And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
Faint with hunger from the field, Esau believed he would suffer greatly or even die without the food he craved, and asked what good a birthright whose value lay in the future could do him, so he agreed to give up his claim to Jacob for a meal. The birthright he surrendered carried the firstborn's peculiar advantages of honor and authority in family and tribe, consecration to God for the priest's office, and a double portion of the father's goods. Indulged appetite overpowered his judgment so that he preferred momentary earthly indulgence to the future spiritual inheritance, lightly valuing what was sacred and should have been sacredly cherished. Once he had despised and surrendered the blessing he could not regain it even when he sought it earnestly with tears and bitter remorse. The birthright represents the lasting spiritual good of the heavenly inheritance and eternal life, while the pottage is only a cheap temporary price, so his foolish exchange warns against trading heaven for appetite and selfish pleasure only to regret the loss when it is too late to recover it.
Esau's Words and Setting
Esau came in faint from the field with hunger and declared himself at the point to die, believing he would suffer great hardship or even die without the food he craved. He asked what profit the birthright could do him when its value lay in the future, treating what was distant as no help for present necessity. With immediate hunger absorbing him he counted the birthright worthless and of no value. In that state he agreed to give up his claim to Jacob in exchange for food, a meal, a mess of pottage.
Jacob used Esau's necessity to his own advantage by offering pottage on condition that Esau renounce all claim to the birthright, and so Esau sold it to Jacob. The birthright Jacob sought carried the first-born's peculiar advantages. These were special privileges of honor and authority in family and tribe next to the parents, consecration to God and selection to the priest's office, and a double portion of the father's goods.
Jacob acted from what his mother had taught him of God's word that the elder would serve the younger. Reasoning in his youth, he concluded the promise could not be fulfilled while Esau kept those advantages. He therefore obtained the birthright by his own schemes, fraud, impatience, and lack of trust in waiting for God to fulfill His promises in God's time. That obtaining was sin and brought hatred and lasting consequences, illustrating that wrongdoing reaps its harvest.
Jacob afterward truly repented of that sin. On the night of wrestling he pointed back to that repentance while pleading for deliverance from Esau. Because he had already repented God could hear his prayer and mercifully preserve his life. Without that prior repentance God could not have heard him and spared him.
Character of Esau's Choice
Indulged appetite overpowered judgment and every other concern, so that with hunger pressing and death seeming near the birthright was treated as worthless and traded for immediate satisfaction. Present comfort was preferred to future spiritual inheritance promised by God, a momentary earthly indulgence chosen over lasting good. The craving was felt as so urgent that great hardship or even death seemed certain without the desired food, and on that ground the question was asked what profit the birthright could do when its value lay in the future. In that state appetite made a sacred, eternal inheritance seem less valuable than present ease, and the blessing once despised and surrendered could not afterward be regained even with bitter remorse and tears. He imagined he might buy the birthright back later, which shows how indulgence can blind judgment to the permanence of the loss.
He passed the crisis of his life without knowing it, treating the birthright as a matter worthy of scarcely a thought. Those words revealed the prevailing traits of character, the settled choices, and the true estimate of what was sacred and should have been sacredly cherished. For a small indulgence to meet present wants he sold the birthright, valuing a morsel of meat more than the service of his Master, and that decision determined the aftercourse of life. Controlled by desires, with appetite and inclination ruling, the act for one morsel sold the soul, sold peace, sacrificed integrity for selfish advantage, and walked unguarded into Satan's snares.
Such indifference to divine blessings and requirements made him a profane person who lightly valued the birthright and traded it for momentary gratification of unrestrained appetite. His grief afterward came not from true repentance but from the unexpected consequences of his sin. Sorrow over guilt or loss is not godly sorrow when the heart remains unchanged.
