'And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a
man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling
in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of
his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod
pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that
same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name
called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy
birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to
die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto
him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob
gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat
and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau
despised his birthright.'
GENESIS xxv. 27-34.
Isaac's small household represented a great variety of types of
character. He himself lacked energy, and seems in later life to have
been very much of a tool in the hands of others. Rebekah had the
stronger nature, was persistent, energetic, and managed her husband to
her heart's content. The twin brothers were strongly opposed in
character; and, naturally enough, each parent loved best the child that
was most unlike him or her: Isaac rejoicing in the very wildness of the
adventurous, dashing Esau; and Rebekah finding an outlet for her
womanly tenderness in an undue partiality for the quiet lad that was
always at hand to help her and be petted by her.
One's sympathy goes out to Esau. He was 'a man of the field,'--by which
is meant, not cultivated ground, but open country, which we might call
prairie. He was a 'backwoodsman,'--liked the wild hunter's life better
than sticking at home looking after sheep. He had the attractive
characteristics of that kind of men, as well as their faults. He was
frank, impulsive, generous, incapable of persevering work or of looking
ahead, passionate. His descendants prefer cattle-ranching and
gold-prospecting to keeping shops or sitting with their lungs squeezed
against a desk.
Jacob had neither the high spirits nor the animal courage of his
brother. He was 'a plain man.' The word is literally 'perfect,' but
cannot be used in its deepest sense; for Jacob was very far indeed from
being that, but seems to have a lower sense, which might perhaps be
represented by 'steady-going,' or 'respectable,' in modern phraseology.
He went quietly about his ordinary work, in contrast with his daring
brother's escapades and unsettledness.
The two types are intensified by civilisation, and the antagonism
between them increased. City life tends to produce Jacobs, and its
Esaus escape from it as soon as they can. But Jacob had the vices as
well as the virtues of his qualities. He was orderly and domestic, but
he was tricky, and keenly alive to his own interest. He was persevering
and almost dogged in his tenacity of purpose, but he was not above
taking mean advantages and getting at his ends by miry roads. He had
little love for his brother, in whom he saw an obstacle to his
ambition. He had the virtues and vices of the commercial spirit.
But we judge the two men wrongly if we let ourselves be fascinated, as
Isaac was, by Esau, and forget that the superficial attractions of his
character cover a core worthy of disapprobation. They are crude judges
of character who prefer the type of man who spurns the restraints of
patient industry and order; and popular authors, who make their heroes
out of such, err in taste no less than in morals. There is a very
unwholesome kind of literature, which is devoted to glorifying the
Esaus as fine fellows, with spirit, generosity, and noble carelessness,
whereas at bottom they are governed by animal impulses, and incapable
of estimating any good which does not appeal to sense, and that at once.
The great lesson of this story lies on its surface. It is the folly and
sin of buying present gratification of appetite or sense at the price
of giving up far greater future good. The details are picturesquely
told. Esau's eagerness, stimulated by the smell of the mess of lentils,
is strikingly expressed in the Hebrew: 'Let me devour, I pray thee, of
that red, that red there.' It is no sin to be hungry, but to let
appetite speak so clamorously indicates feeble self-control. Jacob's
coolness is an unpleasant foil to Esau's impatience, and his cautious
bargaining, before he will sell what a brother would have given, shows
a mean soul, without generous love to his own flesh and blood. Esau
lets one ravenous desire hide everything else from him. He wants the
pottage which smokes there, and that one poor dish is for the moment
more to him than birthright and any future good. Jacob knows the
changeableness of Esau's character, and is well aware that a hungry man
will promise anything, and, when fed, will break his promise as easily
as he made it. So he makes Esau swear; and Esau will do that, or
anything asked. He gets his meal. The story graphically describes the
greedy relish with which he ate, the short duration of his enjoyment,
and the dark meaning of the seemingly insignificant event, by that
accumulation of verbs, 'He did eat and drink, and rose up and went his
way: so Esau despised his birthright.'
