmely discourses of it againe. Hee will tell you his businesse is to breake such a Commandement, and the breaking of the Commandement shall tempt him to it. His words are but so many vomitings cast vp to the lothsomnesse of the hearers, onely those of his company loath it not. He will take vpon him with oathes to pelt some tenderer man out of his company, and makes good sport at his conquest ore the Puritan foole. The Scripture supplies him for iests, and hee reades it of purpose to be thus merry. He will prooue you his sin out of the Bible, and then aske if you will not take that Authority. He neuer sees the Church but of purpose to sleepe in it: or when some silly man preaches with whom he means to make sport, and is most iocund in the Church. One that nick-names Clergymen with all the termes of reproach, as Rat, Black-coate, and the like which he will be sure to keepe vp, and neuer calls them by other. That sing[s] Psalmes when he is drunke, and cryes God mercy in mockerie; for hee must doe it. Hee is one seemes to dare God in all his actions, but indeed would out-dare the opinion of him, which would else turne him desperate: for Atheisme is the refuge of such sinners, whose repentance would bee onely to hang themselues.
3. What did Jacob gain by this offence? Not the fulfilment of the Divine promise; for that would have been fulfilled, had he never sinned. What he gained by his sin wasmisery, shame, fear, remorse. As the direct and immediate consequence of his sin, he had to leave his fathers tent. Without Esaus courage, he had to face perils before which even Esau might have quailed. He, who was destined to rule, had to serve. The cheat was cheated year after yearby Laban, by his wives, by his children. He had to present himself, a suppliant for life, before the brother he had wronged. He had to witness his daughters irremediable shame. He was made to stink in the nostrils of his neighbours by the craft and ferocity of his sons. His own children repaid on Joseph, his darling, the very wrongs which he himself had inflicted on Esau. As we recall all that he suffered in the course of his long pilgrimage, we no longer wonder to hear him say at the close of it, Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life.
Wellhausen says: The stories about Jacob do not pretend to be moral. The feeling they betray is indeed that of undissembled joy in all the successful tricks of the patriarchal rogue. Now, if ever there was a false statement, that is false. If you wish to test the matter, read a book written about the time this Book of Genesis was committed to writing, the Odyssey of Homer. There we have in Ulysses, a Jacob, an arch-dissembler and accomplished trickster. Like Jacob, he too is a good husband, and his meeting with his son Telemachus after the separation of many years recalls vividly the reunion of Jacob and Joseph. But there the likeness ends. For the story of the lies and tricks of Ulysses is told with gusto. The note of retribution is wholly lacking. Homers Jacob is a comic figure; but the note of tragedy goes sounding through the Hebrew story. Jacobs tricks and deceits serve him like faithful minions, for the moment, but the moment after, they mutiny. Their numbers swell. They become a troop. They lie in wait for him. They chase him from home. They follow him to his new home. They appear at his marriage. They change the wine into wormwood. As the pages of the story follow each other, we hear the gallop of the avengers, we catch the whoop of their war-cry, God is not mocked. The soul that sinneth it shall die.
It is strange, says Miss Wedgwood, that the judgment on Jacobs perfidy is so constantly forgotten. No professedly moral tale could delineate a more exact requital than that meted out to him. A cup of cold water given to a brother in a brothers name shall not lose its reward; nor shall a mess of pottage, sold to a brother at a price he cannot choose but pay, evade the payment of that tax which law levies on selfishness. Dust shall be the serpents meat.
That person who does an atom of good will see it and find its reward; and that person who does an atom of evil will see it and find its reward.1 [Note: The Koran.]
4. Yet when we take the two brothers from first to last, how entirely is the judgment of the Book of Genesis and the judgment of posterity confirmed by the result of the whole. The impulsive hunter vanishes away, light as air: he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright. The substance, the strength of the Chosen Family, the true inheritance of the promise of Abraham, was interwoven with the very essence of the character of the upright man dwelling in tents (Gen 25:27). The word translated plain implies a stronger approbation, which the English version has softened, probably from a sense of the difficultysteady, persevering, moving onward with deliberate settled purpose, through years of suffering and of prosperity, of exile and return, of bereavement and recovery. The birthright is always before him. Rachel is won from Laban by hard service, and the seven years seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her. Isaac, and Rebekah, and Rebekahs nurse, are remembered with a faithful, filial remembrance; Joseph and Benjamin are long and passionately loved with a more than parental affectionbringing down his grey hairs for their sakes in sorrow to the grave. This is no character to be contemned or scoffed at: if it was encompassed with much infirmity, yet its very complexity demands our reverent attention; in it are bound up, as his double name expresses, not one man, but two; by toil and struggle, Jacob, the Supplanter, is gradually transformed into Israel, the Prince of God; the harsher and baser features are softened and purified away; he looks back over his long career with the fulness of experience and humility. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the Truth which Thou hast shown unto Thy servant. Alone of the Patriarchal family, his end is recorded as invested with the solemnity of warning and of prophetic song. Gather yourselves together, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. We need not fear to acknowledge that the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac was also the God of Jacob.
