And Isaac entreated Jehovah for his wife, because she was barren; and Jehovah was entreated of him, and Rebecca his wife conceived.
Isaac married Rebekah at forty, and then the promised line stalled: his wife could not have children. Why did God let twenty years pass before He answered, and what did the waiting do in Isaac?
The promise was sure, yet no child came. One writer sees God's hand in the delay itself, and prayer as its fruit.
It is of God that faith should be tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it. Ishmael can boast of his twelve sons, with names soon known by their villages and their camps. Isaac mourned for a beloved mother, and had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he remains childless some twenty years… It was grace. But grace showed the channel through which the blessing was to flow. This drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work. Isaac therefore entreated Jehovah, and Jehovah was entreated of Isaac. The trial of his faith was far from being so searching as Abraham's. It was suited to each in divine wisdom. Strong faith shone in the father, gracious dependence in the son, to the praise of God in the blessing of both.
Kelly's older wording, "Jehovah was entreated of Isaac," is what the ESV gives as "the LORD granted his prayer."
Isaac was the promised seed, yet his home stayed empty. Another writer traces that emptiness to a lesson God meant him to learn.
So true and faithful are the dealings of our God with His people. Isaac, the promised seed, has no heir. He has none until he is cast on God and taught to look to Him instead of to nature. He must learn that God's blessings, whatever they are, will not yield the results he wants apart from Him. But once he learns this lesson, God can carry out the purpose He settled beforehand, and so He gave children to Isaac.
Another comment puts it in one line, looking back to Sarah, Isaac's own mother.
First, we learn here that Rebekah is as barren as Sarah, apart from the power of God. No principle of truth, no inherent power of grace, is enough for us apart from the direct working of God Himself.
One writer compares this couple with Isaac's own parents, who had faced the same problem years before.
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebecca as his wife. For twenty years they were childless. But under this trial they behaved even better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebecca had no child; but they entreated the Lord, and waited for His mercy. This was a difference. For a moment the last are first, and the first are last. We find such moral variety among the people of God to this day.
The verse says the LORD answered him. One writer finds God's delight in that answer.
The barren condition of Rebekah led Isaac to exercise faith and to cast himself upon the Lord for help. And He answered him. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in answer to prayer.
Another writer sets this answer against what idols can do.
In some countries people pray to idols for a son, but idols cannot answer — the true God can.
Some writers read Isaac's life as a picture of Christ. His prayer for his wife has a place in that picture.
Isaac intercedes for his wife (the church). These are all typical features of more or less interest, but the great course of his life is bound to be unheroic and obscure.
- Barren. Rebekah could no more bear a child than Sarah could — the line of promise had no strength of its own to continue.
- Withheld. God held the heir back until Isaac learned to look to Him, not to nature. His blessings yield nothing apart from Him.
- Waiting. Twenty childless years tried Isaac's faith. The promise was sure, but he had to wait, and patience did its full work.
- Prayer. His parents took a shortcut; Isaac did not. Grace showed him the channel of blessing, and that drew out his prayers.
- Answered. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in reply — idols cannot answer, the true God can.
And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If [it be] so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of Jehovah.
Rebekah waited twenty years to conceive, and then felt a struggle inside her that she could not explain. Her question sent her to the LORD, and His answer reaches far beyond her own household.
Isaac and Rebekah faced the same childlessness as Abraham and Sarah. They handled it differently. One writer sets the two couples side by side:
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebekah as his wife. For twenty years they were childless — but under this trial they behaved better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebekah had no child; but they asked the Lord, and waited for His mercy.
Kelly explains why the wait was there at all:
It is God's way to test faith. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it... It was grace. But grace revealed the channel through which the blessing would flow. That drew out his prayers, while patience did its perfect work.
One writer sees in the fight inside her the clash of two natures — a clash felt long before it can be understood:
But Rebekah conceives, and then she feels a struggle within her. It is once more that inner struggle of contrary natures, felt all through our course here. It begins before it becomes an outward, visible thing, and God must teach us its true meaning.
Mackintosh links this first struggle to what Jacob's whole life displays:
In the person of Jacob we have a most striking display of the power of divine grace. The reason is that we also have in him a striking display of the power of human nature... Before his birth, we read, "the children struggled together within her." At his birth, we read of "his hand holding Esau's heel."
Kelly notes the name of God in this verse — Jehovah, the covenant name, which the ESV renders LORD — and what her one move says about her faith:
There were to be twins. And the children gave an early sign to their mother, as we are told, for her trial, so that she too went to inquire of Jehovah. Who can miss how fitting the name of covenant relationship is here?... There is no ground to imagine that she consulted Melchizedek or journeyed to Moriah. Without either she knew where to find Jehovah and how to inquire of Him. Her faith might be weak, but it was real, and without superstitious dependence on any man or place.
Husband and wife each did the same thing in their own trouble, and that pattern is held up for imitation:
It is good to see both Isaac's entreating the Lord and Rebekah's inquiring of the Lord when problems arose.
Her question drew out a principle that runs through the whole Bible:
Rebekah also had learned to turn to the Lord for an answer to her question. In the reply that the Lord gave her we find another great principle stated. It marks God's purpose and runs all through Scripture. It is that of election... God declares His choice before the children were born, or had had any chance of doing either good or evil, as is so plainly stated in Romans 9:10-12.
Gaebelein guards against pushing this too far:
That this does not refer to any unconditional and eternal condemnation is clear. Notice that the words "Esau have I hated" do not appear in Genesis, but in the last book of the Old Testament. Then the character and defiance of Edom had become fully established. In Genesis the Lord speaks only of having chosen Jacob.
Some Jewish teachers once used this struggle to prove something the verse never says:
Rabbinical teaching carried the matter further. It held that a person could sin while still in the womb. That idea, it is said, rested on Genesis 25:22, where we read that the two children struggled together in Rebekah's womb. God does not send every bodily affliction as chastisement, though at times that may be the reason for it.
- Waited. Twenty childless years drew out prayer, not scheming. Isaac and Rebekah asked the Lord and waited for His mercy.
- Struggled. The struggle inside her pictures the clash of two natures. She felt it long before God taught her what it meant.
- Inquired. Rebekah needed no holy place and no holy man. Weak faith that knows where to take a question is still real faith.
- Answered. Her question drew out God's choice. He declared it before either child had done good or evil — the principle Romans 9 later builds on.