Now we may learn, first, how profound an influence small temptations,
yielded to, may exert on a life.
Many scoffs have been directed against this story, as if it were
unworthy of credence that eating a dish of lentils should have shaped
the life of a man and of his descendants. But is it not always the case
that trifles turn out to be determining points? Hinges are very small,
compared with the doors which move on them. Most lives are moulded by
insignificant events. No temptation is small, for no sin is small; and
if the occasion of yielding to sense and the present is insignificant,
the yielding is not so.
But the main lesson is, as already noted, the madness of flinging away
greater future good for present gratifications of sense. One cannot
suppose that the spiritual side of 'the birthright' was in the thoughts
of either brother. Esau and Jacob alike regarded it only as giving the
headship of the family. It was merely the right of succession, with
certain material accompanying advantages, which Jacob coveted and Esau
parted with. But even in regard to merely worldly objects, the man who
lives for only the present moment is distinctly beneath him who lives
for a future good, however material it may be. Whoever subordinates the
present, and is able steadily to set before himself a remote object,
for which he is strong enough to subdue the desire of immediate
gratifications of any sort, is, in so far, better than the man who,
like a savage or an animal, lives only for the instant.
The highest form of that nobility is when time is clearly seen to be
the 'lackey to eternity,' and life's aims are determined with supreme
reference to the future beyond the grave. But how many of us are every
day doing exactly as Esau did--flinging away a great future for a small
present! A man who lives only for such ends as may be attained on this
side of the grave is as 'profane' a person as Esau, and despises his
birthright as truly. He knew that he was hungry, and that lentil
porridge was good, 'What good shall the birthright do me?' He failed to
make the effort of mind and imagination needed in order to realise how
much of the kind of 'good' that he could appreciate it would do to him.
The smell of the smoking food was more to him than far greater good
which he could only appreciate by an effort. A sixpence held close to
the eye can shut out the sun. Resolute effort is needed to prevent the
small, intrusive present from blotting out the transcendent greatness
of the final future. And for lack of such effort men by the thousand
fling themselves away.
To sell a birthright for a bowl of lentils was plain folly. But is it
wiser to sell the blessedness and peace of communion with God here and
of heaven hereafter for anything that earth can yield to sense or to
soul? How many shrewd 'men of the highest commercial standing' are
making as bad a bargain as Esau's! The 'pottage' is hot and comforting,
but it is soon eaten; and when the bowl is empty, and the sense of
hunger comes back in an hour or two, the transaction does not look
quite as advantageous as it did. Esau had many a minute of rueful
meditation on his bad bargain before he in vain besought his father's
blessing. And suspicions of the folly of their choice are apt to haunt
men who prefer the present to the future, even before the future
becomes the present, and the folly is manifest. 'What doth it profit a
man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?'
So a character like Esau's, though it has many fine possibilities about
it, and attracts liking, is really of a low type, and may very easily
slide into depths of degrading sensualism, and be dead to all
nobleness. Enterprise, love of stirring life, impatience of dull
plodding, are natural to young lives. Unregulated, impulsive
characters, who live for the moment, and are very sensitive to all
material delights, have often an air of generosity and joviality which
hides their essential baseness; for it _is_ base to live for flesh,
either in more refined or more frankly coarse forms. It is base to be
incapable of seeing an inch beyond the present. It is base to despise
any good that cannot minister to fleeting lusts or fleshly pleasures,
and to say of high thought, of ideal aims of any sort, and most of all
to say of religion, 'What good will it do me?' To estimate such
precious things by the standard of gross utility is like weighing
diamonds in grocers' scales. They will do very well for sugar, but not
for precious stones. The sacred things of life are not those which do
what the Esaus recognise as 'good.' They have another purpose, and are
valuable for other ends. Let us take heed, then, that we estimate
things according to their true relative worth; that we live, not for
to-day, but for eternity; and that we suppress all greedy cravings. If
we do not, we shall be 'profane' persons like Esau, 'who for one morsel
of meat sold his birthright.'