Esau’s Hittite Wives.

34,35. The Hittites (sons of Heth, ch. 10 : 15), occupying the region around Hebron where Abraham often dwelt, were Canaanites of the race of Ham, and Abraham would not allow a wife to be taken for Isaac from among them (ch. 24 : 3). It is another significant indication of the reckless character of Esau, that he not only took two wives, but chose them both from this irreligious race. T. J. C.—They belonged to a family far gone in transgression and apostasy from God. The two wives chosen from such a stock were a source of great grief to the parents of Esau. The choice manifested his tolerance at least of the carnal, and his indifference to the spiritual. M.—Doubtless his father had given him the same charge which Abraham had done concerning his own marriage. And then it was a very undutiful, nay, an impious action, to marry with those people who were under the curse of God. The Scripture might well call him profane; for he seems not to have regarded either the curse or the blessing of the Almighty. Bp. Patrick.—The circumstance that Esau married two Canaanitish wives shows how much he had become estranged from the religious hopes and views of the chosen family. This should have opened Isaac’s eyes to the perversity of his preference for Esau. K.

Esau forfeited his hereditary rights. To marry a Canaanitish woman was to lose his primogeniture. Where now your tears for Esau, the fainting hunter, who was taken at a disadvantage by his supplanting brother? Esau supplanted himself. To marry thus was to drop out of the entail, to forfeit position, and to commit hereditary suicide. It was then that Esau sold his birthright. Find out the roots and beginnings of things, and you will always discover that a man is his own supplanter: his own enemy. You will find far back—ten years ago, twenty, a quarter of a century—that a man did something which has been following him all the time. When the crises come that the public can look at, they pity him within the four corners of the visible crisis itself: they do not know how judgment has been tracking the man, watching him with pitiless, critical eye, waiting for its turn to come. J. P.

Between this marriage of Esau, and the history in the next chapter, there intervenes a space of thirty-seven years, as may be gathered by a collation of the statements of time given. Gerl.

1. AND it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his elder son, and said unto him, My son: and he said unto him, Here 2 am I. And he said, Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death. Now therefore 3 take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me 4 venison; and make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that 5 my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. 6 And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. And Rebekah spake unto

7. Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the LORD before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. 9 Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father, such as he loveth: and thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, so that he may bless thee before his death. And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savoury meat, such as his father loved. And Rebekah took the goodly raiment of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: and she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth of his neck: and she gave the savoury meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. And he came unto his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the LORD thy God sent me good speed. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau’s hands: so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son’s venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat: and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son—Is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed:—And God give thee of the dew of heaven,—And of the fatness of the earth,—And plenty of corn and wine:—Let peoples serve thee,—And nations bow down to thee:—Be lord over thy brethren,—And let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee:—Cursed be every one that curseth thee,—And blessed be every one that blesseth thee. 30 And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also made savoury meat, and brought it unto his father; and he said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me. 32 And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who then is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou causest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed. When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceeding great and bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. 35 And he said, Thy brother came with guile, and hath taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me? And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him; and what then shall I do for thee, my son? And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept. And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold of the fatness of the earth shall be thy dwelling,—And of the dew of heaven from above:—And by thy sword shalt thou live, and thou shalt serve thy brother;—And it shall come to pass when thou shalt break loose,—That thou shalt shake his yoke from off thy neck.

The story is one of the most picturesque and pathetic in the Bible. It fills the eye, and fixes itself in the memory of childhood. Old age bends over with unabated interest. But it is as humiliating as it is attractive, exhibiting an expenditure of contrivance, activity, self-possesssion, untruthfulness, profanity, all employed by wife and son, in practising a mean fraud upon such a husband and father, believed by both to be upon the bed of death. W. H.

That man must have a strange heart, who can read this chapter unmoved. It is however a very dark page of God’s holy word. Sin and the punishment of sin fill the whole of it. Isaac sinned in aiming at a wrong object—he wanted to set aside the will of God. His object was defeated—Esau lost the blessing. Not only was his object defeated, but in aiming at it, he brought much sin on his family and much anguish on himself. Rebekah sinned, first by distrust of God, and then by fraud and deceit. Here lay her error and her sin, in thinking that with such vile things as these she could further the purposes of a holy God. If there was ever a case in which crooked means seemed allowable or excusable, it was this. But God will not bear with these things. We may say that we may prevent much evil or do much good by a slight transgression, and God in his omnipotence may overrule that transgression, as he overrules all things, to further his own holy purposes, but sin lies at our door; that act of ours is displeasing and hateful to him, as much so as though nothing but evil came from it. The punishment of Rebekah may appear slight, and yet to a fond mother like her, it must have been deeply painful. The curse was indeed on her, and it came in a form she little anticipated—she lost the son for whom she had plotted and sinned. As for Jacob, one sin makes way for another; one sin impels him to commit another. Falsehood comes after falsehood in quick succession, till at last, with a fearful hardihood, he employs the name of God himself to aid his deceit. For Jacob’s punishment we must read the history of his life to see the extent of it. It followed him almost to his dying hour. And Esau sinned, “He despised his birthright”—that was his sin; he lost his birthright and its blessing—that was his punishment; and it was a just punishment; he only lost that on which he set no value. We too have a birthright, one so precious that houses and lands, all the silver and gold the earth contains, are as dross in comparison with it. There are blessings held out to every one of us, blessings put at this moment within our reach, which ought to make the heart of every one here burn as he hears of them—the pardon of sin, reconciliation with heaven, adoption into God’s family, everlasting life and blessedness in his presence; not Canaan, not a land flowing with milk and honey on earth, but a kingdom in heaven, a world bright with the glory of an incarnate God and overflowing with his joy. And how are we treating this birthright? How are we acting with reference to these blessings? Bradley.