To compare the characters of Jacob and Esau in a sentence is difficult, but the contrast is instantly apparent. Let me use an illustration. You have seen a morning of pure and perfect radiance, passing at noon into a black turbulence of wind or tempest, or a haze of dull and heavy gloom. This is a transcript of the life of Esau. You have also seen the troubled day breaking through thick mists, and you have watched, with almost eager interest, the sun battling his way through heavy masses of clouds, shining feebly at first in faint victory, but at last going down in full and peaceful glory. Such is the life of Jacob.1 [Note: W. J. Dawson, The Threshold of Manhood, 124.]
I give you the end of a golden string
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heavens gate
Built in Jerusalems wall.2 [Note: William Blake.]
5. Three warnings may be given here to the young man of today.
(1) Do not sacrifice your spiritual interests to the appetites of the flesh.Such fallen creatures are we, it happens every day that the interests of the soul and the desires of the body are in conflict. Your carnal nature, the animal in you, prompts you to that against which conscience protests, and from which the soul recoils. The flesh pulls you one way, the spirit another.
The morsel may have been sweet; but what a price Esau paid for it! It is easy for us, as we read the story, to cry Fool!but this very folly is being committed every day. It is as old as our fallen humanity. For the sake of a piece of fruit, our first parents sacrificed their whole inheritance, brought death into this world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden. One look back upon Sodom, and Lots wife becomes a pillar of salt! Achan covets a Babylonish garment, and a wedge of gold, and forfeits his life in consequence. For the sake of a womans caresses Samson loses his hair, his strength, his sight, his all. David, for the sake of Bathsheba, loses a years communion with God, and hands his name down with an ugly blot upon it to all posterity. Ahab, coveting a pretty garden, commits murder, and brings down Heavens judgments on his head. Judas, for a few shillings, betrays his Master.1 [Note: J. Thain Davidson.]
(2) Do not sacrifice the future for the present.This is just putting the same thing in a different form. Esau saw before him the possibility of an immediate enjoyment; his future interests were distant, and vague, and shadowy. Ah, he said, let the future take care of itself; I must have the dainty morsel while I can get it.
Some time ago a ship went down, having struck a hidden reef. Fortunately there was time enough to get the passengers and crew into the boats, which safely held off from the foundering vessel. Just before the last boat started, the captain and mate, having seen that all were safe, stood upon the gangway ready to leave the ship. She was fast sinkingno time to be lost. The mate said to the captain, I have left my purse below; let me go and get it. Man, replied the other, you have no time for that; jump at once. Just a moment, captainI can easily get it; and away the mate rushed below. But in that moment the ship went creeping down. I hear the gurgling flood! The captain has barely time to save himself, when, swirling in the awful vortex, the vessel disappears! By and by the body of the mate was found, and in his stiffened hand was tightly grasped the fatal purse. When the purse was opened, what do you think it contained? Eighteenpence! And for that paltry sum he risked and lost his life.1 [Note: J. Thain Davidson.]
(3) Do not sacrifice the warmth of faith for the coldness of scepticism.You are advocates of what is known by a much-abused word, free-thought. You have been reading or hearing specious arguments against Christianity; and you begin to talk of the vital truths of religion as only so many exploded superstitions. You are enjoying the luxury of absolute independence of thought, and for that morsel of meat you are selling the birthright of the Christian faith that has been handed down to you from a godly ancestry.