- Guarded. The verse says the children struggled. It does not say they sinned in the womb. Not every affliction is punishment.
And Jehovah said to her, Two nations are in thy womb, And two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; And one people shall be stronger than the other people, And the elder shall serve the younger.
Rebekah's pregnancy was painful, so she asked God what was happening inside her. His answer named two nations, two peoples already dividing, and a reversal of the usual order of birth. It became a key text for one of the Bible's most debated subjects: God's freedom to choose.
Notice first how the answer came. Rebekah did not go to a holy man or a holy place.
The children gave their mother an early sign, as we are told, for her trial, so that she too went to inquire of the Lord... There is no ground to imagine that she consulted Melchizedek or travelled to Moriah. Without either, she knew where to find the Lord and how to inquire of Him. Her faith might be weak, but it was real, and free from any superstitious dependence on a man or a place.
The two boys shared one father, one mother, and one birth. That makes the announcement about them unusually pointed.
God's predestination of their history on earth is clear here. It is all the more striking because the unborn babies had the same mother as well as the same father — twins, in fact... So God's sovereignty was shown to be as free as it is certain to faith. The Jews based their exclusive claim on natural descent, and that claim is disproved... Here flesh is shut out most plainly, and the title rests on the Lord's sovereign pleasure.
Commentators press the timing. A choice made after birth could always be explained away.
The choice of Jacob rather than Esau, even before their birth, asserts the great principle of God's sovereignty... Nothing shows this more fully than the choice of the younger son before either was born. When the younger son is chosen after birth — like Joseph or David — people can say that his actions or natural character earned him the preference, or that the actions and character of the others ruled out their claims. The important principle is that none of them have any claim at all.
Many readers merge this verse with the later line, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Commentators insist the two must be kept apart.
God did not say "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, when the real character and practical ways of each had been fully shown. Before the children were born He said only that "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born.
The choice announced in the womb did not stay untested.
God's election of Jacob, and the passing over of Esau that followed, brought out something else. The wisdom and rightness of God's choice always shows in the later history. His election always justifies itself in its results.
Esau himself supplied the evidence.
He deliberately sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, and so justified God in His selection.
God's word named nations, not only babies. Their story did not run in a straight line.
By the time of the Gospels the Jews were not only under the rule of Rome; a son of Esau ruled over them in the land. This order was not according to the purpose of God announced from the beginning — that, of Jacob and his brother, the older shall serve the younger. But the chosen people were unfaithful, so God's order was reversed for a time. Esau was on top, though he was an enemy of God and His truth.
Some writers read the two sons as a picture of something every believer knows first-hand.
In these two sons we have a representation of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit... The believer finds a strange contradiction in his own heart — a conflict of two natures. Here it is given to us in type, with the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought into subjection to the spirit, and that the spirit will triumph in the end.
Jacob's scheming did not cancel the promise, but it cost him.
"The older shall serve the younger" was God's word in favour of Jacob before the children were born. But Jacob did not wait in the patience of faith until the Lord in His own time and way made His promise good. So the promise becomes loaded with reservations, difficulties, and burdens. It will certainly be made good in the end; but because of Jacob's way, his unbelief and scheming, the older will give the younger much trouble.
- Ask. Rebekah's distress drove her straight to God. Her faith was weak but real, and it got an answer no man or place could give.
- Chosen. The twins were unborn and untested, so the choice was God's alone. No one has a claim on Him.
- Not hated. Before their birth God said only that the older would serve the younger. The word about hatred came centuries later, once Esau's character had come out in full.
- Proved. God's choice proves itself in the history that follows. Esau sold his birthright and so justified it.
- Enacted. The promise was certain, but Jacob schemed instead of waiting, and that loaded it with trouble. God secures His purpose; the flesh still has to be brought into subjection.
And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
Twenty years of childlessness lie behind this short note about the birth of Rebekah's twins. The verse records an answered prayer. It also opens one of the Bible's clearest test cases: one mother, one father, one birth — and two very different futures already announced by God.
The twins were a long time coming. Isaac married at forty, and the waiting went on from there.
God Himself tests faith. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it… Isaac had no wife until he was forty years old. Even then he remained childless some twenty years… It was grace. But grace showed the channel through which the blessing would flow. That drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work.
The barrenness itself had a purpose in God's hands.
The barren condition of Rebekah led Isaac to exercise faith and to cast himself upon the Lord for help. And He answered him. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in answer to prayer.
The detail that they were twins is not decoration. It rules out every natural explanation for God's choice.
Predestination is clear here — God settled their history on earth beforehand. This is all the more striking because the babies not yet born had the same mother as well as the same father — in fact, they were twins… This shows that God's sovereignty is as free as it is certain to faith. It rules out natural descent, on which the Jews founded their exclusive claim.
So where does the reason lie? Not in the boys, but in God Himself.
Both he and Esau had one mother, and they were born at the same time, for they were twins. By nature Esau had first place, by only a few moments. Again, however, God set aside the first and chose the second, saying, "The older shall serve the younger"… This shows us that God chooses because of what HE IS IN HIMSELF, and not because of what men may be, as shown in their works.
Later Scripture speaks of God loving Jacob and hating Esau. Writers are careful to keep that statement in its own place and time.
You must distinguish between Genesis 25:23 and Malachi 1:2-3. God spoke the first before the children were born. He spoke the second hundreds of years later, after each had fully shown his conduct and character… The apostle is establishing the absolute sovereignty of divine mercy: God's right to do as He wills. He proves to Israel that arguing against divine sovereignty means giving up all their privileges. So how did they get in? Was it by birth? No; for on that ground Ishmael and Esau had the precedence. Was it by works? No; for they made the golden calf. How then? Simply by God's sovereign mercy. Well then, if God is sovereign He can have mercy on whom He will; and blessed be His Name, that opens the door for us poor Gentiles.
Writers also mark what the words about hating Esau do not mean.
This clearly does not mean any unconditional and eternal condemnation… In Genesis the Lord speaks only of having chosen Jacob. And what creature of the dust can challenge His right to do so?
The two sons picture a conflict every believer knows from the inside.
In these two sons we have a representation of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. The natural comes first, and "then the spiritual." The believer finds a strange contradiction in his own heart: the conflict of two natures. That conflict is pictured here for us — with the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought under the spirit, and that the spirit will win in the end.
The birth gave both boys names that would describe their lives.