Ch. 27: The life of Isaac falls into three periods. During the first seventy-five years he is contemporary with his father. For sixty-one years more his son Jacob remains under the paternal roof. The remaining forty-four years are passed in the retirement of old age. The chapter before us narrates the last solemn acts of the middle period of his life. M.

1-4. As he lived to be 180, it must have been so many as forty-three years before his death that it is said of him that he was “old, and his eyes were dim that he could not see.” The infirmities of age have come upon him prematurely. He is blind, infirm, bedridden. He remembers that his half brother Ishmael had died fourteen years before, at the very age to which he had now attained. He imagines that his own dissolution is near. He resolves formally and solemnly to invest his eldest and best-liked son Esau with all the rights which primogeniture bestowed. W. H.—It was probably at a moment of dangerous sickness when he bethought himself of imparting the blessing—and this conjecture is supported by the following minute coincidences. That Isaac was then desirous to have “savory meat such as he loved,” as though he loathed his ordinary food: that Jacob bade him “arise and sit that he might eat of his venison,” as though he was at the time stretched upon his bed; that he “trembled very exceedingly,” when Esau came in and he was apprised of his mistake, as though he was very weak; that the words of Esau, when he said in his heart “the days of mourning for my father are at hand,” are as though he was thought sick unto death; and that those of Rebekah, when she said unto Jacob “should I be deprived of you both in one day,” are as though she supposed the time of her widowhood to be near. I will add that the prolongation of Isaac’s life unexpectedly (as it should seem) may have had its influence in the continued protection of Jacob from Esau’s anger, the latter, even in the first burst of his passion, retaining that reverence for his father which determined him to put off the execution of his evil purposes against Jacob, till he should be no more. Blunt.

4-29. What hath careless Esau lost, if, having sold his birthright, he may obtain the blessing? Or what hath Jacob gained, if his brother’s venison may countervail his pottage?

Yet thus hath old Isaac decreed; who was not now more blind in his eyes than in his affections: God had forewarned him that the elder should serve the younger, yet Isaac goes about to bless Esau. That God, who had ordained the lordship to the younger, will also contrive for him the blessing: what he will have effected shall not want means: the mother shall rather defeat the son and beguile the father, than the father shall beguile the chosen son of his blessing. God inclines the love of the mother to the younger, against the custom of nature, because the father loves the elder, against the promise: the affections of the parents are divided, that the promise might be fulfilled; Rebekah’s craft shall answer Isaac’s partiality. God doth oft-times effect his just will by our weaknesses; yet neither thereby justifying our infirmities, nor blemishing his own actions. Here was nothing but counterfeiting; a feigned person, a feigned name, feigned venison, a feigned answer, and yet behold, a true blessing; but to the man, not the means: those were so unsound, that Jacob himself doth more fear their curse than hope for their success. Bp. II.

The moral aspect of the transaction is plain to those who are willing to see that the Bible represents the patriarchs as “men compassed with infirmity,” favored by the grace of God, but not at all endowed with sinless perfection. It is just this, in fact, that makes their lives a moral lesson for us. Examples have occurred in the lives of Abraham and Isaac; but the whole career of Jacob is the history of a growing moral discipline. God is not honored by glossing over the patriarch’s great faults of character, which were corrected by the discipline of severe suffering. We need not withhold indignant censure from Rebekah’s cupidity on behalf of her favorite son—so like her family—and the mean deceit to which she tempts him. Nor is Isaac free from the blame of that foolish fondness, which, as is usual with moral weakness, gives occasion to crime in others. What, then, is the difference between them and Esau? Simply this—that they, in their hearts, honored the God whom he despised, though their piety was corrupted by their selfish passions. Jacob valued the blessing which he purchased wrongfully, and sought more wrongfully to secure. But Esau, whose conduct was equally unprincipled in desiring to receive the blessing which was no longer his, was rightly “rejected, when he would have inherited the blessing.” His selfish sorrow and resentment could not recall the choice he had made, or stand in the place of genuine repentance. “He found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears,” and he is held forth as a great example of unavailing regret for spiritual blessings wantonly thrown away. The true state of Esau’s spirit is shown by his resolve to kill his brother as soon as his father should die. P. S.

