I. The character of Esau has unquestionably a fair side. Esau was by no means a man of unqualified wickedness or baseness; judged according to the standard of many men, he would pass for a very worthy, estimable person. The whole history of his treatment of Jacob puts his character in a very favourable light: it represents him as an open-hearted, generous person, who, though he might be rough in his manners, fond of a wild life, perhaps as rude and unpolished in mind as he was in body, had yet a noble soul, which was able to do what little minds sometimes cannot do namely, forgive freely a cruel wrong done to him.
II. Nevertheless it is not without reason that the apostle styles Esau a profane person. The defect in his character may be described as a want of religious seriousness; there was nothing spiritual in him no reverence for holy things, no indications of a soul which could find no sufficient joy in this world, but which aspired to those joys which are at God's right hand for evermore. By the title of profanethe apostle means to describe the carnal, unspiritual man the man who takes his stand upon this world as the end of his thoughts and the scene of all his activity, who considers the land as a great hunting field, and makes the satisfaction of his bodily wants and tastes the whole end of living.
III. Esau's repentance was consistent with his character; it was manifestly of the wrong kind. It was emphatically sorrow of this world,grief for the loss of the corn and wine. Jacob had taken his birthright that he could have pardoned him; but it grieved Esau to his very soul that Jacob had gotten the promise of the world's wealth besides. He continued in heart unchanged, and so he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,2nd series, p. 1.
References: Genesis 27:38. T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 133; S. Leathes, Truth and Life,p. 54.Genesis 27:41-46. R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis,vol. ii., p. 1; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph,p. 79. Genesis 27 Parker, vol. i., p. 268. Genesis 28:1-15. R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis,vol. ii., p. 1.Genesis 28:10. F. Langbridge, Sunday Magazine,1885, p. 675.