Esau came first. He was red in appearance and hairy, with red hair. This reminds us of Adam, which means "red earth," for Esau's history would show what man is in the flesh… The second son, Jacob, followed, his hand holding Esau's heel… His name means "he will take by the heel"… That is what Jacob was in the flesh. But God later changed his name to Israel, "a prince with God." God's counsels would stand, and He did a work in Jacob's soul that made a glorious change in the man.
- Before the prayer — Rebekah was barren, so Isaac prayed. Twenty childless years taught him patience.
- Before the birth — God named the order of blessing while the twins were unborn. No act of theirs could explain it.
- Before the works — one father, one mother, one birth. Descent and merit are both ruled out. The choice rests on God Himself.
- Before the verdict — the word about loving Jacob and hating Esau came centuries later, after both men had shown their true character. Do not merge the two statements.
- After the choice — the two brothers picture the conflict of flesh and Spirit in the believer. Jacob's new name shows that God's purpose ends in a changed man, not just a chosen one.
And the first came out red -- all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.
Esau arrives red and hairy, and his look gives him his name. Commentators read that description as a portrait of a man of the earth. It is also the first half of a pattern God repeats all through Scripture.
The name comes straight from what everyone saw at the birth. Reference works then follow it into the man's later choices.
Esau was Isaac and Rebekah's son and Jacob's twin, though he was actually the first-born. He is described as "red, all his body like a hairy cloak," and his name matches this, since it means "hairy." Gen. 25:25. The first thing we read of him is the selling of his birthright to his over-reaching brother Jacob, for a bowl of stew. Because of this the New Testament calls him a profane person, because he did not value what was the gift of God.
Writers tie the newborn's redness to the name Adam, and to the dust the first man came from.
Esau, the first, looked strikingly red, hairy, and his hair red. This reminds us of Adam, which means "red earth." Esau's history was to emphasize what man is in the flesh, just as "the first man was from the earth, a man of dust" (1 Cor. 15:47).
The same link returns later in his life, once his own choices show what he is.
Then it all comes to light. Esau despises his birthright, and so he is profane; Jacob values it, but seeks it in crooked ways. Esau now shows himself openly as Edom — that is, Adam, only a little changed on the outside, and not in heart.
Being "of the earth" does not mean being weak. The picture is raw energy that answers to nobody.
Later these tendencies come into open view and get their names. Esau is red, and all over like a hairy garment — unmistakably of the earth, but full of strong, wild life… Esau is the free rover, held back by nothing but his own will, chasing his own aims — the hunter who can pursue animals or men without caring which.
Esau's arrival first is part of an order that runs through the whole Bible. The one who comes first by nature is not the one God builds on.
God gave special rights to the firstborn son of each family (a double inheritance). Again and again we meet firstborn sons who fail, and their blessing goes to another who has no claim to it. Cain was the firstborn, but Seth took his place. In the same way Isaac replaced Ishmael, Jacob replaced Esau, and Joseph replaced Reuben, and so on. The underlying principle is clear: the firstborn speaks of man in his natural strength — "he is the firstfruits of his strength" (Deut. 21:17). And this is the point: natural man acting in his own strength always ends in failure. For blessing to come, God has to provide the "second." Hebrews 10 states this principle plainly: "He does away with the first in order to establish the second" (v. 9).
The two babies also picture a struggle the believer knows inside.
In these two sons we have a picture of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. The natural comes first, and the spiritual after it. The believer finds a strange contradiction in his own heart: two natures in conflict. We have it here in type. And with it comes the promise, thank God, that the spirit will bring the flesh under and win in the end.
Being born first settled nothing here. Both boys had the same father and mother, and the choice between them came before either was born.
Predestination as to their history on earth is plain here. It is all the more striking because these babies, not yet born, had the same mother as well as the same father. In fact they were twins… So divine sovereignty was shown to be as free as it is certain to faith. The Jews based their exclusive claim on fleshly descent, and that claim is disproved — most clearly in the case of Esau. For here the flesh is shut out completely, and the title comes from the Lord's sovereign pleasure.
- Born red — his colour and hairy covering give him his name. Writers link that redness to Adam and to the dust the first man came from.
- Named Esau — the name means "hairy." Later he is called Edom — Adam, one writer says, only a little changed on the outside.
- Strong but earthbound — his energy is real: a free rover, held back by nothing but his own will.
- First, then second — the firstborn stands for man in his natural strength. That strength always fails, so God's blessing runs through the second.
- Settled beforehand — the twins had the same parents. Only God's sovereign choice explains the outcome, and it shuts the flesh out completely.
And after that came his brother out; and his hand took hold of Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.
Twenty years of waiting ended with twins, and the second baby came out gripping his brother's heel. That grip gave him his name, Jacob, and it marked the man he would be.
Isaac married at forty, and twenty more years passed before these twins arrived. One writer sees purpose in that delay.
It is God's way that faith should be tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it... Isaac had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he stayed childless for some twenty years... It was grace; but grace revealed the channel through which the blessing was to flow, and this drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work.
The name Jacob comes straight from what his hand was doing. Esau threw that name back at him years later.
The second son, Jacob, followed closely, his hand holding the heel of Esau. This detail shows what would be true of Jacob all his life. His name means "he will take by the heel." Esau referred to this later when Jacob had deceived his father in taking Esau's place. Esau's words then were "Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times" [older translations: "he has supplanted me," which matches the name]... His hand grasped at the blessing Esau was going to receive. This tells us what Jacob was in the flesh. But later his name was changed to Israel, "a prince with God." God's counsels would stand, and He did a work in Jacob's soul that made a glorious change in the man.
The grip was not a one-off. It belongs to a pattern that ran from the womb to the turning point of Jacob's life.
In him we see human nature at its most crooked, and so we see grace in all its moral beauty and power. His remarkable history suggests this: before his birth, at his birth, and after his birth, nature showed its extraordinary energy. Before his birth, we read, "the children struggled together within her." At his birth, we read of "his hand holding Esau's heel." And after his birth — right up to the turning point of his history, in Genesis 32, without a single exception — his course shows nothing but the least attractive traits of nature. But all this only works like a drab background, throwing into relief the grace of Him who stoops to call Himself by that touching name, "the God of Jacob" — a name that speaks so sweetly of free grace.
Commentators read the two boys as a picture. Esau looks earthy and wild; Jacob's whole character shows in that grip on the heel.