The honesty of the Bible, in narrating without extenuation the failings and sins of God’s own people, is a token both of the historic truth and the divine wisdom of the record. The fact that God turns the wrong-doings of men to the furtherance of his own plans is never used to justify, or even to palliate, the sin. It was known to Isaac that Jacob was announced to be the heir of the promise; but his partiality for Esau led him to attempt to forestall Divine Providence by giving his blessing in secret. Esau had rashly sold his birthright for a mess of pottage; but he should have regarded his oath to his brother and have accepted the consequences. Jacob had taken a mean advantage of his necessity, and showed a disposition to overreach him. Though he shrank, at first, from the deception which his mother proposed,—lest his father should discover the cheat, and give him his curse instead of his blessing,—yet the temptation proved too strong; and, consenting to the first step, he was led from one fraud to another, until he even invoked the name of God to a lie: so easy is it to slide from sin to sin! But Rebekah was the chief offender. She plotted the deception of Jacob, the imposition upon her aged and blind husband, the wrong to her firstborn. She attempted to make sure a divine promise by a pious fraud; but she brought strife and bitterness into the household, and sorrow upon herself and her favorite son. Selfishness always brings sorrow, even when it puts on the guise of love. J. P. T.

Esau had no right, either divine or human, to claim the patriarchal blessing. The outward right which his birth might have given him had from the first been taken away by Him who rules the course of nature, and Esau himself had by a formal sale ceded it. Hence the blame of circumventing their father for the inheritance attached to Esau as much as to Jacob. But the issue places him in the right position which God had destined for him. It was not Rebekah’s way, in quiet faith, to wait for help from without and from above, so long as she could help or counsel herself. If God does not interpose, she is ready to assist with her wisdom. This perverseness and unbelief arose from the circumstance that the glory of God was not her only aim, and the fulfilment of His will not her sole object. The moral state of

Jacob was similar to that of Rebekah. But the Nemesis of history apportions to each of the four parties concerned their punishment. Isaac and Esau immediately feel the consequences of their conduct; Rebekah and Jacob soon afterward. Just because her plan had been successful, Rebekah must send away her favorite during the dark of the night, destitute and helpless, nor will she ever behold his face again. The deceit of Jacob is repaid him in the same coin, and much sorrow, anxiety, labor, and want, are the consequences of his godless cunning. K.—He seems not to have been struck by the enormity of the deed as an offence against God. How great the contrast between his reasoning on this occasion, and that of his son Joseph when assaulted by a powerful temptation. “I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing,” said the one; “How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God,” said the other. But as he now sowed, so he afterward reaped. Bash.

5-10. When Rebekah sees Isaac actually preparing to pass Jacob by and bless Esau, her fears are so excited that she cannot any longer quietly leave the matter in God’s hand, but must lend her own more skilful management. It may have crossed her mind that she was justified in forwarding what she knew to be God’s purpose. She saw no other way of saving God’s purpose and Jacob’s rights than by her interference. The emergency might have unnerved many a woman, but Rebekah is equal to the occasion. She makes the threatened exclusion of Jacob the very means for at last finally settling the inheritance upon him. She braves the indignation of Isaac and the rage of Esau, and fearless herself, and confident of success, she soon quiets the timorous and cautious objections of Jacob. She knows that for straightforward lying and acting a part she was sure of good support in Jacob. Luther says, “Had it been me, I’d have dropped the dish.” But Jacob had no such tremors—could submit his hands and face to the touch of Isaac, and repeat his lie as often as needful. Dods.

19-24. All the senses are set to examine; none sticketh at the judgment but the ear; to deceive that, Jacob must second his dissimulation with three lies at one breath: “I am Esau; as thou badest me; my venison;” one sin entertained fetcheth in another; and if it be forced to lodge alone, either departeth or dieth: I love Jacob’s blessing, but I hate his lie. I would not do that wilfully, which Jacob did weakly, upon condition of a blessing: he that pardoned his infirmity would curse my obstinacy. Bp. H.

I wonder how Jacob could so readily turn his tongue to say (v. 19), I am Esau, thy firstborn. How could he say, I have done as thou badest me, when he had received no command from his father, but was doing as his mother bade him? How could he say, Eat of my venison, when he knew it came not from the field, but from the fold? But especially I wonder how he could have the assurance to father it upon God, and to use his name in the cheat (v. 20), The Lord thy God brought it to me. H.—The baseness of Jacob is here coped by his blasphemy. It is no mean sign of the sublimity of Scripture that no word of disapproval is inserted in cases like this. The condemnation is left to the “discernment of good and evil” which we have “even of ourselves;” and when passed, it is in the history’s sequel, amply justified. The blasphemy is enhanced by the most solemn name of God being used, and his covenant relation to Isaac introduced: JEHOVAH thy God. Alf.

23. So he blessed him. Jacob got his father’s blessing by a lie; but see what followed. His brother purposed to murder him; he was in a manner banished from his father’s house; his uncle dealt deceitfully with him, as he had done with his father, and treated him with great rigor: and his mother, who put him upon this fraud, never saw him after. Bp. Wilson.—It is a strange and, in some respects, perplexing spectacle that is here presented to us—the organ of the Divine blessing represented by a blind old man, laid on a “couch of skins,” stimulated by meat and wine, and trying to cheat God by bestowing the family blessing on the son of his own choice to the exclusion of the divinely-appointed heir. Out of such beginnings had God to educate a people worthy of Himself, and through such hazards had He to guide the spiritual blessing He designed to convey to us all. Dods.

28,29. This promise (as was the case with most of them) is at first annexed to things seen and present; hence it rises to the unseen future. The summit and the centre of the blessing is contained in the words, “Be lord over thy brethren;” since thereby was signified that he alone was bearer of the blessing,—the others only shared the advantage through him. Gerl.

