Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 115. The Birthright

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Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 115. The Birthright


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I



The Birthright



So Esau despised his birthright.- Gen_25:34.



1. Let us look at Esau before he sold his birthright. The Sovereign Lord of all had elected Abraham, on account of his conspicuous faith, to be at once the father of the faithful, and the ancestor, humanly speaking, of the Christ. Alone of all the human race, the glory of God, His Presence, His covenant were to be with that isolated, wandering family. This mighty privilege and pre-eminence were to be handed down in the direct line of his descendants. They were to possess the land, to increase as the stars of Heaven; from them was to spring the Desire of all nations, and as such God's special care, guardianship, and revelation of Himself were pledged to them. Of this line Esau was the firstborn. The inheritance was his. There was no man living whose true dignity was so high, whose hopes were so bright, who was brought so near to God.



To the birthright belonged pre-eminence over the other branches of the family. To the birthright appertained a double portion of the paternal inheritance. To the birthright was attached the land of Canaan, with all its sacred distinctions. To the birthright was given the promise of being the ancestor of the Messiah-the “firstborn among many brethren”-the Saviour in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed. And to the birthright was added the honour of receiving first, from the mouth of the father, a peculiar benediction, which, proceeding from the spirit of prophecy, was never pronounced in vain. Such were the prospects of Esau.



2. The incident in which we first come across Esau is altogether typical of the man. It fell upon a day, what must indeed have been an incident of almost every day between the brothers, that Esau with his arrows, his quiver, and his bow, came back from the excitements and enjoyment of the chase, back to the tents, where Jacob had as usual been performing the daily round, tending the flocks, serving the household, preparing the meal. And Esau's eyes fell upon the broth, the red lentil soup, made ready by his brother's hands. He was hungry and thirsty, heated from the chase. In his eagerness he cried: “Let me swallow,” or “gulp down”-it is a greedy word-“some of this red, this red stuff, for I am faint.” And Jacob said: “Sell me first of all thy birthright.” And Esau said: “Lo, I am going to die, and what profit shall the birthright do to me!” But Jacob said: “First of all, swear to me!” One sees the hard look with which he spoke. “So he sware to him, and he sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil-pottage, and he ate and drank, and went his way”-his large, careless way! “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” Look at the two habits which came to a fatal crisis in that speech: the habit of yielding to appetite, and the habit of indulging in exaggerated feelings about oneself. “I am at the point to die!” We cannot believe it of the strong man. We hear in him his mother's unscrupulous voice. These two selfishnesses, physical and mental, fostered through a thousand half-conscious and now forgotten acts, sprang that moment to fatal empire, and at their bidding the deluded man sold his birthright-sold the future and his honour, just because the sight of a mess of pottage had mounted to his unhallowed brain.



(1) This was probably not the first time that Esau and Jacob had exchanged words about that birthright. No man sells his birthright on the spot. He who sells his birthright sells it many times in his heart before he takes it so openly as that to the market. He belittles it, and despises it, and cheapens it, at any rate to himself, long before he sells it so cheaply to another. No man, and no woman, falls in that fatal way without having prepared their fall for themselves in their hearts. Esau had showed his contempt for his birthright a thousand times, and in a thousand ways, before now. Everybody knew that Esau's birthright was for sale, if anybody cared to bid for it. Isaac knew, Rebekah knew, and Jacob knew; and Jacob had for long been eyeing his brother for a fit opportunity. It had for a long time back been marrow to Jacob's bones to hear Esau jesting so openly about his birthright over his venison and his wine; jesting and being jested about the covenant blessing. “As much as you are able to eat, Esau! and anything else you like to name, to boot; only, say that you toss me to-day your worthless birthright,” said Jacob. “Take it, and welcome!” said Esau. “And much good may it do you! It has never been worth a haunch of good venison to me. You may have it, and my oath on it on the spot, for a good dish at once, and be quick, of your smoking pottage. Take it, and let me be done with it. Take it, and let me hear no more about it.” And Esau “did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way.”1 [Note: A. Whyte.]