Esau is red, and all over like a hairy garment — unmistakably of the earth, but full of strong, wild life. Jacob shows himself in this: his hand lays hold of Esau's heel. From that he gets his name, "heel-catcher" — "supplanter." Here we see the spirit that tries to set aside the flesh by the effort of the flesh. So the power of the flesh is felt, while the power of God is not — or is felt as opposition.
The same picture reaches into the believer's own heart.
In these two sons we have a picture of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit... The strange contradiction the believer finds in his own heart — the conflict of two natures — is pictured for us here. And with it comes the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought under the spirit, and that the spirit will win in the end.
Centuries later the prophet Hosea set this grip beside Jacob's night of wrestling.
"In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God" [older translations: "by his strength he had power with God"]. From the first Jacob did what showed he would supplant his brother, and this was long before anyone could put it down to a character he had grown into. But God also recalls what grace did when it gave him strength beyond his own in his weakness. When the sinew of his thigh had been shrunk, God strengthened him to prevail with the angel. So he gained the name that pledges the blessing of grace and complete victory to the seed of Abraham.
- Waited for. Isaac married at forty and was sixty here. The promise was sure, but God tried his faith while he prayed.
- Named for. The hand on the heel gave the boy his name — "heel-catcher," supplanter — and Esau later said the name fitted.
- Grasping. Struggling before birth, grabbing at birth, scheming afterwards: the grip was the first sign of a nature that ran through his whole life.
- Pictured. Commentators read the twins as flesh and Spirit. Esau is earthy; Jacob fights the flesh with the flesh. Believers know that conflict from the inside.
- Changed. Hosea sets the heel-grip beside the wrestling. God gave the supplanter strength he did not have, and he became Israel, a prince with God.
And the boys grew, and Esau became a man skilled in hunting, a man of the field; and Jacob was a homely man, dwelling in tents.
Isaac's twin sons grow up and take opposite paths. One lives for the open field and the hunt. The other stays among the tents. It reads like a simple note about two personalities. But the words chosen for each brother point to two different attitudes toward God's promise.
Older translations call Jacob a "plain" man where the ESV has "quiet." Either way, the description is not about a dull personality. The Hebrew word behind it is stronger, and translators read it that way everywhere else:
The Hebrew word tahm, translated here as "plain," means "perfect" or "upright." Everywhere else translators give it that sense, yet the Revised Version leaves it uncorrected here. If we take away Jacob's general character of uprightness because of some serious failures, what about Noah or David?
That reading has to sit alongside a life full of scheming. One writer finds the perfection in Jacob's long-term aim, not in his conduct:
The word points, we believe, to the deep undercurrent of purpose that ran through his life. On the surface his life had countless swirls and cross currents. No other of the fathers of Israel had so mixed a career. Yet the redeeming feature in his case was this: from his early years he set his mind on the blessing from God that went with the birthright.
Living in tents was not just a housing choice. A tent is temporary by design:
The tent moves easily from stage to stage across the earth, with no foundation in it. It marks out the man who is only passing through, the man whose faith God has awakened.
Kelly says the boys' growing up made faith or the lack of it visible, and warns that the tent alone proves nothing:
As the boys grew, it became plain that Esau had no faith and that Jacob had. Their lives, far more truly than their words, showed where the heart turned and where the treasure lay. Of the men they came from it is written that "these all died in faith." They had not received the things promised. They saw them from far off and greeted them, and by doing so they confessed that they were strangers and temporary residents on the earth. Living in tents was an open sign of that (Heb. 11:9, 13)… This alone gives integrity before God. Without it, "dwelling in tents" would have meant no more than it does to a desert wanderer; but with Jacob it was the mark of his pilgrim life and hopes.
By any ordinary measure the hunter is the more impressive of the two. Kelly says Esau copied an earlier man's path instead of Abraham's:
He made the early career of Nimrod his own. From the outset he was as unlike Abraham as anyone in the family line could be. His love of excitement and reckless adventure made him look down on home life, and on the dull daily work of caring for the herds and the flocks. Others might look for the city with the foundations, whose designer and builder is God; but it had no place at all in Esau's heart. For him the present life was everything, and the hunt above all, because it gave room for courage and skill in beating difficulties and winning personal fame. Jacob, on the other hand, was a quiet, home-loving man dwelling in tents, with warm family affections. He valued the link with God too, though his heart was as yet little cleansed by faith, if at all.
Beyond the biography, writers read the pair as a picture of what every believer carries inside:
In these two sons we have a picture of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. The natural comes first, and the spiritual afterward. The strange contradiction that a believer finds in his own heart, the conflict of two natures, is set before us here in picture form, with the promise, thank God, that the flesh will be brought under the spirit and that the spirit will win in the end. In Esau we see the irreverence of nature, which despises the promises of God. Even Jacob's scheming has in it at least one redeeming feature: a faith that values what God has promised.
The difference in this verse is visible to anyone. The deeper one shows only later in the chapter:
They were completely different in looks, in habits and in the way they thought. Anyone watching could see that much. But it is the incident at the end of the chapter that uncovers the real split between them, and an onlooker might never have spotted it.
Commentators differ in emphasis. Some stress the real uprightness of Jacob's aim. Others read him more soberly: a man with faith, but with a heart not yet cleansed by it.
- Two boys. One brother takes the field, the other the tents. A difference of habit turns out to be a difference of hope.
- One word. "Plain" translates a Hebrew word meaning perfect or upright. Writers place that uprightness in Jacob's fixed aim at God's blessing, not in his methods.
- One tent. A tent has no foundation in the earth. That is why it marks a man passing through, waiting for the city God builds.
- One field. Esau copied Nimrod, not Abraham. He wanted the present life and personal fame, and the city God builds had no place in his heart.
- One mirror. The two brothers picture flesh and Spirit in one heart — and the promise is that the spirit wins in the end.
And Isaac loved Esau, because venison was to his taste; and Rebecca loved Jacob.
One short line splits a household in two. The father loves one son, the mother the other — and the reason given for the father's love is a plate of food, not the word God had already spoken about these two boys.
The verse gives the reason Isaac loved Esau. It is not what we would expect from a man who held God's promises.
Isaac's eyes were dim, so he could be deceived, and Rebekah and Jacob set about deceiving him. They did not look away to God. God would have completely frustrated Isaac's purpose to bless the one whom God would not bless. That purpose was founded in nature, and most unlovely nature, for "Isaac loved Esau," not because he was the firstborn, but "because he ate of his venison." How humiliating!