In the following chapter (ver. 14) the promise is made to Jacob, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed;” and to this are to be referred in their full force those expressions, “Let people serve thee, etc.” It appears that Jacob believed the Divine promises more than Esau. The posterity of

Jacob, likewise, preserved the true religion, and the worship of one God, while the Edomites were sunk in idolatry. And of the seed of Jacob was born at last the Saviour of the world. This was the peculiar privilege and advantage of Jacob, to be the happy instrument of conveying these spiritual blessings to all nations. Stackhouse — However alike their temporal advantages in all spiritual gifts and graces, the younger brother was to have the superiority, was to be the instrument of conveying the blessing to all nations — In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed; and to this are to be referred in their full force those expressions — Let people serve thee; and nations bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. The same promise was made to Abraham in the name of God — I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee (ch. 12:3), and it is here repeated to Jacob. Bp. N.

33. He had given a blessing to one person under the impression that he was a different person; must not the blessing go to him for whom it was designed? But Isaac unhesitatingly yielded. This clear recognition of God’s hand in the matter, and quick submission to Him, reveals a habit of reflection, and a spiritual thoughtfulness, which are the good qualities in Isaac’s otherwise unsatisfactory character. Before he finished his answer to Esau, he felt he was a poor feeble creature in the hand of a true and just God, who had used even his infirmity and sin to forward righteous and gracious ends. It was his sudden recognition of the frightful way in which he had been tampering with God’s will, and of the grace with which God had prevented him from accomplishing a wrong destination of the inheritance, that made Isaac tremble very exceedingly. Esau only saw the supplanter, and vowed to be revenged. Isaac saw God in the matter, and trembled. Dods. — When the invisible hand presses again upon the inner springs of thought and feeling, and he utters the short but singularly comprehensive prophecy as to the future of the seed of Esau, the inward eye is fully opened; no earthly shadow dims or blurs the vision. He weeps with Esau, does all he can to comfort him; but he bows to God, whose hand he recognizes as making even the duplicity of man to praise. He shakes off the infirmity of faith under which he has been laboring, and says even of the treacherous Jacob, in whom he had been taught in so singular a way to recognize the heir of the covenant blessing, “I have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed.” W. H.

34. Cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.** The language is very emphatic, and describes a poignancy of grief amounting to positive anguish. The time had now come that he bitterly bewailed his folly in despising and throwing away his birthright for so trifling a consideration. Dush. — Why did he not rather weep to his brother for the pottage than to Isaac for a blessing? If he had not then sold, he had not needed now to buy. It is just with God to deny us those favors which we were careless in keeping, and which we undervalued in enjoying. How happy a thing is it to know the seasons of grace, and not to neglect them! How desperate to have known and neglected them! These tears are both late and false. Bp. H.

“Esau found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears.” Do not mistake that, as if it meant that Esau, wishing to repent, could not. Clearly, the repentance he sought for was his father’s, not his own; repentance in the sense of change of purpose; and all his tears could not alter that purpose, or change the word once passed. He had sowed to the flesh, and expected to reap both the joys of the flesh and the peace of the spirit. This may not be. We reap as we have sown. Robertson. — Esau’s trouble was a principle of profaneness in the soul, which was simply developed in the transaction between him and Jacob in his youth — which was developed again in his marriage of the two heathen wives — which was developed again in his murderous vow concerning his brother — which was simply developed more strongly in his utterly godless hypocrisy in marrying a daughter of Ishmael under the ignorant notion of mere worldly expediency, that thereby he was conforming to the ideas of the religion of his father and mother. And the meaning of the apostle in citing the case of Esau is to show how all outward privileges amount to nothing if there is inward profaneness of heart; that profane apostates have only a limited season wherein the recovery of the gospel blessing is possible; that sin may be the occasion of great sorrow, though there be no true sorrow for sin; that the profane despising of spiritual privileges will, at some time or other, testify in experience to God’s severity against all reprobates. S. R.

Esau’s great and bitter cry, which at first sight we are disposed to pity, is the cry of one who has rejected God, and God in turn has rejected him. It is the cry of one who has trifled with God’s mercies, and then sought to regain them when it was all too late. It is the cry of one who has not heeded the warning, “See that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” Newman.

39. 40. The Blessing of Esau. As to Isaac, one point only is named of him by the writer to the Hebrews in his catalogue of illustrious examples of faith: “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come” (11:20). These benedictions must be regarded as far more than a venerable father’s good wishes,—indeed, as nothing less than prophetic benedictions, words uttered under the divine impulses of the Holy Ghost. Their broad outlook embraced the great outlines of the future history of the two nations that were before him in the person of his two sons. H. C.

The prophecy thus delivered by Isaac was fulfilled in every particular. At first Esau, the elder, seemed to prosper more than his brother Jacob. There were dukes in Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel (Gen. 36:31); and while Israel was in bondage in Egypt, Edom was an independent people. E. H. B.—It was Saul who first conquered, and David who subjugated them. They revolted under Joram, and Amaziah defeated them and stormed their citadel Sela. After frequent changes in their political relations to Israel, they spread themselves abroad at the time of the Maccabees over the southern part of Canaan, as far as Hebron. John Hyrcanus completed their subjugation, and forced upon them the rite of circumcision, so that about a century before Christ they formed one people with the Jews. Antipater was an Idumæan, and Herod the Great was his son. At the destruction of Jerusalem, about seventy years after Christ, they accelerated its fall. Since that period they have disappeared from history. C. G. B.