Loss That Could Not Be Undone
Esau despised and surrendered the blessing for food because he believed he would suffer great hardship or even die without what he craved, letting appetite overwhelm every other concern until the birthright seemed worthless beside immediate hunger. He imagined he might buy it back later, but once surrendered it could not be regained even at great cost, even when sought earnestly with tears and bitter remorse and regret after desire was gratified. The blessing had been removed from him, so when he would have inherited it he was rejected and found no place of repentance. His selfish act to gratify carnal desire for one morsel of meat sold the soul, sold peace, sacrificed integrity for selfish advantage, walked unguarded into Satan's snares, and made him a profane person failing of the grace of God. The same danger faces those who know present truth and whose names are registered on church books when they gratify their own desires for selfish influences, showing the need for close inspection of motives, actions, and daily influence and for departing from all iniquity, lest spiritual experience and the soul be disastrously traded away for a momentary price.
His choice was foolish and reckless, treating a birthright of future value as worthless because immediate hunger seemed to matter more. It stands as a warning that people may foolishly give up a lasting spiritual good, their inheritance of heaven, for appetite and other selfish pleasures and a passing desire for a meal. They then regret the loss when it is too late to recover what they surrendered.
Like Esau, those who trade their heirship to heaven for temporary pleasures, especially gratification of appetite, corrupt passions, and selfish gratifications, will awake too late to see the folly of the rash exchange when the loss cannot be recovered. They may later grieve their choice, but like Esau find they cannot undo it when judgment comes in the day of God.
Because repentance may come too late, selling eternal interest for a cheap price, a mess of pottage, is departing from the living God for enthroned and worshiped self. The birthright is life which measures with the life of God, while the pottage is room for self instead of room for Jesus, light, love, meekness and lowliness of heart, warning against trading lasting spiritual good for temporary desire and selfish gratification. The seller is left with life or death set before him, demanding choice this day whom to serve, repentance, conversion, renewal of covenant at the cross of Calvary, cleansing of the soul-temple of moral defilement, and death to self by crucifying self, for if self is not crucified the life that measures with the life of God is lost.
What the Birthright Represents
The birthright stands for a lasting spiritual good, the heavenly inheritance and eternal life, the life that measures with the life of God, while the pottage stands for a cheap, temporary price. To ask what profit the birthright can do when hunger presses is to treat that lasting good as worthless beside an immediate meal and immediate appetite. It is to sell eternal interests for a mess of pottage, to depart from the living God for enthroned and worshiped self. The exchange is room for self instead of room for Jesus, light, love, meekness and lowliness of heart. It is the danger of choosing personal desire over loyalty to God and surrendering something sacred for short-term gain.
It is also a sacred inheritance and God-given privilege entrusted for the blessing of humanity. It includes spiritual experience, godly character, and the soul itself with its hope of heaven, all precious and lasting and not to be sold for worldly gain or what is temporary. To treat it as worthless in the face of immediate hunger, appetite, or need warns against wasting that inheritance through intemperate appetite, greed for money, and dishonest practices. Uncontrolled appetite that trades spiritual privilege and godly character for indulgence brings unhappiness and degradation, leads to yielding temptation and turning from truth, and disastrously trades away the soul for a momentary price.
Knowledge of biblical truth is likewise a birthright, one that can nearly be sold through neglect and failure to use one's abilities for good. The same danger faces those who know present truth and whose names are registered on church books when they gratify their own desires for selfish influences. A selfish act to gratify carnal desire for one morsel of meat sells the soul, sells peace, sacrifices integrity for selfish advantage, walks unguarded into Satan's snares, and makes a man a profane person who fails of the grace of God. After desire is gratified regret follows, yet as with Esau the blessing when it would have been inherited may be rejected with no place of repentance though sought carefully with tears, showing the need for close inspection of motives, actions, and daily influence and for departing from all iniquity.
Esau represents those who lightly value the redemption purchased for them by Christ and sacrifice their heirship to heaven for perishable things of earth. They live only for the present with no thought for the future, crying let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die, controlled by inclination and refusing self-denial. When forced to choose between gratification of depraved appetite and the heavenly blessings promised only to the self-denying and God-fearing, they let appetite prevail and virtually despise God and heaven. This includes professed Christians who cling to health-injuring indulgences that benumb the soul, who are offended by the duty to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and perfect holiness in the fear of God, and who abandon the strait way to eternal life because they cannot keep hurtful gratifications and secure heaven together. Multitudes thus sell their birthright for sensual indulgence and mere temporary pleasure that weakens and debases, sacrificing health, enfeebling mental faculties, and forfeiting heaven.