This taste for game was not a harmless quirk. It shaped the son as much as it exposed the father — and the mother shaped her favourite too.
Isaac's mind and character had been shaped in a striking way by his early life in Sarah's tent. Yet he had sunk into indulging some of the low desires of nature. He loved his son Esau, because he ate of his venison. This was poor indeed, and something worse than poor. And this love of venison, we may suggest, must have encouraged Esau in the chase. In the same way, Rebekah's cleverness, brought from her brother's house, formed the mind and character of her favourite Jacob. And so one parent was helping to corrupt one child, and the other parent the other child.
God made the destiny of each boy known at their birth. Isaac had light enough to act on.
At their birth God revealed what would become of them. This was enough to guide an ear open to God's mind and counsel: enough to show what God thought about the two boys, and what place each of them should have. Isaac should have understood this and acted towards them in the light of it. He does not appear to have done so. Or else his habitual nature swamped the counsel of God in his mind, for he does not seem to have seen in Jacob the heir to the promises, and "he loved Esau, because he ate of his venison." He overlooks what God had made known, because the attentions of the son gratify the father's heart.
Rebekah's love may have had a better root than her husband's. It is not excused either.
We are told here too that Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed the taste of wild game. Rebekah loved Jacob, perhaps because the Lord had told her that Jacob would have preference over his brother. But it is not good that parents should ever have a preference for one of their children over another.
The lives the two boys chose told the truth about their hearts.
As the boys grew, it became plain that Esau had no faith, and that Jacob had. The life, far more truly than the lips, showed where the heart turned and where the treasure lay... Esau had no taste for the waiting, believing life of the men before him. He threw off all the lessons taught by the life and confession of his father and his grandfather... He chose and gave himself up to the exciting pursuits of the chase; he became a man skilled in hunting, a man of the field. He was bent on visible and present gratification.
The lesson reaches past this one family.
The faults of children often betray the carelessness or worse of their parents. Partialities may be natural; but they bring inevitable chastening. A parent may like a child whose character is the most unlike his own, as we see Isaac did here. Or the preference may go to the child who resembles the parent, as appears in Rebekah. Isaac and Rebekah would have been more blessed, and more of a blessing, if they had commanded their children with watchful love in faith.
The damage reached the marriage as well.
Rebekah and Isaac each have a favourite child, and the wife sets out to take advantage of her husband's blindness and deceive him. How far all this is from what the home of a man of God should be. We cannot expect the blessing of God on our homes if husband and wife are not one. God gives children to bind the home together, to strengthen those divine bonds which make husband and wife one. These children cannot be made favourites, and so divide the home, without bringing sorrow and shame to all.
- Cause: Isaac's love for Esau rested on a taste for game, not on birthright — a preference "founded in nature, and most unlovely nature."
- Blindness: God spoke about the two sons at their birth. Isaac's gratified heart overlooked what He said.
- Formation: Each parent shaped the child they favoured. The father's appetite drove Esau to the field. The mother's cleverness reappeared in Jacob.
- Evidence: Habits, not words, revealed the boys. Esau lived for what he could see and hold; Jacob lived by faith.
- Cost: Favourites divide a home. Partiality feels natural, but it brings chastening. Here it split husband from wife before it split brother from brother.
And Jacob had cooked a dish; and Esau came from the field, and he was faint.
Genesis 25:29 looks like an ordinary household scene: one brother at the cooking pot, the other stumbling home worn out from the hunt. Yet the whole story of Esau and Jacob turns here, on the question of what a man will trade when his body is crying out.
Nothing in the verse warns that anything large is at stake. Yet a passing appetite, met at the wrong moment, set the whole bargain in motion.
Passing hunger led to the most serious results. Jacob boiled a stew of lentils on the day Esau came back faint and starving (v. 29). This gave the occasion. Jacob deeply wanted that title. For his forefathers and his descendants it was tied to blessing, and he knew his brother put no such value on it. He therefore took advantage of Esau's need to strike the bargain.
Esau's choice was no slip. It fit the man he already was.
Esau never lived as a stranger in the land of promise. He was at home there, and he had no heavenly hope. He made the early life of Nimrod his own, even if he never thought of him. From the outset he was as unlike Abraham as one of the family line could be. His love of excitement and reckless adventure made him despise the family circle. It also made him despise the dull duty of caring for the herds and the flocks. Others might look for the city with the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. That had no place at all in Esau's heart. For him the present life was all.
There is a second layer here, and it comes closer to home.
In these two sons we have a picture of the two seeds, with the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. The natural comes first, and then the spiritual. The strange contradiction the believer finds in his own heart, the conflict of two natures, is set before us here in picture form.
The verse says only that Esau was worn out. Help was closer than he thought.
Was he not brought up just as much as Jacob was, with the familiar sound of God's word and ways, as far as these were known? Yet his test, for a hunter, should have been a light one. He had help at hand that had never failed him, and it would be monstrous to imagine it could fail him now. Even so, he deliberately sold his own birthright "for a single meal" (Hebrews 12:16), and so earned from the Holy Spirit the awful name of a "profane person."
The same writer weighs the hunger against the wait:
The skilled hunter came in from the field without his game, hungry and faint. His appetite was sharpened and then disappointed, and that made him all the more open to the dish of red lentils Jacob had cooked... Why so impatient? Could he not hold out a quarter of an hour? The mother's tent was near. Could he not wait long enough to ask those who had never refused his cry of need?
The buyer in this bargain comes off no better than the seller.
Jacob greatly wanted the blessing carried by the birthright, while to Esau it meant practically nothing. He was willing to barter it for the passing satisfaction a hungry man feels when he has eaten a good meal of pottage. The bargain was struck, and so Esau despised his birthright and lost it. But even on Jacob's side the deal did him no credit. It was a case of seeking a right thing in a wrong way. He did not get the blessing then. Later he did get it from his father, but he only got it from God when he was afterwards brought face to face with Him.
The stew was a small thing. That is the warning.
Esau starts his worldly history by flinging lightly back in the face of God what His goodness had given him... Do not forget this — that every sinner has, in a certain sense, a birthright. You have been born into a world to which the Saviour has come, and that Saviour came to save sinners. Suppose you do not receive that Saviour. Suppose you hold on in the ways of the world, deluded by Satan, and care only for the things of this life. Then you simply follow the footsteps of Esau, and despise your birthright for a bowl of stew — that is, for the things that serve the body.