39. The dwelling of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, was Mt. Seir, on the south side of the Dead Sea, a district stretching to the Élanitic Gulf of the Red Sea—a rocky district, which is barren toward the north; but contains even now some fertile mountain country—once flourishing communities. Its chief town was Selah (“a rock” (2 Kings 14:7); afterward called “Petra,” a great town, which gave the name to Arabia Petræa), which has astonished modern travelers by its magnificent ruins. It was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Trajan. In its neighborhood are, even to this day, “the ridges of the mountains covered with corn-fields and fruit-gardens.” Gerl.

The elder branch, it is here foretold, should delight more in war and violence, but yet should be subdued by the younger. By thy sword shall thou live, and shall serve thy brother. Esau and his children got possession of Mount Seir by force, expelling from thence the Hordes, the former inhabitants (De. 2:22). They were almost continually at war with the Jews: upon every occasion, they were ready to join with their enemies; and when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, they encouraged him utterly to destroy the city, saying—Raze it, raze it even to the foundations thereof (Psal. 137:7). And even long after they were subdued by the Jews, they retained the same martial spirit; for Josephus in his time gives them the character of “a turbulent and disorderly nation, always erect to commotions, and rejoicing in changes: at the least adulation of those who beseech them, beginning war, and hastening to battles as to a feast.” And a little before the last siege of Jerusalem, they came, at the entreaty of the Zealots, to assist them against the priests and people; and there, together with the Zealots, committed unheard-of cruelties, and barbarously murdered Annas, the high-priest, from whose death Josephus dates the destruction of the city. They were swallowed up and lost, partly among the Nabathean Arabs and partly among the Jews; and the very name was disused about the end of the first century of the Christian Era. Thus were they rewarded for insulting and oppressing their brethren the Jews; and hereby other prophecies were fulfilled, viz. Jerem. 49:7; Ezek. 25:12; Joel 3:19; Amos 1:11, and particularly Obadiah: for at this day we see the Jews subsisting as a distinct people, while Edom is no more, agreeably to the words of Obadiah (ver. 10). For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, in the return of his posterity from Egypt, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever. And again (ver. 18). There shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken it. In what a most extensive and circumstantial manner has God fulfilled all these predictions! And what a proof is this of the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch, and the omniscience of God! Bp. Newton.

Other Suggestive Points of the Narrative.

Esau shows how selfish and untruthful the sensual man really is, and how worthless is the generosity which is merely of impulse and not bottomed on principle. While he so bitterly blamed Jacob for supplanting him, it might surely have occurred to him that it was really he who was supplanting Jacob. He had no right, divine or human, to the inheritance. God had never said that his possession should go to the oldest, and had in this case said the express opposite. Besides, inconstant as Esau was, he could scarcely have forgotten the bargain that so pleased him at the time, and by which he had sold to his younger brother all title to his father’s blessings. Jacob was to blame for seeking to win his own by craft, but Esau was more to blame for endeavoring furtively to recover what he knew to be no longer his. His bitter cry was the cry of a disappointed and enraged child, what Hosea calls the “howl” of those who seem to seek the Lord, but are really merely crying out, like animals, for corn and wine. Many that care very little for God’s love will seek His favors; and every wicked wretch who has in his prosperity spurned God’s offers, will, when he sees how he has cheated himself, turn to God’s gifts, though not to God, with a cry. Esau would now very gladly have given a mess of pottage for the blessing that secured to its receiver “the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.” Like many another sinner, he wanted both to eat his cake and have it. He wanted to spend his youth sowing to the flesh, and have the harvest which those only can have who have sown to the spirit. He wished both of two irreconcilable things—both the red pottage and the birthright. He is a type of those who think very lightly of spiritual blessings while their appetites are strong, but afterward bitterly complain that their whole life is filled with the results of sowing to the flesh and not to the spirit. Dods.

Adam and Eve sold their birthright for the fruit of a tree—that was their bargain. Esau sold his for a mess of lentils—that was his. And men nowadays often sell theirs, not indeed for anything so simple as fruits or herbs but for some evil gain, which at the time they think worth purchasing at any price; perhaps for the enjoyment of some particular sin, or more commonly for the indulgence of general carelessness and spiritual sloth, because they do not like a strict life, and have no heart for God’s service. And thus they are profane persons, for they despise the great gift of God. And then, when all is done and over, and their souls sold to Satan, they never seem to understand that they have parted with their birthright. They think that they stand just where they did; they take for granted that when they choose to become more decent, or more religious, they have all their privileges just as before. Like Esau, instead of repenting for the loss of the birthright, they come, as a matter of course, for the blessing. Newman.

