Esau

Good morning, all.

I see in Esau the natural, pragmatic man.  To him, if it works, then do it.  If you are hungry, eat.  If you are tired, sleep.  The only thing that he looks for is advantage in his situation.  The only thing that he believes in are the things that he sees and feels, therefor his religion is for the most part superstitious.  Here he is, a grandson of Abraham, who would have been 14 years old at Abraham's death.  Esau, at that time, being the firstborn, would have been considered by Abraham to be the receiver of the birthright.  Abraham never lived to see the day that Esau sold his birthright.  What kind of things do you think Abraham told his grandson in preparation of the inheritance? Esau heard all the same stories that Jacob heard; heard the story of Abraham called to offer Isaac, his father, on the mountain, and how God stayed his grandfather's hand with a substitute.  And after all that, scriptures state that Esau despised his birthright.  For all his faults, Jacob believed his grandfather and received the honor that it would have been impossible to confer to him any other way.  Jacob, himself, would never have entered into that blessing because of his own fears, had it not been for Rebekah, his mother, who pushed him into deceiving his father on the day the blessings were conferred.  Our faith is so small, yet God rewards it so great.

By faith he [Abraham] sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles [tents] with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Heb 11:9 -10 

 Much like the world.  They hear the stories, but they despise their birthright.  They want an advantage in the blessings, but they hold in contempt the meaning of the blessings.  They will believe in God, but only so far as He furthers their own goals and aspirations.  That is the god of idolatry, an image that man projects toward the heavens to mirror his own soul's lusts.  It is also written that God hated Esau.

 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Rom 9:13 

People ask, in derision, how an all loving God could send someone to Hell.  I would say, ask Esau.

~Al

When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; 

And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; 

And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; 

Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife. Gen 28:6-9 

 

the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife; who was the eldest son of Ishmael, and, his father being dead, was the principal in the family; and this woman Esau took to wife was his sister by his mother's side, as the above Targum expresses, as well as by his father's; whereas he might have other sisters only by his father's side, he having had more wives than one. This Esau seems to have done in order to curry favor with his father, who was displeased with his other wives, and therefore takes one of his father's brother's daughters; but in this he acted an unwise part, on more accounts than one; partly as it was taking to wife the daughter of one that was cast out of his grandfather's house, and had been a persecutor of his father, and therefore not likely to be agreeable to him; and partly as being a daughter of the bondmaid's son: children born of her could not inherit the land promised to Abraham and Isaac. (Gill)

 

This passage concerning Esau comes in in the midst of Jacob's story, either, 1. To show the influence of a good example. Esau, though the greater man, now begins to think Jacob the better man, and disdains not to take him for his pattern in this particular instance of marrying with a daughter of Abraham. The elder children should give to the younger an example of tractableness and obedience; it is bad if they do not: but it is some alleviation if they take the example of it from them, as Esau here did from Jacob. Or, 2. To show the folly of an after-wit. Esau did well, but he did it when it was too late, He saw that the daughters of Canaan pleased not his father, and he might have seen that long ago if he had consulted his father's judgment as much as he did his palate. And how did he now mend the matter? Why, truly, so as to make bad worse. (1.) He married a daughter of Ishmael, the son of the bond-woman, who was cast out, and was not to inherit with Isaac and his seed, thus joining with a family which God had rejected, and seeking to strengthen his own pretensions by the aid of another pretender. (2.) He took a third wife, while, for aught that appears, his other two were neither dead nor divorced. (3.) He did it only to please his father, not to please God. Now that Jacob was sent into a far country Esau would be all in all at home, and he hoped so to humor his father as to prevail with him to make a new will, and entail the promise upon him, revoking the settlement lately made upon Jacob. And thus, [1.] He was wise when it was too late, like Israel that would venture when the decree had gone forth against them (Num 14:40), and the foolish virgins, Mat 25:11. [2.] He rested in a partial reformation, and thought, by pleasing his parents in one thing, to atone for all his other miscarriages. It is not said that when he saw how obedient Jacob was, and how willing to please his parents, he repented of his malicious design against him: no, it appeared afterwards that he persisted in that, and retained his malice. Note, Carnal hearts are apt to think themselves as good as they should be, because perhaps, in some one particular instance, they are not so bad as they have been. Thus Micah retains his idols, but thinks himself happy in having a Levite to be his priest, Jdg 17:13. (Matthew Henry)