1. In Heb_12:16 we are told that Esau was a profane person. The Greek word means literally that which “may be trodden”; that which is unfenced and open to the feet of all. It was applied to ground outside sacred enclosures and temples: ground that was common and public. Profane-that which is in front of the fane or temple-is therefore its adequate translation. Esau's was an open heart, naturally open and unreserved. We all know the kind of man. He has fifty doors to the outer world where most of us have but two or three. And except angels be sent to guard them, the peril and ill-omen of such a man are very great. But instead of angels, Esau had by him only tempters-a tempter in his brother, a tempter in his mother. Unguarded by loving presences, unfilled by worthy affections, his mind became a place across which everything was allowed to rush; across which the commonest passions, like hunger, ran riot unawed by any commanding principles. That is what is meant by a “profane person”: an open and a bare character; unfenced and unhallowed; no guardian angels at the doors, no gracious company within, no fire upon the altar, but open to his passions, his mother's provocations, and his brother's wiles.
2. Esau had no vision of spiritual things, and would seem to offer no prayer. He did not deny the reality of the soul, but he knew not those obstinate questionings, inarticulate yearnings,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing.
As a city without a temple was Esau in his whole being. In him there was no sanctuary where dwell those high instincts before which our mortal nature doth “tremble like a guilty thing surprised.”
(1) Esau showed his profanity in not recognizing the spiritual value of his birthright. He used it as a common thing; as if it were a piece of money, he put its worth down as equal to a mess of pottage! He did not see the worth of the spiritual; did not value the unseen and the distant. He had no conception of the prize he was setting aside: no vision of the badness and folly of the bargain he was making. The birthright-he was glad to find that it could at least bring him a meal! To satisfy the cravings of his body for a little he bartered what should have been the abiding treasure of his soul. There was nothing sacred, nothing spiritual, in it. He treated it as a common thing which he could exchange for food. If Esau had become the inheritor of Isaac's blessing, the true worship of God which had been kindled in Abraham would have been extinguished in Esau, because he does not seem to have shown any regard for religion whatever.
(2) Esau's profanity is further illustrated by another circumstance. Esau, we read, married two wives of the Hittites; and we read that this was a “grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.” Now there can be no doubt that Esau's Canaanitish marriages were in the eyes of his parents a religious offence; he was going out of the family to whom the promises were made: and though we may not be able entirely to enter into the feelings of the patriarchs, yet unquestionably, if Esau had been soberly and religiously minded, he would not have acted as he did. But the root of all was that his taste led him in a certain direction, and he had no higher spiritual principle within him to check and control that taste. And the feeling of mind which would lead Esau to despise the religious scruples, and probably the parental commands, of Isaac and Rebekah in the matter of his Canaanitish marriages is quite in keeping with that which led him to despise his birthright.
If Morris had no use for a thing, whatever it might mean to others, for him it was something to be placed on one side. So on one side accordingly went religion, just as did the Art of the Renascence, or the scenic beauties of Southern Europe.1 [Note: A. Compton-Rickett, William Morris, 197]
