Why is the birthright so emphasized in the Bible?

Of the two Esau was the elder by a mere matter of a few minutes, still the birthright would naturally have been accounted his. The birthright became the great test, and in their attitude to it we can see they were indeed two manner of people. Jacob coveted it and Esau despised it What was involved in the birthright ? The one who possessed it was in the direct line, moving on toward that "Seed," in whom all nations were to be blessed. The birthright led to CHRIST.

Then Esau sold his birthright. It fully brought out the defiance of his wicked heart (Hebrews 12:16-17). 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. All this Esau despised for a carnal gratification. How numerous are his followers in our days who might have greater blessings, but they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.

Jacob when dying said of Reuben "Thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power." This is what he was as the firstborn, for in himself he was 'unstable as water ' and he should not excel. Gen. 49:3-4. He forfeited his birth-right for defiling his father's bed, and it was given to Joseph, who in Ephraim and Manasseh had a double portion among the tribes. 1 Chr. 5:1. The law declared that if a man's first-born son was by a wife he hated, he must not put the son of another wife in his place: the first-born must have a double portion of all that the man possessed "for he is the beginning of his strength: the right of the first-born is his." Deut. 21:16-17. Esau is called a profane person for selling his birth-right: it was a privilege God had given him, and which he should have valued as such. Gen. 25:31-34; Heb. 12:16.

But that in which Esau is representative is that he "despised his birthright," which carried with it, besides other things, a double portion in inheritance (Deut. 21:17), family rule and the privilege of transferring the "Blessing;" all these he surrenders for a mess of pottage. He barters manhood for animalism, and exchanges immense spiritual wealth and privilege for a morsel of sensuous satisfaction. In all this he is the standing type of the "profane person" who recklessly forfeits the future in grasping at the present, and traffics away the birthright of the spiritual affluence, with which God would endow him, for the momentary indulgence of temporal gratifications. He shall never be able to cancel the contract though he seek it "bitterly with tears." [ He was not in any extremity for food apparently: the scripture says he was "faint." He himself says he was at a "point to die," but accuracy was hardly a family characteristic. The Talmud says he had just come home from killing Nimrod and he feared vengeance!]

At the close of this chapter we are presented with some principles of a very solemn and practical nature. Jacob's character and actings which hereafter, if the Lord will, come more fully before us; but I would just notice, ere passing on, the conduct of Esau, in reference to the birthright, and all which it involved. The natural heart places no value on the things of God. To it God's promise is a vague, valueless, powerless thing, simply because God is not known. Hence it is that present things carry such weight and influence in man's estimation. Anything that man can see he values, because he is governed by sight, and not by faith. To him the present is everything; the future is a mere uninfluential thing — a matter of the merest uncertainty. Thus it was with Esau. Here his fallacious reasoning, "Behold, I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do to me? What strange reasoning? The present is slipping from beneath my feet, I will therefore despise and entirely let go the future? Time is fading from my view, I will therefore abandon all interest in eternity! "Thus Esau despised his birthright." Thus Israel despised the pleasant land; (Ps. 106:24) thus they despised Christ. (Zech. 11:13) Thus those who were bidden to the marriage despised the invitation. (Matt. 22:5) Man has no heart for the things of God. The present is everything to him. A mess of pottage is better than a title to Canaan. Hence, the very reason why Esau made light of the birthright was the reason why he ought to have grasped it with the greater intensity. The more clearly I see the vanity of man's present, the more I shall cleave to God's future. Thus it is in the judgement of faith. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." (2 Peter 3:11-13) These are the thoughts of God, and, therefore, the thoughts of faith. The things that are seen shall be dissolved. What, then, are we to despise the unseen? By no means. The present is rapidly passing away. What is our resource? "Looking for, and hasting to, the coming of the day of God." This is the judgement of the renewed mind; and any other judgement is only that of "a profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright." (Heb. 12:16) The Lord keep us judging of things as He judges. This can only be done by faith.

