CRITICAL NOTES.—
Genesis 27:39. Thy dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above.] The preposition is here used in a privative sense, apart from the fatness of the earth, etc. “The opening words most likely signify the very contrary of that by which the A. V. renders them. Esau was to dwell in the barren land of Idumea, far off from the fertility of his brother’s lot. Travellers say that Edom is probably the most desolate and barren upland in the world. No words could more accurately describe the habits of its inhabitants than those of living by their sword, existing as robbers and free-booters.” (Alford.)—
Genesis 27:40. And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.] “The Edomites were to be subjugated by Israel, but would in time assert their liberty and succeed in shaking off the yoke. This they did in the reign of Joram. (2 Kings 8:20.) They were brought under again by Amaziah’s. (2 Kings 14:7; 2 Chronicles 25:11.) In the latter days of the kingdom of Judah the Edomites were a cause of annoyance. (2 Chronicles 28:17.”) (Alford.)—
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 27:30-40
ESAU DISAPPOINTED OF HIS BLESSING
I. He is overwhelmed by a heart-rending sorrow. He had procured the savoury meat, brought it to his father, and prepared himself to receive the coveted blessing. When he found that his brother had already secured that blessing by treachery, “he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father.” His grief is so sudden and overwhelming that he cannot take in all the sad facts of his position. He vaguely hopes that there is some way of escape from the difficulty. Surely some blessing, at all risks, must be reserved for him!
II. He refers his wrongs to their true author. His brother Jacob, who had taken away his birthright, had now taken away his blessing. (Genesis 27:36.) It is true that Esau had freely bartered his birthright for pottage, still the transaction was wrong, for Jacob took advantage of his brother’s necessity. Poor Esau felt that he was the victim of a well-known and practiced deceiver.
III. He pleads pathetically with his father. “And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?” He felt that there must be some help for him—some depths of resource in his father’s heart which were still untried. This feeling is almost akin to that faith which is not daunted by impossibilities, and even hopes against hope.
IV. He is contented with an inferior blessing. The superior blessing had already been pronounced upon another, and was irrevocable. “Yea, and he shall be blessed,” said his father. Esau cannot now expect the highest blessing. He might have the crumbs from the table, but not the children’s bread. The blessing pronounced upon him by his father included many things good in themselves, but the highest and best things are absent. He was promised increase, prosperity, pre-eminence, and renown in war. But with this should be mingled the bitter portion of servitude to his brother. He would sometimes get the dominion and break the yoke from off his neck, but he would have only a brief victory, and must return again to subjection. (Genesis 27:39-40.) At best, the portion of Esau can only be described as God’s blessings without God. Nothing of heaven enters into it.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 27:30-32. Esau prepared the dish and brought it to his father, and claimed the blessing in very similar terms to those used by Jacob. Esau must have remembered how he had parted with his birthright to Jacob, and therefore in his conscience he could not be entirely unprepared for the discovery of his loss. Esau is too late. Isaac must have been smitten with a sense of his own sin in his carnal preference for Esau, contrary to all indications of the Divine pleasure. He felt, too, that this patriarchal blessing was as the Divine direction and not from any personal preference, and he found himself strangely controlled and overruled by the Divine hand.—(Jacobus.)
Genesis 27:33. His emotions were absolutely overwhelming. On the one hand, he could not but feel a degree of just indignation in view of the imposition which had been practised upon him, especially when he remembered the precautions he had taken against being thus deceived; yet, on the other, a moment’s reflection would convince him that the transfer of the blessing must have been “of the Lord,” and, consequently, that he had been all along acting against His will in trying to have it otherwise. Two such considerations rushing on his mind at once, like two impetuous counter-currents coming together, sufficiently account for his feelings, especially when we add his consciousness of the irrevocable nature of the blessing, and the momentous consequences annexed to it. But while he resents the subtlety of Jacob, and the unkindness of Rebekah, he acknowledges and acquiesces in the will of God. The blessing which he had unwittingly pronounced, and which he knows to be irrevocable, he deliberately and solemnly confirms: “I have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed.” His feelings would, perhaps, not be inaptly expressed by the language of Balaam, “God is not a man that he should lie,” etc. (Numbers 33:19-20). Hence the Apostle tells us, that “Esau found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears”—that is, he found no place for repentance, or change of purpose, in his father, He could not prevail upon him to reverse the word that had proceeded from his lips.—(Bush.)
If anything can excuse a departure from a promise, Isaac might have been excused in this case; for in truth he did not promise to Jacob, though Jacob stood before him. He honestly thought that he was speaking to his first-born; and yet, perhaps partly taught to be punctiliously scrupulous by the rebuke he had received in early life from Abimilech, partly feeling that he had been but an instrument in God’s hands, he felt that a mysterious and irrevocable sacredness belonged to his word once passed; and said, “Yea, and he shall be blessed.” Jesuitism amongst us has begun to tamper with the sacredness of a promise. Men change their creed, and fancy themselves absolved from past promises; the member of the Church of Rome is no longer bound to do what the member of the Church of England stipulated. Just as well might the king refuse to perform the promises or pay the debts of the prince whom he once was. Therefore, let us ponder over such texts as these. Be careful and cautious of pledging yourself to anything; but the money you have once promised, the offer you have once made is irrevocable, it is no longer yours, it is passed from you as much as if it had been given.—(Robertson.)
Though the words and actions of the parties in this transaction were built upon a falsehood, yet a true blessing was obtained. Through all the evil purposes and schemes of men God works out his great designs.