Esau warns us that it is very possible, by careless yielding to appetite and passing whim, to entangle ourselves irrecoverably for this life, if not to weaken and maim ourselves for eternity. At the time, your act may seem a very small and secular one, a mere bargain in the ordinary course, a little transaction such as one would enter into carelessly after the day’s work is over, in the quiet of a summer evening or in the midst of the family circle; or it may seem so necessary that you never think of its moral qualities, as little as you question whether you are justified in breathing; but you are warned that if there be in that act a crushing out of spiritual hopes to make way for the free enjoyment of the pleasures of sense—if there be a deliberate preference of the good things of this life to the love of God—if, knowingly, you make light of spiritual blessings, and count them unreal when weighed against obvious worldly advantages—then the consequences of that act will in this life bring to you great discomfort and uneasiness, great loss and vexation, an agony of remorse, and a life-long repentance. You are warned of this, and most touchingly, by the moving entreaties, the bitter cries and tears of Esau.

But even when our life is spoiled irreparably, a hope remains for our character and ourselves—not certainly if our misfortunes embitter us, not if resentment is the chief result of our suffering; but if, subduing resentment, and taking blame to ourselves instead of trying to fix it on others, we take revenge upon the real source of our undoing, and extirpate from our own character the root of bitterness. Painful and difficult is such schooling. It calls for simplicity, and humility, and truthfulness—qualities not of frequent occurrence. It calls for abiding patience; for he who begins thus to sow to the spirit late in life, must be content with inward fruits, with peace of conscience, increase of righteousness and humility, and must learn to live without much of what all men naturally desire. Dods.

It is natural to pity Esau; but one has no right to do more. One has no right to fancy for a moment that God was arbitrary or hard upon him. Esau is not the sort of man to be the father of a great nation, or of anything else great. Greedy, passionate, reckless people like him, without due feeling of religion or of the unseen world, are not the men to govern the world or help it forward, or to be of use to mankind, or train up their families in justice and wisdom and piety. King-ley.—When you look at the entire lives of Jacob and Esau, you find, that while Esau was far better in the beginning, Jacob was far better in the end. There was very good material in Esau’s composition, but what did he make of it? He sidd his birthright. He turned away from God. Instead of going up, he went down. There was very poor material in Jacob’s composition, but he accepted God as his God; and his path, though by no means straight, was nevertheless in the main an upward path. So Jacob grew better and better, and rose higher and higher, until we find him at last a veritable saint, a noble old man, before he dies. Abraham was a hero; Isaac was a saint; but Jacob was a sinner. The biography of Jacob comes closer home to many of us than the history of the others. There are few Abrahams; not a large number of Isaacs; but a great many Jacobs, to whom it is most comforting to know, that however poor stuff we are made of by nature, God can make of us, if only we will yield ourselves to him, “vessels unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” And are there not times in the history of us all when it is a peculiar support to our faith to be able to call on God as “the God of Jacob”? Gibson.

A great modern writer, Goethe, who can be accused neither of pietism nor of clericalism, wrote on the patriarchs some magnificent pages, in which occurs the following extract: “In that noble family there appears for the first time, in Jacob, a member who does not shrink from using stratagem and artifice in order to obtain those advantages which nature and circumstances deny him. It has often been observed that the Holy Scriptures in nowise set the patriarchs before us as models of virtue. They are men of most diverse characters, subject to manifold failings and infirmities.” “But,” adds this prince of modern authors, “there is one fundamental quality which is ever found in those men after God’s own heart; that quality is the unshaken belief that God takes special care of them and theirs.” That unwavering faith in the faithful and merciful God is the seal by which Jacob is stamped as well as Abraham. It is, therefore, easy to understand why God has chosen him in spite of his many delinquencies. In that heart, beneath the dross, was the noble metal which God requires, that spiritual sense we call faith—the sense which was lacking in the profane Esau. Godet.—On the whole, here was a mixed character as to its excellence, but a high character as to its ability. Jacob was, even in his weakest points, far better fitted to lay the foundations of a family and kingdom than the impulsive and purposeless Esau. As a matter of fact, among the patriarchs though Abraham is most revered Jacob has been the truly influential man with the Jewish masses. He has moulded the mass of the Jewish people into his own image. Mercer.

The fundamental thought connected with the divine guidance of Jacob’s life is, that in spite of all human hindrances, the divine counsel reaches its goal, and that even human sins must serve for its realization, although they are punished none the less. O.—In the whole of this history it is to be observed that God executes his purposes according to his own counsel and will, and renders the weaknesses and sins of the children of men subservient to their accomplishment. The sins themselves he punishes, as he did in Rebekah, Isaac, Esau, and especially Jacob. Amid the confusions and antagonisms of man’s weakness and waywardness, his purposes move on. C. G. B.

This is one of the most remarkable complications of life, showing in the clearest manner that a higher hand guides the threads of history, so that neither sin nor error can ultimately entangle them. Each one weaves the threads which are committed to him according to his own views and desires, but at last when the texture is complete we behold in it the pattern which the master had long before devised, and toward which each laborer had only contributed one or another feature. K.—Each member of the family plans his own wicked device, and God by the evil of one defeats the evil of another, and saves His own purpose to bless the race from being frittered away and lost. And it is told us in order that, amid all this mess of human craft and selfishness, the righteousness and stability of God’s word of promise may be more vividly seen. Dels.