Verses 16, 17. They were to beware of such. For sanctification, body, soul, and spirit, was the will of God concerning them. They should know the natural man, in spite of his disguise, and shun with care all recognition of profaneness in the temple of the living God. The standing type of "a profane person"* is Esau, the despiser of his birthright. In his sale of the birthright, we have an example of nature's estimate of heavenly things. His heart was never really on the birthright, because he had no true appreciation of the inheritance. As the apparent heir of the promises of God, he stood in an entirely false light. For he was without the faith which alone makes promise precious. When a crisis comes, and the birthright, as an insubstantial thing, is compared with the smallest measure or the lowest quality of temporal advantage, there is a deliberate preference of the creature to the Creator. God, never having been enjoyed while Esau held a title whose sole value was its expectance of His favour, was no strength to Esau in his day of trial. Meat was more to him than God. For his soul's desires were on this side death. When faint, and at the point to die, the birthright lost all value in his eyes. His heart was on it only while it ministered to the flesh. He valued his title as the chief of Isaac's house, but he never thought of it as something better than his life (Gen. 25:32-34).

In despising his birthright, Esau gave up God. But he by no means surrendered his expectations as the eldest-born of Isaac. He knew his father's natural partiality, and relied upon it for the ultimate attainment of the blessing which he desired to inherit. He went his way, and lived long years as he had lived before, a cunning hunter, ranging at his will the fields which pleased him best, without a feeling of regret, still less of repentant desire, in relation to his vacated birthright. Such is the impression conveyed to our minds by the scanty narrative which Scripture affords respecting Esau, previously to the decisive repudiation of his claim. His alliance by marriage with the Canaanite is the solitary but highly characteristic incident related of him until the hour of his bitter undeceiving. With an exceeding great and bitter cry he received from Isaac the unlooked-for extinction of his hope. His former confidence is now the cause of his despair. He had trusted in his natural parent for things which only God could give. Of Isaac he is now rejected. With a reiterated blessing he bestowed on Jacob the inheritance (Gen. 26:33). The tears of Esau could not move a revocation of the blessing once pronounced. It followed the birthright which Esau had so long ago despised. He sought it carefully, but could not obtain it. There was no repentance either in God's calling of the younger born to the inheritance, or in the heart of Esau towards the God whom he had formerly renounced.*

Passing hunger led to the gravest results. Jacob sod a pottage of lentils the day when Esau returned faint and famished (v. 29). This gave the occasion. Jacob earnestly sought that title which to his forefathers and his descendants was bound up with blessing; and he knew that his brother had no such value for it. He therefore availed himself of Esau's need to strike the bargain. "Feed me, pray, with the red, that there," said the spent hunter. "Sell me today thy birthright," eagerly replied the unbelieving believer.

In Genesis 25 we have recorded the transaction with Esau over the pottage of lentils. The birthright was made the subject of a commercial transaction. Esau revealed himself as a "profane person" (Heb. 12:16), saying "what profit shall this birthright do to me?" Jacob revealed himself as one who, though valuing the birthright, regarded it as a subject of barter, and to be purchased as cheaply as possible. 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. Rather he obtained it in spite of it.

Thus, in the first act of his life presented to us, he evinces a greater regard for the blessing, and the position which the birthright would confer, than for the means by which he should secure them. He takes advantage of his brother's destitution to seize the valued, the justly valued, prize, which Esau ought not to have surrendered for any gain. Yet the possession of the birthright failed to give Jacob that assurance of the blessing which it represented; for if it had, he would not afterwards have so readily complied with his mother's unworthy expedient to secure it for him. And why? The desired mercy had been grasped by him in a natural way; and he derived none of the satisfaction from it which he would have experienced, had it reached him in a divine way; for 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 that it flows from His love, the heart receives it in tranquillity and peace; for I know that though I may lose the proof of His love, I cannot lose the love itself, and that the love cannot exist without declaring itself.

At the beginning Jacob had a title to the inheritance in the grace and sovereignty of God. "The elder shall serve the younger" had pronounced the decree of God in his favour. The rights of nature in the person of Esau were not allowed to stand in his way. The purpose of the grace of God secured everything to him, his only but all-sufficient title, as it is ours. From simple confidence in this he departed. He sought to get his brother's seal to this title (Gen. 25:31), and then, in guile, to get his father's also. (Gen. 27)