A Highland gentleman, a younger branch of a family, once consulted me if he could not validly purchase the chieftainship of his family, from the chief, who was willing to sell it. I told him it was impossible for him to acquire, by purchase, a right to be a different person from what he really was; for the right of the chieftainship attached to the blood of primogeniture, and, therefore, was incapable of being transferred. I added, that though Esau sold his birthright, or the advantages belonging to it, he still remained the first-born of his parents; and that whatever agreement a chief might make with any of the clan, the Heralds' Office could not admit of the metamorphosis, or with any decency attest that the younger was the elder: but I did not convince the worthy gentleman.2 [Note: Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, i. 196.]



(2) This selling of the birthright must have been more serious than even we can conceive, or the sacred writers would not have used such strong language in condemning it. It must have been considered as nothing short of an insult to Jehovah. There was, however, no aggressive insult displayed by Esau. He did not deny the existence of the birthright, but, as the Scriptures say, he despised it. He did not rightly value it; he counted it as nothing. He had no appreciation of such things. He was sense-bound, living only in the present, debtor only to the material. If Esau's conscience had been in any real way aroused, if he had realized, however feebly, the responsibility of his position, he certainly, after he had eaten, would have reflected that he had paid too high for his pottage, and that Jacob had taken an unfair advantage of him. He would then have endeavoured by fair means to undo the foolish deed. He would have exposed Jacob's conduct to his father, or remonstrated with Jacob that he should make some compensation. Had he done this he would have found a place of repentance, that is, he would have been able to reverse the bargain. But the foolish deed did not even stir Esau's conscience, much less move him to troublesome action. Esau was altogether unreflective.



(3) It may be urged as a palliation of the deed that the man was practically dying of hunger, that birthright and every other privilege were useless to him at this moment-“All that a man hath will he give for his life.” This is true, and so far there seems to be some justification for Esau. But, as Aristotle long ago pointed out to us, a man may do a wrong action under compulsion and not be guilty; yet, if when he is released from the force which compelled him he shows no sorrow for his deed, and makes no attempt to rectify any evil that he has done, then the action is voluntary on his part, and he becomes as guilty of the deed as if he had performed it of his own free will. Now, this is the aggravation of Esau's sin. We are told that “he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way.” There was no repentance, no sorrow, no regret for the loss of the immeasurable treasure.



The discovery of his loss did not come to him all at once. The great, strong hunter went forth, and hunted, and slept, and waked with the serene pulse of health, and what had he lost? The skies spread as fair above him, the mountains rose in the silence of their beauty as majestically around him, the blood leapt with all the old blissful magic in his veins as he hastened after the chase, his life went on as of yore, and what had he lost? If any higher quality had passed out of his life, he had not noticed it; it had passed like an unregarded shadow, and the sunlight seemed undimmed. And then at last there came that awful day, when his heart was broken within him, and the great judgment fell upon him, and the exceeding bitter cry rang out, praying for that which he had cast away, wailing in fruitless agony for opportunities for ever squandered, “Bless me, even me also, O my father.”



Every reader profoundly sympathizes with Esau in his tragic sorrow, in which there is a deep pathos which is scarcely surpassed elsewhere even in the Bible, the most pathetic of all books. But his regrets were vain. An Apostle says that “he found no place of repentance,” which means that there was no means of undoing what he had done. We “know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, though he sought it diligently with tears.” Whatever the future might have in store for him, the past at least was irrevocable.



The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.



Esau's exceeding loud and bitter cry sounds the needful note of alarm in a world in which so much evil is wrought for want of thought as well as want of will. He lost the coveted blessing because he despised the birthright. As George Eliot says: “It is in those acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are for ever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, The earth bears no harvest of sweetness.”1 [Note: J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, ii. 35.]