The Bible is a book rather of examples than of precepts. There is comparatively little teaching of moral lessons in the abstract. What is this but an indication on the part of God that He wills us to meditate upon His Word, and to derive from it for ourselves the lessons implicitly wrapped up in it, without their being always explicitly stated? The narrative itself seldom or ever develops those lessons; no comments are made, as a general rule, upon the conduct of the characters which are brought before us; we are left to gather the moral for ourselves, either from the results of the conduct, or from principles laid down in another part of the Sacred Volume. Thus, God’s abhorrence of

Jacob’s deceit and falsehood is not stated expressly in the narrative, but left to be gathered from the after fortunes of the Patriarch, whose latter years only were gilded with some gleam of comfort,—who may be said to have paid a life-long penalty of his sin. All these lessons it asks some mental effort to elicit. It is, however, an effort which repays itself. It is far more interesting—it gives far more of life and freshness to a maxim of duty—to derive it for ourselves from an example, than to have it presented to us in a dry and abstract form. E. M. G.

27 : 41 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him : and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay 42 my brother Jacob. And the words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah ; and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as 43 touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee. Now therefore, my son, obey 44 my voice ; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran ; and tarry with him a few 45 days, until thy brother’s fury turn away ; until thy brother’s anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him : then I will send, and fetch thee from thence : why should I be bereaved of you both in one day ? 46 And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth ; if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me ?28 : 1 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou 2 shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father ; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of 3 Laban thy mother’s brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and 4 multiply thee, that thou mayest be a company of peoples ; and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee ; that thou mayest inherit the land of thy 5 sojournings, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob ; and he went to Paddan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and 6 Esau’s mother. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram, to take him a wife from thence ; and that as he blessed him he gave him a 7 charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan ; and that Jacob 8 obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan-aram : and Esau saw that the 9 daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father ; and Esau went unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife.

41. As Esau was well aware of Isaac’s partiality toward himself, he must have been convinced that it was not owing to him, nor to Jacob’s fraud, but to the Lord’s doing, that the actual result had been brought about. Hence it appears that his hatred was of the same nature with that of Cain toward Abel, and of Saul toward David, being directed against him principally on account of his having been a special object of the divine favor. Under these circumstances to attempt to take Jacob’s life was virtually an attempt to frustrate the decree of

God by a stroke of his sword ! Bush.—He thought not of the hand of God in the whole matter, and just as little of condemning himself, acknowledging his guilt, and repenting. Thus nothing remained to him—as nothing does remain to any natural heart, unbroken by grace—but hatred and enmity. And Rebekah and Jacob came now to experience, as just retribution, the consequences of the mistakes and errors with which they sought to anticipate the counsel of the Most High. C. G. B.

44. By the words ‘a few days’ Rebekah persuades her son to tear himself from home. The punishment of the fraud is beginning. She never saw him again. Alf.—Rebekah in her scheming neglected to take account of Laban, a man true brother to herself in cunning. She had calculated on Esau’s resentment, and knew it would last only a few days, and this brief period she was prepared to utilize by sending Jacob out of Esau’s reach to her own kith and kin, from among whom he might get a suitable wife. But she did not reckon on Laban’s making her son serve fourteen years for his wife, nor upon Jacob’s falling so deeply in love with Rachel as to make him apparently forget his mother. Dods.

46. She is afraid, or pretends to be afraid, that her son Jacob may marry among the Hittites, as Esau had done; and therefore makes this to Isaac the ostensible reason why Jacob should immediately go to Paddan-aram, that he might get a wife there. Isaac readily falls in with Rebekah’s proposal, and immediately calls Jacob, gives him suitable directions and his blessing, and sends him away. In this view of the subject we see at once the reason of the abrupt speech contained in this verse. A. C.

28 : 1-5. Blessed him and said, Arise, go. Too keenly does Isaac feel the grief which Esau’s Canaanitish wives had caused him, not at once and cordially to have seconded such a proposal; the more so as he has now perceived that in many respects he had been unjust to Jacob, and has learned to regard him as the person in whom the promised race is to be continued. As formerly unconsciously and in prophetic emotion, so now consciously and of set purpose he transfers the blessing of Abraham to the son whom he had neglected, and sends him away with the injunction not to take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. K.

4. A little reflection will show that, after all his errors in the matter, Isaac did “by faith” bless his sons. Manifestly, Isaac had been very early in life initiated into the sublime mysteries of that faith which his father professed. The transaction on Mt. Moriah shows his full acquiescence in the terms of the covenant made with Abraham. All the circumstances of his marriage—his patient delay on account of the scruples of his father—his acquiescence in the perilous venture in sending among strangers for a wife—his prayer of faith for the fulfilment of the promise after it was delayed twenty years—show very clearly that he was a man of faith and had a vivid apprehension of his high calling, and that therefore, even though the feebleness and seeming childchildishness of his old age led him into error as to the mode of executing the duty which faith taught him was incumbent upon him, still the power of his faith shows itself in his purpose to transmit the sacred deposit which he had received from Abraham. S. R.

As the blessing now pronounced on Jacob was obtained without any deception on his part, it is likely that it produced a salutary effect upon his mind, might have led him to confession of his sin, and prepared his heart for those discoveries of God’s goodness with which he was favored at Bethel. A. C.

