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.