Genesis 27:39 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The fatness of the earth Mount Seir, the heritage of Esau, was a fertile place, refreshed with dews and showers. By thy sword shalt thou live That is, thou shalt be warlike, and live upon spoil. This was remarkably fulfilled both in Esau himself, and his posterity. He was a cunning hunter, a man of the field, and his descendants got possession of mount Seir by force and violence, expelling thence the Horites, the former inhabitants, Deuteronomy 2:22. They were almost continually at war with the Jews, both before and after the Babylonish captivity. Josephus says, they were so fond of broils, that they went to war as others would do to a banquet. Thou shalt serve thy brother God never permitted the Edomites to lord it over the Israelites, although he made use of almost all the other neighbouring nations successively to oppress them. When thou shalt have dominion Shalt gain strength, become powerful, and appoint a king of thy own. Thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck “When the sons of Jacob,” says the Jerusalem Targum here, “attend to the law, and observe the precepts, they shall impose a yoke of servitude upon thy neck; but when they shall turn away themselves from studying the law, and neglect the precepts, behold, then thou shalt shake off the yoke of servitude.” This is no bad exposition of the passage: for it was David who brought the Edomites under the yoke, and in his time the Jews in a great degree observed the law. But in the reign of Jehoram, when they were very corrupt, “the Edomites revolted from under the dominion of Judah, making themselves a king,” 2Ch 21:8; 2 Chronicles 21:10. We may observe here, although Esau obtained a blessing, it was far short of Jacob's. There is nothing in it that points at Christ, nothing that brings either Esau or his posterity into the Church of God, and without that, “the fatness of the earth” and the plunder of the field will stand him in little stead. Thus Isaac, by faith, blessed them both according as their lot should be. And surely the exact accomplishment of these prophetic declarations, which were fulfilled many hundreds of years after the death of Moses who recorded them, must, if properly considered, give us a high idea of the Holy Scriptures, and convince us that they are truly the words of that BEING who knoweth the end from the beginning.