Now Jacob fled into Syria (Hos. 12 : 12). He was blessed with plenty of corn and wine, and yet he goes away poor; was blessed with government, and yet goes out to service, a hard service. The blessing shall be confirmed to him, and yet he shall smart for the indirect course he takes to obtain it. While there is such an allay as there is of sin in our duties, we must expect an allay of trouble in our comforts. H.—Isaac’s life was not more retired and quiet than Jacob’s was busy and troublesome. In the one I see the image of contemplation; of action, in the other. None of the patriarchs saw so evil days as he; from whom justly hath the church of God therefore taken her name. Neither were the faithful ever since called Abrahamites, but Israelites. Bp. H.

6-9. Esau’s third marriage.** This proceeding of Esau shows the same characteristic misapprehension of the position, and of his father’s mind, as we have seen in him before. It fulfils that mind to the letter, but violates it in the spirit. There is, again, no inconsistency with what has gone before, as some have thought. Esau need not have known that his mother had heard of his threat against his brother: he sees his brother’s dismissal to Haran, and its ostensible reason. He knows that his wives were displeasing to his father; and he endeavors in his clumsy way to repair the mischief. Alf.

True to his character, Esau manifests, on one hand, a kindness of disposition in consulting the wishes of his parents; on the other hand, even more, a certain wilfulness which is determined to get back outwardly the inheritance which he has forfeited and despised, together with the blind infatuation of unbelief, which prompts him to marry among the daughters of Ishmael, who in character were congenial to himself. He is the image of a man who is determined to correct his false steps by his own strength; and, accordingly, attempts it in a wrong temper. Gerl.—We are expressly told that Esau went unto Ishmael. There was a kindredness of condition, probably of taste and habits, between the father and son-in-law. Both were rejected offshoots from the direct line which led downward to the birth of Christ; and we can well imagine a community of feeling between them toward the preferred and favored branch of the house from which they sprung. T. C.

Esau does not see any difference between Ishmael’s family and the chosen family; they are both sprung from Abraham, both are naturally the same, and the fact that God expressly gave His inheritance past Ishmael is nothing to Esau—an act of God has no meaning to him. He merely sees that he has not pleased his parents as well as he might by his marriage, and his easy disposition prompts him to remedy this. This is a fine specimen of the hazy views men have of what will bring them to a level with God’s chosen. Through their crass insensibility to the high righteousness of God, there still does penetrate a perception that if they are to please Him there are certain means to be used for doing so. There are, they see, certain occupations and ways pursued by Christians, and if by themselves adopting these they can please God, they are quite willing to humor Him in this. Much commoner than hypocrisy is the dim-sighted, blundering stupidity of the really profane worldly man, who thinks he can take rank with men whose natures God has changed, by the mere imitation of some of their ways; who thinks, that as he cannot without great labor, and without too seriously endangering his hold on the world, do precisely what God requires, God may be expected to be satisfied with a something like it. Dods.

Thus by his own choice as well as in the development of history, Esau is removed from connection with the history of the covenant. His communion with the chosen family had always been only external. He had always been, and he remained a stranger to its higher interests, to its calling and destiny. He went his own ways, and that even while he remained in his father’s house, and was yet invested with the outward and natural claims to be the head of his family. His total exclusion from the chosen family is only the completing of his former tendency. But, like Lot and Ishmael, he thereby becomes really a heathen. From the first, and even before we have studied the life of Jacob, we can fully understand the choice of Jacob and the rejection of Esau. K.—Any one capable of deeper views will certainly not dream that Esau would have been better adapted than

Jacob to become the medium of Divine revelations. Esau is the representative of natural kindness and honesty, but these qualities are joined to rudeness and to a want of susceptibility for what is higher. He is void of all anticipation and longing. He is satisfied with what is visible; in short he is a “profane person.” Such persons, even if grace reaches their hearts, which was not the case with Esau, are not adapted for heading a religious development. The natural disposition of Jacob is much more complex than that of Esau. There are many folds and corners in his heart, which himself and others find it difficult thoroughly to examine, while a man like Esau may be pretty well known in the course of an hour. Jacob is mild and pliable, sensitive and susceptible for every contact with a higher world; always disposed and ready to see the heavens opened and the angels ascending and descending. But at the same time, as in all characters in whom the imaginative prevails, he is also apt to deceive himself, he is under strong temptation to dishonesty, prone to cunning, and without sufficient openness. God took this man into his own training, to remove the many shadows always found when there is much light. Under this training alone is it possible really to learn, and in that school Jacob became Israel, while Esau, who was incapable of any such training, remained to the end only Esau. Hengstenberg.

Taking the two, Esau and Jacob, from first to last, how entirely is the judgment of Scripture and the judgment of posterity confirmed by the result of the whole. The mere impulsive hunter vanishes away, light as air: “he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.” The substance, the strength of the Chosen family, the true inheritance of the promise of Abraham, was interwoven with the very essence of the character of “the plain man, dwelling in tents,” steady, persevering, moving onward with deliberate settled purpose, through years of suffering and of prosperity, of exile and return, of bereavement and recovery. The birthright is always before him. Rachel is won from Laban by hard service, “and the seven years seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her.” Isaac, and Rebekah, and Rebekah’s nurse, are remembered with a faithful, filial remembrance; Joseph and Benjamin are long and passionately loved with a more than parental affection,—bringing down his gray hairs for their sakes “in sorrow to the grave.” This is no character to be condemned or scoffed at;