3. One thing only is recorded between the sale of the birthright and the day of the blessing. When Esau sold his birthright he had perhaps scarcely come to man's estate. We now read that when he was forty years old he took two wives, both Hittites-i.e. Canaanitish women of an idolatrous nation, for the Hittites were one of those seven nations of Canaan whom God afterwards cast out for their wickedness. These two wives were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah. It was an undutiful act on Esau's part if he knew his parents' mind; but this is not the most important thing about Esau's marriage. By marrying these two women he broke through one of the most important rules of life which had been given to the family whom God had chosen to inherit His blessing. Abraham was called of God to leave his country and his kindred because “they served other gods.” When Isaac was to have a wife, his father made his servant swear that he would not take a wife of the daughters of the Canaanites. The reason is given in Deu_7:6, “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God.” The people whom God had chosen were to be a separate people; if not, they could not inherit His blessing. Esau might have known the care which Abraham had taken to keep Isaac separate. And yet he behaved as if no such rule had ever existed, and married Canaanitish wives.



Now, Esau's marriage, fatal step as it also was, was not the passionate impulse of a moment, any more than his sale of his birthright had been. Esau had hunted for years with the brothers of Judith and Bashemath. He had eaten and drunk and danced with the Hittite inhabitants of the land. He had sacrificed and sworn and vowed to their false gods of the fields, and of the streams, and of the unclean groves. Like every reprobate from a better life, Esau had far outdone the sons of Beeri and Elon in their impieties and debaucheries, till at last, and in open defiance of all decency and religion, he brought home two Canaanite wives to his father's covenanted camp.



The place where the thing is recorded is remarkable. The narrative goes straight on from the record of the marriage to the story of the blessing, but we are not to suppose that the blessing was given to Jacob immediately after Esau's marriage. Between the end of Gen_26:1-35 and the beginning of ch. 27 there is an interval of thirty-seven years. It is important to note this fact, because it shows the length of time allowed to Esau for repentance. Even after these marriages he was allowed a space of thirty-seven years to repent of his errors and to return to the appointed path. Every day of grace, however, has its appointed limit; and the end of Esau's day came at last-came most unexpectedly in a catastrophe which it was impossible to provide against, because it was altogether unforeseen.



There is in Esau's conduct and after-experience so much to stir serious thought that one always feels reluctant to pass from it, and that much more ought to be made of it. It reflects so many features of our own conduct, and so clearly shows us what we are from day to day liable to, that we would wish to take it with us through life as a perpetual admonition. Who does not know of those moments of weakness, when we are fagged with work, and with our physical energy our moral tone has become relaxed? Who does not know how, in hours of reaction from keen and exciting engagements, sensual appetite asserts itself, and with what petulance we inwardly cry, we shall die if we do not get this or that paltry gratification? We are, for the most part, inconstant as Esau, full of good resolves to-day, and to-morrow throwing them to the winds-to-day proud of the arduousness of our calling, and girding ourselves to self-control and self-denial, to-morrow sinking back to softness and self-indulgence. Not once, as Esau, but again and again we barter peace of conscience and fellowship with God and the hope of holiness for what is, in simple fact, no more than a bowl of pottage. Even after recognizing our weakness and the lowness of our tastes, and after repenting with self-loathing and misery, some slight pleasure is enough to upset our steadfast mind, and make us as plastic as clay in the hand of circumstances. It is with positive dismay one considers the weakness and blindness of our hours of appetite and passion; how one goes then like an ox to the slaughter, all unconscious of the pitfalls that betray and destroy men, and how at any moment we ourselves may truly sell our birthright.



We barter life for pottage; sell true bliss

For wealth or power, for pleasure or renown;

Thus, Esau-like, our Father's blessing miss,

Then wash with fruitless tears our faded crown.

Our faded crown, despised and flung aside,

Shall on some brother's brow immortal bloom;

No partial hand the blessing may misguide,

No flattering fancy change our Monarch's doom;

His righteous doom, that meek true-hearted Love

The everlasting birthright should receive,

The softest dews drop on her from above,

The righteous green her mountain garland weave:

Her brethren, mightiest, wisest, eldest born,

Bow to her sway, and move at her behest:

Isaac's fond blessing may not fall on scorn,

Nor Balaam's curse on Love, which God hath blest.1 [Note: John Keble, The Christian Year.]