Genesis 32:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

My lord Esau; which title being but a civil respect commonly given in Scripture to such persons as have no authority nor superiority over them who use it, as Genesis 23:6, Genesis 24:18, Jacob doth not hereby renounce his right of primogeniture which was devolved upon him, nor return it to Esau. Nor if he did hereby acknowledge Esau his superior for the present, would this have been injurious to that right, because Jacob was not yet in actual possession of it, for it was not to commence till his father's death; and indeed did more belong to his posterity than to his person; and as to his person, did more respect his spiritual advantages than his worldly greatness. See Genesis 27:29. I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now, as a stranger and exile, and so a more proper object for thy pity than for thy envy.