He trembled from the vivid apprehension suddenly flashing across his mind of the Lord’s presence and the Lord’s power, and not from anger, or anxiety, or terror, or blank dismay; though such emotions might well agitate his bosom. He had a startling sense of the interposition of that God without whose warrant he had set himself to perform the solemn prophetic act that was to close his patriarchal ministry, and against whose open and revealed will he had been, so far as his own intention could go, actually performing it. His whole frame receives a shock. The scales fell from his eyes—the eyes of his soul that had been blinded even more than the dim eyes of his body. He awakens as out of a sleep, and feels that surely the Lord is here, though he knew it not.—(Candlish.)
Genesis 27:34. When Esau sold his birthright he did not then know what he had lost, but now it is all brought home to him. Those who choose the present world for their portion and spurn the offer of eternal life do not know what they lose, but the time must come when they shall know to their sorrow.
Vengeance wakes up suddenly to startle men when the sin which brought it has been long forgotten.
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 favours 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. Hall.)
In the midst of all his regrets there was no real contrition, no godly sorrow at heart, but only disappointment and vexation at his loss. We find at the time no self-condemnation, no confession of his sin; but only a severe accusation of his brother, as if he only were to blame for what had happened. Neither does he give any evidence of having been a true penitent afterwards, for his heart was evidently full of rage and enmity towards his brother, under the influence of which he determines, on a fit opportunity, to put an end to his life. All this shows a state of mind at the widest possible remove from sincere repentance.—(Bush.)
He cried not for his sin in selling the birthright, but for his loss in missing the blessing; though having sold the birthright, he had no right to the blessing. This is the guise of the ungoldly. He cries, Perrii, not Peccavi. If he “howl” upon his bed (Hosea 7:14), it is for corn and oil, as a dog tied up howls for his dinner. It never troubles him that a good God is offended, which to an honest heart is the prime cause of the greatest sorrow.—(Trapp.)
The sinner cut off from the privileges of the Church can yet claim God as his Father. Repentance and prayer, and a way of return are still left to him.
Genesis 27:35-36. It cannot be denied that there was some ground for the reflections thus cast upon Jacob. He had, indeed, acted the part of a supplanter in a way altogether unjustifiable; still the statement was exaggerated. Esau was not warranted in saying, “He took away my birthright,” as though he robbed him of it, for the surrender was his own voluntary act. He parted with it because he practically depised it. But it is no unusual thing for men to act as if accusing others were the most effectual mode of justifying themselves.—(Bush.)
“Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?” is a prayer which those who have despised their birthright, and justly forfeited it, may still address to the Infinite Father.
Genesis 27:37. Isaac, in using this language is not to be considered as giving vent to a self-sufficient or self-complacent spirit, it is the ordinary prophetic style. Men speaking by inspiration are often said to do that which they merely announce shall be done.—(Bush.)
Genesis 27:38. These words, taken by themselves, without reference to the character of him who spoke them, are neither good nor evil. Had Esau only meant this: God has many blessings, of various kinds; and looking round the circle of my resources I perceive a principle of compensation, so that what I lose in one department I gain in some other; I will be content to take a second blessing when I cannot have the first: Esau would have said nothing which was not praiseworthy and religious. He would only have expressed what the Syro-Phœnician woman did, who observed that though in this world some have the advantages of children, whereas others are as little favoured as dogs, yet that the dogs have the compensatory crumbs. Superior advantages do not carry salvation nor moral superiority with them, necessarily; nor do inferior ones carry reprobation. But it was not in this spirit at all that Esau spoke. His was the complaining spirit of the man who repines because others are more favoured than he, the spirit of the elder son in the parable, “thou never gavest me a kid.” This character transformed outward disadvantages into a real curse. For, again I say, disadvantages are in themselves only a means to more lustrous excellence. But if to inferior talents we add sloth, and to poverty envy and discontent, and to weakened health querulousness, then we have indeed ourselves converted non-election into reprobation; and we are doubly cursed, cursed by inward as well as outward inferiority—(Robertson.)
Genesis 27:39-40. At length in reply to the weeping suppliant, he bestows upon him a characteristic blessing. The preposition is the same as in the blessing of Jacob. But there, after a verb of giving it had a partitive sense; here, after a noun of place, it denotes distance or separation (for example, Proverbs 20:3). The pastoral life has been distasteful to Esau, and so it shall be with his race. The land of Edom was accordingly a comparative wilderness (Malachi 1:3).—(Murphy.)
In this double blessing, of course the destinies of Israel and Edom are prefigured rather than the personal history of Jacob and Esau. For the predicted liberty of Edom, the breaking the yoke off the neck, did not take place till the reign of Jehoram, long after Esau’s death (2 Kings 8:22). So that when it is written, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,” the selection of nations to outward privileges is meant, not the irrespective election of individuals to eternal life. In these blessings we have the principle of prophecy. We cannot suppose that the Jacob here spoken of as blessed was unmixedly good, nor the Esau unmixedly evil. Nor can we imagine that idolatrous Israel was that in which all the promises of God found their end, or that Edom was the nation on whom the curse of God fell unmixed with any blessing. Prophecy takes individuals and nations as representations for the time being of principles which they only partially represent. They are the basis or substratum of an idea. For instance, Jacob, or Israel, represents the principle of good, the Church of God, the triumphant and blessed principle. To that, the typical Israel, the promises are made; to the literal Jacob or Israel, only as the type of this and so far as the nation actually was what it stood for. Esau is the worldly man, representing for the time the world. To that the rejection belongs, to the literal Esau only so far as is he that. In prophecies therefore, such as these, we are dealing much more with the ideas of which such persons and nations are the type than with the persons or nations themselves.—(Robertson.)