“And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father.” Gen. xxvii. 34.
1 I SUPPOSE no one can read this chapter without feeling some pity for Esau. He had expected that his father would give him his blessing, but his brother was beforehand with him and got the blessing instead. He did not know what had happened, and he came in to his father to be blessed, without any suspicion that he was not to be blessed. His father, full of amazement and distress, told him, that without knowing it, for he was blind and could not see, he had already given the blessing to his brother Jacob, and he could not recall it. On hearing this, Esau burst out into “a great and exceeding bitter cry,” as the text expresses it. All his hopes were disappointed in a moment. He had built much upon this blessing. For Esau, when he was young, had committed a very great sin against God. He was his father’s first-born, and in those times, as now among the rich and noble, it was a great thing to be the eldest in a family. In Esau’s case these privileges were the greater, for they were the direct gift of God. Esau, as being the eldest born of his father Isaac, inherited certain rights and privileges which Isaac, the long-expected heir of Abraham, had received from Abraham. Now Esau’s sin, when he was a young man, had been this—he parted with his birthright to his younger brother Jacob. He thought lightly of God’s great gift. How little he thought of it is plain by the price he took for it. Esau had been hunting, and he came home tired and faint. Jacob, who had remained at home, had some pottage; and Esau begged for some of it. Jacob knew the worth of the birthright, though Esau did not; he had faith to discern it. So, when Esau asked for pottage, he said he would give it to Esau in exchange for his birthright; and Esau, caring nothing for the birthright, sold it to Jacob for the mess of food. This was a great sin, as being a contempt of a special gift of God, a gift, which, after his father Isaac, no one in the whole world had but he.
Time went on. Esau got older; and understood more than before the value of the gift which he had thus profanely surrendered. Doubtless he would fain have got it back again if he could; but that was impossible. Under these circumstances, as we find in the chapter which has been read in the course of today’s Service, his father proposed to give him his solemn blessing before he died. Now this blessing in those times carried great weight with it, as being of the nature of a prophecy, and it had been from the first divinely intended for Jacob; Esau had no right to it, but he thought that in this way he should in a certain sense get back his birthright, or what would stand in its place. He had parted with it easily, and he expected to regain it easily. Observe, he showed no repentance for what he had done, no self-reproach; he had no fear that God would punish him. He only regretted his loss, without humbling himself; and he determined to retrace his steps as quickly and quietly as he could. He went to hunt for venison, and dress it as savoury meat for his father, as his father bade him. And having got all ready, he came with it and stood before his father. Then was it that he learned, to his misery, that God’s gifts are not thus lightly to be treated; he had sold, he could not recover. He had hoped to have had his father’s blessing, but Jacob had received it instead. He had thought to regain God’s favour, not by fasting and prayer, but by savoury meat, by feasting and making merry.
Such seems, on the whole, St. Paul’s account of the matter, in his Epistle to the Hebrews. After having given examples of faith, he bids his Christian brethren beware lest there should be any one among them like Esau, whom he calls a “profane person;” as having thought and acted with so little of real perception of things unseen; “looking diligently,” he says, “lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” [Heb. xii. 15-17.]
This then is the meaning of Esau’s great and bitter cry, which at first sight we are disposed to pity. It 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,” and who has “come short of the grace of God.” [2 Cor. vi. 1.] It is the cry predicted by the wise man, “Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me.” [Prov. i. 28.] That subtilty and keenness of his brother Jacob, by which he got before him, and took the kingdom of heaven by violence, was God’s act; it was God’s providence punishing Esau for former sin. Esau had sinned; he had forfeited his birthright, and he could not get it back. That cry of his, what was it like? it was like the entreaty of the five foolish Virgins when the door was shut, “Lord, Lord, open to us; but He answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not.” [Matt. xxv. 11, 12.] It was like “the weeping and gnashing of teeth” of lost souls. Yes, surely, a great and bitter cry it well might be. Well may they weep and cry, as they will most largely, who have received God’s grace and done despite to it.