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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 114. Esau's History
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In all Scripture there are few characters more profitable for our study than the elder son of Isaac and Rebekah. The composite form in which his story has reached us was not finished for hundreds of years after the era to which he belonged. And it may be those are right who assert that there have been painted into the portrait of the man features derived from the probable etymologies of the names of his descendants-for Edom may mean red; Esau and Seir (the land he inhabited) may mean hairy-and that his character is, in part, the reflection of the qualities which his descendants developed in opposition to Israel. The Edomites were at first little more than hunters and warriors, of an impulsive and desperate temper-a temper, like their land, full of precipices, and bare, too, of the more spiritual elements of character. They had their gods and their high places, of course; but their religion is singular among those of the peoples of Syria in exerting almost no fascination on Israel's mind. The Edomites do not appear to have had any faculty in that direction. The few personages they gave to history, among whom the Herods are conspicuous, were coarse, unscrupulous, ruthless, without any interest in religion, except what was dictated by policy. No better word could describe this people than “profane.” Yet the parallel between Esau and the nation he founded is far from perfect. Some of their qualities do not appear in his portrait-their commercial gifts, the worldly wisdom for which they were famed, and that brazen pitilessness which the prophets and psalmists, many centuries ago, unanimously attributed to them. The Esau of our story is a facile character, simple and placable. Such a difference is hardly explained by the theory that those notorious qualities of the Edomites were not thrust upon the experience of Israel till after the composition of Esau's picture, but rather by the fact that his story as it stands is not the reflection, always more or less vague, of the surface of the nation, but the record, keener, deeper, and more tragic, of the character and experience of an individual.
In this lies its value for ourselves. Whether we look at his circumstances, or his chances, or his temper, or the line along which the tragedy of his life is drawn, we find with Esau more that resembles the pitiful facts and solemn possibilities of our own experience than we do with almost any other character in either of the Testaments. Here is a man who was not an insane or monstrous sinner-a Lucifer falling from heaven-but who came to sin in the common, human way; by birth into it, by the sins of others as well as his own, by everyday and sordid temptations, by carelessness and the sudden surprise of neglected passions. Esau is not a repulsive but an attractive man; and we know that if we are to learn from any character our love must be awake, and take her share in the task. There is everything to engage us in the study of him. The mystery which shrouds all human sin, our own experience of temptation, the regret we feel for so wronged and genial a nature-these only serve to make more clear to us the central want and blame of his life. And this may be our own.
If we had been left to form our own opinion of the character of Esau without any aid beyond the bare facts which are recorded, we should probably have come to a very different conclusion from that which we find in the Bible. There the estimate given of his character is set down in no uncertain terms; for the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in writing to them, warns them to look diligently, “lest any man fail of the grace of God”-“lest there be any profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.” Had it not been for this explanation we could not well understand why it should be said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
There are few sadder stories than the history of Esau. Had his character been less attractive, his fall would have excited less pity. If his prospects had not been so brilliant, his fate would have been less terrible. But it is the combination of these two circumstances in the narrative-the ruin of a character which we are disposed to admire, and the unspeakable value of the birthright and the blessing which he recklessly threw away-that gives the interest to the story, and rivets our attention on the lesson which it contains. The destruction of so many bright hopes, the dissipation of so many glorious visions, the hopeless and irrevocable ruin of one so simple and honest and open-hearted-what can be more touching than this?