- Occasion. A pot of lentils and a tired hunter — an ordinary hour led to the most serious results.
- Character. Esau was at home in the present world and had no heavenly hope. His hunger only showed the man he already was.
- Excuse. He was faint, not desperate, with his mother's tent in reach — the test was light, and that is what makes the trade so serious.
- Bargainer. Jacob wanted the right thing and took it the wrong way. He received the blessing from God only when he was brought face to face with Him.
- Warning. Hold on to this life and let go of what God offers, and you walk Esau's road. You sell a birthright for a single meal.
And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with the red -- the red thing there, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called Edom.
A hungry hunter comes in from the field and sees a pot of red stew. One thing he asks of his brother gives him a new name, Edom, and costs him his birthright. What is a man willing to trade for a moment's relief?
Esau does not ask for food in general; he points at the pot. One writer notices how little he was willing to endure, and how much help was within reach:
No doubt his appetite was sharp, and the dish in front of him was tempting to a hungry hunter. But did he have no father who loved him, no mother to pity him and provide for him? Blame Jacob as you like for seizing the chance to get what he valued, even if Esau did not. And this much was now clear: he would not go hungry and thirsty one hour longer. "That red there" he had to have at once, whatever it cost.
The same writer presses the point that Esau's family was near enough to feed him, so the urgency was self-made:
Why so impatient? Could he not hold out a quarter of an hour? His mother's tent was close by; could he not wait long enough to ask those who had never refused his cry of need — never put him off with a stone or a serpent?
Esau says he is at the point of death. The text itself only says he was faint — "exhausted" in the ESV. One commentator flags the gap between the two:
He does not appear to have been in any real danger of starving. Scripture says he was "faint." He himself says he was at the "point to die." But accuracy was hardly a family trait.
The verse pauses to explain a name. Esau asked for "the red," and red became his name:
Esau got this name because he craved the red stew Jacob had made. Edom means "red." But the name usually refers to his tribe and the land they held.
A second writer sees the new name as the moment the man's true character surfaced, and hears in "Edom" an echo of "Adam":
Now the true character shows itself. Esau despises his birthright, and so shows himself profane. Jacob values it, but goes after it in crooked ways. Esau now appears openly as Edom — that is, Adam, only slightly changed on the outside, and not changed in heart at all.
The birthright carried real, listed privileges:
What makes Esau representative is that he "despised his birthright." That birthright carried, among other things, a double share of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:17), rule over the family, and the right to pass on the "Blessing." All of this he gives up for a bowl of stew. He trades manhood for animal appetite. He swaps huge spiritual wealth and privilege for a mouthful of pleasure.
One writer turns the trade into a test for today:
Esau despised his birthright (v. 34), the thing God had given him: it became worth no more to him than a mouthful of stew! How many are like him! They treat satisfying an immediate natural appetite as more important than God's long-range blessing.
The commentators do not make this a story of one villain and one hero. Jacob wanted the right thing, but the way he got it stained him:
Sadly, Jacob took advantage of it. He dragged in God — whom he himself was selfishly ignoring — to bind Esau, who had no fear of Him at all: "Swear to me first." … Both men acted in the flesh! It did not secure Jacob in God's sight. It belonged to those evil days that he later looked back on with shame and sorrow, once grace really governed his soul. And it could only widen the gap between the brothers.
Another writer draws the same double conclusion from the bargain itself:
Esau showed himself a "profane person" (Hebrews 12:16). He asked, "What profit shall this birthright do to me?" Jacob showed himself a man who valued the birthright, but treated it as something to haggle over and buy as cheaply as possible. Esau despised the birthright and lost it. But there is no evidence that Jacob gained it by this sharp dealing. He got it despite that.
- Red asked. Esau pointed at a pot and asked for "the red." One hour's appetite set the price of his birthright.
- Red exaggerated. Scripture says he was faint; he said he was dying. Yet a father who loved him and a mother who would provide for him were close at hand.
- Red named him. The craving gave him the name Edom, "red." The name passed to a tribe and a land — nature on open display, unchanged in heart.
- Red cost him. The birthright meant a double share of the inheritance, rule over the family, and the right to pass on the blessing. He traded it all for one meal.
- Red stained both. Esau despised what God gave; Jacob valued it but bargained for it, and later looked back on the day with shame.
And Jacob said, Sell me now thy birthright.
Esau staggers in from the field, faint and craving the red stew, and his brother Jacob names a price instead of feeding him. The verse raises two questions: what was that price worth, and may a man use a sharp deal to get what God has already promised him?
Jacob was not after a mere title. The birthright was a bundle of real advantages, and that is why Esau's willingness to trade it away marks him out.
What makes Esau representative is this: he "despised his birthright." That birthright carried with it, among other things, a double portion of the inheritance (Deut. 21:17), rule over the family, and the privilege of passing on the "Blessing." He gives up all of it for a bowl of stew. He trades manhood for animal appetite. He exchanges immense spiritual wealth and privilege for a mouthful of physical satisfaction.
God had said before their birth that the elder would serve the younger. So the bargain is strange: Jacob haggled for what was already his.
At the beginning Jacob had a claim to the inheritance in the grace and sovereignty of God. "The elder shall serve the younger" was God's decree in his favour. God did not let Esau's natural rights as the elder stand in his way. God's purpose of grace secured everything to Jacob. That was his only claim, but it was enough — just as it is ours. From simple confidence in this he turned aside. He tried to get his brother's signature on this title (Gen. 25:31), and then, by trickery, to get his father's as well. (Gen. 27)
One brother's collapse became the other brother's chance.
Passing hunger led to the most serious results. Jacob had boiled a stew of lentils on the day Esau came back faint and starving (v. 29). This gave him the occasion. Jacob longed for that title. For his forefathers and his descendants it was bound up with blessing. He knew his brother placed no such value on it. So he took advantage of Esau's need to strike the bargain. "Feed me, please, with the red — that red there," said the exhausted hunter. "Sell me your birthright now," the unbelieving believer eagerly replied.
Jacob prized what Esau threw away, but his method was wrong. One writer presses further: the deal did not even deliver the goods.
The birthright became the subject of a business deal. Esau showed himself to be a "profane person" (Heb. 12:16), saying, "What good is this birthright to me?" Jacob showed himself to be a man who valued the birthright, yet treated it as something to haggle over and buy at the lowest price he could. Esau despised the birthright and lost it. But there is no evidence that Jacob got it through this sharp practice. He got it despite that.