In my university days there was no man for whom I entertained a profounder admiration than Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh. He was then a man under forty years of age, and destined, I am convinced, had his life been spared, to stand in the very foremost ranks of the scientists of this age. His mind, unlike his body, was of a peculiarly healthy order; he was a worshipper of truth, and an ardent student of nature. In a letter to a well-known and Christian man of science in London, bearing date January 1859, Dr. Wilson wrote (I give you his words at length, for they are very striking): I rejoice to hear of your success with the young men. God bless you in your work! It is worth all other work, and far beyond all Greek or Roman fame, all literary or scientific triumphs; and yet it is quite compatible with both. Douglas Jerrolds life is most sad to read. In many respects it gave me a far higher estimate of him morally than I had before. But what a pagan outlook! What a heathen view of this world and the next! He might as well have been born in the days of Socrates or Seneca as in these days, for any good Christs coming apparently did him. There is something unspeakably sad in his life, and it was better than that of many a littrateur. The ferocity of attack on cant and hypocrisy, the girding at religion, which they cannot leave alone; above all, the dreary, meagre, cheerless, formal faith, and the dim and doubtful prospect for the future, are features in that littrateur life most saddening and disheartening. And the men of science, are they better? God forbid that I should slander my brethren in study, men above me in intellect, in capacity, and accomplishment. But recently I have come across four of the younger chemists, excellent fellows, of admirable promise and no small performance. I was compelled to enter into some religious conversation with them, and found them creedless, having no I believe for themselves: standing in that maddest of all attitudesnamely, with finger pointed to this religious body and that religious body, expatiating upon their faults, as if at the Day of Judgment it would avail them anything, that the Baptists were bigoted, and the Quakers self-righteous!1 [Note: J. Thain Davidson.]
Literature
Benson (E. W.), Boy-Life, 190.
Cox (S.), The Hebrew Twins, 2.
Greenhough (J. G.), Half-Hours in Gods Older Picture Gallery, 23.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year (Lent to Passion-Tide), 104.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Genesis.
Miller (J. R.), Devotional Hours with the Bible, 136.
Moorhouse (J.), Jacob, 3.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, ii. 348.
Stanley (A. P.), History of the Jewish Church, i. 46.
Strachan (J.), Hebrew Ideals, pt. ii. 13.
Christian World Pulpit, ii. 88 (Brown); xxxvi. 116 (Medley); lxv. 378 (Horne).
Men of the Old Testament (Cain to David), 57 (Milligan); 71 (Gibbon).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
eat: Ecc 8:15, Isa 22:13, 1Co 15:32
thus Esau: Psa 106:24, Zec 11:13, Mat 22:5, Mat 26:15, Luk 14:18-20, Act 13:41, Phi 3:18, Phi 3:19, Heb 12:16, Heb 12:17
Reciprocal: Gen 25:30 – with that same red pottage Gen 27:36 – he took Num 14:31 – the land Deu 21:17 – by giving
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE DESPISED BIRTHRIGHT
Thus Esau despised his birthright.
Gen 25:34
I. Esau was full of healthy vigour and the spirit of adventure, exulting in field sports, active, muscular, with the rough aspect and the bounding pulse of the free desert. Jacob was a harmless shepherd, pensive and tranquil, dwelling by the hearth and caring only for quiet occupations. Strength and speed and courage and endurance are blessings not lightly to be despised; but he who confines his ideal to them, as Esau did, chooses a low ideal, and one which can bring a man but little peace at the last. Esau reaches but half the blessing of a man, and that the meaner and temporal half; the other half seems seldom or never to have entered his thoughts.
II. So side by side the boys grew up; and the next memorable scene of their history shows us that the great peril of animal lifethe peril lest it should forget God altogether and merge into mere uncontrolled, intemperate sensualityhad happened to Esau! For the mess of pottage the sensual hunter sells in one moment the prophecy of the far future and the blessing of a thousand years. Esaus epitaph is the epitaph of a lifetime recording for ever the consummated carelessness of a moment. Esau, a profane person, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. Jacob, with all the contemptible faults which lay on the surface of his character, had deep within his soul the faith in the unseen, the sense of dependence on and love to God which Esau did not even comprehend. (1) Cultivate the whole of the nature which God has given you, and in doing so remember that the mind is of more moment than the body, and the soul than both. (2) Beware lest, in a moment of weakness and folly, you sell your birthright and barter your happy innocence for torment and fear and shame.
Dean Farrar.
Illustration
(1) Irving in his Life of Christopher Columbus, tells us that the Indians encountered on the first voyage were easily overreached by the discoverers. They would trade their curious ornaments of gold for glass beads and hawks bells. On one occasion an Indian gave half a handful of gold dust for a toy, and no sooner was he in possession of it than he bounded away to the woods, looking often behind him, fearing lest the Spaniards might repent of having parted with such an inestimable treasure. We smile at their ignorant foolishness, but we are reminded of Lowells words:
At the devils booth all things are sold
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay.
Bubbles we buy with a whole souls tasking;
Tis heaven alone that is given away,
Tis only God may be had for the asking.