Getting a thing by scheming does not settle the heart. That is why the man who bargained for the birthright in chapter 25 still went along with his mother's scheme in chapter 27. Assurance came only later, when God brought him near.
Yet possessing the birthright failed to give Jacob the assurance of the blessing it stood for. If it had, he would not later have gone along so readily with his mother's unworthy scheme to secure it for him. And why? He had grasped the desired mercy in a natural way. So he got none of the satisfaction he would have known if it had come to him in a divine way. A divine way always connects the soul with the Lord. If a mercy is not connected with the Lord, it may often make me more miserable. But if it is, if I know it flows from His love, the heart receives it in quietness and peace. The birthright, his father's blessing, and the vision at Bethel all failed to assure Jacob's soul of the reality of the portion he so prized and needed. Only the wrestling at Mahanaim, where God brought him into personal nearness and subjection, established him in the assurance of it.
Scripture's verdict falls on the seller. One writer turns it on the reader.
To look down on God's promise of blessing is very bad. Now God makes a promise. If you, a sinner, believe on His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, God will forgive your sins and give you peace, joy, and everlasting life. If you despise this, not only do you lose this greatest gift, but later, even if you seek with tears, you may not get it... If you seek God now, you will find Him.
- Promised — Jacob's claim rested on God's word that the elder would serve the younger. That alone was enough. Turning from it started the trouble.
- Priced — The birthright meant a double portion, headship of the family, and the right to pass on the blessing. Esau sold all of it for one meal.
- Purchased — Jacob valued the right thing. But he treated it as a business deal and haggled for it with a starving man.
- Pointless — The deal gave him no peace. Chapter 27 shows him scheming again. Only being brought near to God settled his heart.
- Personal — Esau is the warning. Despise God's promise now, and tears may not win it back later. Seek God now and you will find Him.
And Esau said, Behold, I am going to die, and of what use can the birthright be to me?
Esau comes in from the field worn out and smells his brother's stew. He sells his birthright for one meal, arguing that a dying man has no use for a future. Two questions follow: what was he selling, and was he as close to death as he claimed?
So what was Esau selling? One writer lists three things:
The birthright he sold carried three blessings: 1. The father's blessing and the place of head of the family; 2. The honour of being in the direct line of the promised One — Shem–Abraham–Isaac; 3. Acting as priest for the household. Esau despised all of this for a moment of bodily pleasure. Many follow him today. They could have greater blessings, but they love pleasure more than they love God.
The verse gives us Esau's logic in his own words, and one writer takes that logic apart:
The natural heart places no value on the things of God. To it God's promise seems vague, worthless and powerless, simply because God is not known… Man values anything he can see, because sight rules him, not faith. To him the present is everything; the future carries no weight — it feels like the flimsiest guess. So it was with Esau. Here is his mistaken reasoning: "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?" What strange reasoning! The present is slipping from beneath my feet, so I will despise and entirely let go of the future? Time is fading from my view, so I will abandon all interest in eternity!
The text says only that Esau was faint. His claim to be at death's door is his own reading of an empty stomach. One commentator presses the point with simple questions:
Why so impatient? Could he not hold out a quarter of an hour? The mother's tent was near; could he not wait long enough to ask of those who had never refused his cry of need — never put him off with a stone or a snake?
Scripture's word for his state is milder than his own:
He exchanges immense spiritual wealth and privilege for a moment of pleasure. He is the standing example of the profane person who recklessly throws away the future while grabbing at the present… He does not seem to have been desperate for food: Scripture says he was "faint." He himself says he was "about to die," but this family was not known for accuracy.
The loss shaped the rest of his life:
Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. He despised it. At that moment, present ease and relief were everything to him… He traded it away, and though he longed for his father's blessing and sought it with tears, he could never regain what he had lost… With a great and bitter cry he said, "Bless me, even me, O my father." But he said no word of confession about what he had done. He showed no penitent spirit.
Jacob is no hero in this scene either:
The birthright became the subject of a business deal. Esau revealed himself as a "profane person" (Heb. 12:16), saying, "Of what use is a birthright to me?" Jacob showed himself to be a man who valued the birthright but still treated it as something to trade for, and to buy as cheaply as he could. Esau despised the birthright and lost it. But there is no evidence that Jacob got it by this sharp dealing. He got it despite that dealing, not because of it.
Christ also gave up what was His by right — but for the opposite reason:
To seek something here would be to despise our heavenly birthright for a worldly life. We must watch carefully, so that no one becomes a profane person like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal. How wonderfully the blessed Lord contrasts with this! True, He surrenders His prospects, His glory, His kingdom, as Son of Man; but not so that He may live. On the contrary, He gives them up so that He may die. He did not despise His birthright, or say, "Of what use is a birthright to Me?"
- Appetite — Esau was faint, not dying. His own exaggeration turned passing hunger into an excuse, with food and family close at hand.
- Contempt — the natural heart values only what it can see. God's promise looked worthless next to a hot meal.
- Forfeit — he sold the family headship, a place in the line of the promised One, and the priesthood of the home. He never got it back. His later tears begged for the blessing; they confessed nothing.
- Bargain — Jacob wanted the right thing by the wrong method. He received the birthright despite his sharp dealing, not because of it.
- Contrast — Christ gave up His prospects, His glory and His kingdom too, but He did it so that He could die. He never asked what use His birthright was to Him.
And Jacob said, Swear unto me now. And he swore unto him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
Two brothers strike a bargain over a bowl of stew, and the older seals it with an oath before he eats. The deal is quick. But commentators treat it as the turning point of both lives, and they press one question: what changed hands?
The birthright was not simply a larger share of the family estate. Writers connect it to the promise running through Abraham's family.
The birthright became the great test, and in their attitude to it we can see they were indeed two kinds of people. Jacob coveted it and Esau despised it. What was involved in the birthright? The one who had it was in the direct line, moving on toward that "Seed," in whom all nations were to be blessed. The birthright led to CHRIST.
Esau said a dying man gains nothing from a birthright. Writers read that excuse as proof that his heart had made its choice long before the stew was cooked.
His heart was never really on the birthright, because he had no true appreciation of the inheritance. He looked like the heir of God's promises, but that appearance was false. He had no faith, and only faith makes a promise precious. Then a crisis comes. The birthright now seems unreal to him, and he weighs it against the smallest or poorest scrap of earthly gain. He deliberately prefers the creature to the Creator... Meat was more to him than God.
The same choice shows up elsewhere in Scripture.
Esau was the "profane" one. His hope and his heart were tied to life in this world, and to that only. He himself said, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?" Like the Gadarenes, and like Judas, Esau would sell his title to Christ. But Jacob had faith, and was ready to buy what Esau was ready to sell.
Jacob asked for an oath. He used God's name to bind his brother, while slighting God himself.
Jacob took advantage of it. He brought in God — whom he himself was selfishly slighting — to bind Esau, who had no fear of Him at all: "Swear to me now." And he did swear to sell his birthright to Jacob. Both sides acted in the flesh! It did not secure Jacob in the sight of God. Instead it became part of those evil days he later looked back on with shame and sorrow, when grace truly governed his soul.
Esau lost the birthright here. Commentators differ over Jacob: one sees faith in his wanting it, another judges how he got it.
Esau despised the birthright and lost it, but on the other hand there is no evidence that Jacob obtained it as a result of this sharp practice. He got it despite that sharp practice.
One writer explains why a blessing grabbed by scheming brings no rest.
Owning the birthright did not give Jacob the assurance of the blessing it stood for. If it had, he would not later have gone along so readily with his mother's unworthy scheme to get it for him. And why? He had grabbed the mercy he wanted in a natural way. So he got none of the satisfaction he would have known if it had reached him in a divine way. A divine way always connects the soul with the Lord.
Commentators sum up Esau in one term — profane — and explain what it means.
So we learn what a profane person is. He is someone who wants to hold both worlds. He wants to enjoy the present without giving up his claim on the future. This is by no means an uncommon case. It describes the worldly person who merely claims to be religious. His conscience has never felt the action of divine truth, and his heart has never felt the influence of divine grace.
The warning comes straight to the reader.
Esau starts his worldly history by flinging lightly back in the face of God what His goodness had given him... every sinner has, in a certain sense, a birthright. You have been born into a world the Saviour has come to, and that Saviour came to save sinners. Suppose you do not receive Him. Suppose you hold on in the ways of the world, deluded by Satan, caring only for the things of this life. Then you simply follow in the footsteps of Esau.
- The birthright — it placed its holder in the line moving toward the promised Seed; it "led to CHRIST."
- The bargain — Esau weighed an unseen inheritance against one meal and chose the meal. He had no faith, and only faith makes a promise precious.
- The oath — Jacob brought God's name in to bind a brother who feared God not at all, while slighting God himself.
- The gain — Esau lost the birthright; Jacob got it despite his scheming, not because of it, and found no rest in what he grabbed.
- The label — a profane person wants both worlds — the present enjoyed, the future still claimed.
And Jacob gave Esau bread and the dish of lentils; and he ate and drank, and rose up and went away. Thus Esau despised the birthright.
Genesis 25 ends with a meal that costs a man everything. Esau eats, gets up and walks off, and the story closes with one line of verdict. The question is not why Jacob bargained. It is how a man could value God's gift so little that a bowl of food outbid it.
The birthright was not a sentimental family honour. Writers who trace its content find several real privileges bound up in it.
The blessings of the birthright he sold consisted in three things: 1. The father's blessing and the place of head of the family; 2. The honour of being in the direct line of the promised One — Shem-Abraham-Isaac; 3. The exercise of the domestic priesthood. Esau despised all this for a moment of bodily pleasure. Many follow him today. They could have greater blessings, but they love pleasure more than they love God.
The verse turns on one word: despised. What makes it so serious is who gave the birthright.
Scripture calls Esau a profane person for selling his birthright. It was a privilege God had given him, and he should have valued it as such.
Esau was not truly about to die. He would not wait.
No; he had to have the tempting food that instant. In his hasty self-will it seemed like death to wait a few moments longer. Sadly, Jacob took advantage of it. He brought in God to bind Esau, who had no fear of Him at all: "Swear to me first." Yet Jacob himself was slighting that same God for his own ends. … Both sides acted in the flesh!
Kelly presses further, asking what was waiting for Esau at home.
But did he have no father who loved him, no mother to pity him and provide? Blame Jacob as you like for seizing the chance to get what he valued and Esau did not. And this was now clear: Esau would not stay hungry and thirsty one hour longer. "That red there" he had to have at once, whatever it cost.
The verse ends not with the deal but with how Esau walked away. That detail gives him away.
"He ate and drank and rose and went his way," refers, I think, to his profane indifference.
Behind the indifference lies a way of reasoning that many share.
The natural heart places no value on the things of God. To it God's promise is vague, worthless and powerless, for the simple reason that God is not known. So present things carry great weight in how people judge. A man values anything he can see, because sight rules him, not faith… What strange reasoning! The present is slipping from under my feet, so I will despise the future and let it go completely? Time is fading from my view, so I will drop all interest in eternity!
Esau's contempt did not begin at the cooking pot.
His heart was never on the birthright, because he never valued the inheritance. He looked like the heir of God's promises, but his position was completely false. He had no faith, and only faith makes a promise precious… The one value of his title was that it looked forward to God's favour. Yet Esau never enjoyed God Himself, so God was no strength to him in his day of trial. Food meant more to him than God.
The word profane describes a whole way of living, and the warning reaches past Esau.
The profane person is one who lives wholly for this world, and shuts God and His world out of his thoughts. Esau had not only done this but also had despised what was of God. When people go so far as to despise God and His blessing, they perish… In our own day and land, crowds are slipping into that same great sin over the gospel, and they stand on the brink of destruction.
The chapter shows two failures, not one. Commentators are careful to say that Jacob's desire was right and his method was not.
Esau despised the birthright and lost it. But there is no evidence that Jacob got it because of this sharp dealing. He got it despite it.
Though Jacob used wrong methods to get the birthright, one thing is clear: Jacob valued what God had to give.
- Given — the birthright was God's own gift to Esau. That is why the verse says he despised it, and not simply that he traded badly.
- Craved — nothing forced his hand. He would not hold out another hour, and both brothers acted in the flesh: one grasping, one giving away.
- Despised — sight ruled him. What he could see weighed more than what God had promised, so eternity looked like nothing beside a meal.
- Indifferent — he ate, rose and walked off without a backward look. That is the mark of a profane man: God shut out of his thoughts.
- Warned — Jacob schemed, yet he valued what God had to give. Esau's sin is still open today: anyone who hears the gospel can despise the blessing.