(2) Here is the story of Eden over again; lust of the eye. And here by anticipation is the story of the Temptation in the wilderness, when Jesus conquered by resisting the lust of the flesh, whereas by yielding to it Eve and Esau fell. It was an unfair hour in which to bargain, and Jacob was unspeakably mean for taking advantage of his brothers weakness and exhaustion. But if Esau had accustomed himself to remember that the birthright was a religious as well as a secular distinction, if he had not been a profane man he would have died sooner than forfeit what was really dearer than life itself.
The lesson is needed yet. All temptations to worldliness resolve themselves into solicitations to sell our birthright.
(3) There is no pursuit, however innocent, to which we may not devote ourselves in an inordinate measure. Business, politics, study, these are all lawful, and no man can be condemned for engaging in them. But if they are prosecuted in a way which engrosses the heart and mind, and leads to an utter forgetfulness of other duties and interests, Nature will assert its rights. The physical and moral being will deteriorate, and sacrifices of higher things will be made, not less sad and extraordinary than those which were made by Esau.
SECOND OUTLINE
In forfeiting his birthright to his younger brother, Esau gave up (1) the right of priesthood inherent in the eldest line of the patriarchs family; (2) the promise of the inheritance of the Holy Land; (3) the promise that in his race and of his blood Messiah should be born. Esau parted with all because, as he said in the rough, unreflective commonplace strain which marks persons of his character even now, and which they mistake for common sense, he did not see the good of it all. What good shall this birthright do me?
I. In matters of knowledge we find men despising their birthright.Knowledge is power; but as the maxim is used now, it is utterly vulgarising. Knowledge not loved for itself is not loved at all. It may bring power, but it brings neither peace nor elevation to the man who has won it. If we cultivate knowledge for the sake of worldly advantage, what are we doing but bidding farewell to all that is lasting or spiritual in knowledge and wisdom, and taking in exchange for it a daily meal?
II. Again, as citizens, men despise their birthright.If, when it is given them to choose their rulers, they deliberately set aside thinkers; if they laugh at and despise the corrupt motives which affect the choice of rulers, and yet take no serious steps to render corrupt motives impotentthen there is a real denial and abnegation of citizens to act on the highest grounds of citizenship.
III. We are in daily danger of selling our birthright in religion.Esaus birthright was a poor shadow to ours. Esau had priesthood; we are called to be priests of a yet higher order. Esau had earthly promises; so have we. Esau had the promise of Messiah; we have the knowledge of Messiah Himself.
IV. The lost birthright is the one thing that is irretrievable.Neither good nor bad men consent that a forfeited birthright should be restored.
Archbishop Benson.
Illustration
(1) The birthright was not a larger portion of Isaacs worldly inheritance, but entirely a spiritual thing, of no value to an unspiritual manof none to Esau until he lost it, when his pride was wounded by being deprived of a something which until then he despised. Jacobs fraud is punished by a long absence, and meeting with such a father-in-law; and he got no worldly advantage by the birthright, for Esau was the more prosperous man.
(2) The man who has been born from above, is an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. We may come of a humble and unknown stock, so far as human descent is concerned, but if we have been adopted into the family of God we come of high descent indeed, before which the claims of the oldest and proudest families of this world pale into insignificance. The serious question is: What good does our birthright do us?
It was meant to draw us each into the most intimate relations with God. The Almighty would become treasure and precious silver to us: we should delight in Him; lift up our faces to Him; make up our prayer to Him and be heard: decree things to find them established; be indifferent to mens efforts to overthrow us, and bring succour to the oppressed (Job 22:25; Job 22:30, r.v.). But do we avail ourselves of these privileges? Are we not all inclined to barter them away for the opportunity of gratifying the flesh? It is in the proportion in which we can say No to our lower nature that we can realise and enjoy our privileges in Christ Jesus.
(3) Jacob could not have got Esaus birthright if Esau had not sold it to him. The Devil never captured any man until he first found a traitor inside the walls. Every one of us can feel safe against all external evil, so long as there is no evil within. Esau is safe from Jacob so long as he is safe from Esau. We shall never make any bad bargains unless we make them.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Gen 25:34. He did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way Without any serious reflections upon the ill bargain he had made, or any show of regret. Thus Esau despised his birthright He used no means to get the bargain revoked, made no appeal to his father about it; but the bargain which his necessity had made, (supposing it were so,) his profaneness confirmed, and by his subsequent neglect and contempt, he put the matter past recall.