Repeating Esau's Bargain Today
Selling the birthright means sacrificing heaven and selling everlasting life for temporary worldly satisfaction, valuing immediate self-indulgence and worldly pleasure above the heavenly birthright and holding immediate inclination above lasting blessing at infinite loss. Esau treated his birthright and the lasting good it represented as worthless beside an immediate meal, and to keep worldly mindedness, wrong and thoughtless words, and uncontrolled temper instead of reforming, being refined by grace, purified, made white and tried, and being prepared to be hid in the day of trouble and made fit for angels and Jesus is to make his bargain now. Seeking education from selfish ambition and inclination while neglecting duties to parents, home burdens, faithfulness in little things, and the interest of the soul is imitating Esau and bartering away heaven just as cheaply.
Trading spiritual privilege for money or other present desires, for worldly gain, influence, or worldly advantage, for financial relief or revenge, and for a small temporal thing while losing the soul repeats his choice, for a soul and its hope of heaven must not be sold for what is temporary. Trading spiritual life and eternal riches for worldly position or praise means losing eternal life, which is worth every sacrifice, and becoming a traitor to God for temporary gain is warned against, as A. R. Henry was urged not to follow Esau by selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. Losing the soul in this way reaches beyond oneself, for corrupt words, example, and false principles draw others away from Christ into perplexity and destruction instead of healing and saving them.
It means holding to earthly treasures instead of laying up treasure in heaven and withholding from God the proportion that belongs to Him in tithes and offerings. Those who do this strengthen love of the world, hinder the work of preparing a people to stand in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed, and bring the curse of the Lord upon themselves for failing to render to Him His own.
It means trading loyalty to God for a desired object by yielding to impulse and unconsecrated passion, such as choosing an unbelieving wife over God, yielding up the claims of God and promising to give up the Sabbath of God to obtain her consent to marry. Such a choice sells God in a very cheap market, imperils the soul, brings the reproach of disloyalty upon the Christian life, brings unhappiness into the family, and destroys the respect a wife ought to feel for her husband.
It includes choosing friendship with the Lord's enemies over spiritual inheritance, and failing to cultivate strict integrity by seeking gain through questionable dealings, intemperate appetite, greed for money, and dishonest practices. The birthright represents a sacred inheritance entrusted for the blessing of humanity, and selling it for food warns against wasting that inheritance in those ways.
It includes despising a responsibility or trust, as when giving large sums to another person to manage according to that person's judgment neglects one's own stewardship of the entrusted means. His example illustrates the folly of foolishly surrendering a lasting spiritual inheritance for temporary satisfaction, like spending money on outward display instead of valuing inward Christian graces.
Students and seekers of education repeat it when pursuing education but neglecting prayer, religious duties, and responsibility to others, for knowledge gained at that cost defeats its purpose. The same exchange occurs when education is sought from selfish ambition and inclination while neglecting duties to parents, home burdens, faithfulness in little things, and the interest of the soul, which is bartering away heaven just as cheaply.
Uncontrolled appetite can lead to yielding temptation and turning from truth, trading spiritual privilege and godly character for indulgence that brings unhappiness and degradation. Selling the birthright for a mess of pottage represents trading a spiritual inheritance for indulgence, and many repeat this choice through intemperate habits and greed, including ministers and youth who are warned not to waste their God-given inheritance or betray sacred interests.
A selfish act to gratify carnal desire for one morsel of meat sells the soul, sells peace, sacrifices integrity for selfish advantage, and walks unguarded into Satan's snares, making a man a profane person who fails of the grace of God. The same danger faces those who know present truth and whose names are registered on church books when they gratify their own desires for selfish influences. After desire was gratified Esau regretted what he had done, and when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected and found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears, showing the need for close inspection of motives, actions, and daily influence and for departing from all iniquity.
Faint with hunger from the field, Esau believed he would suffer greatly or even die without the food he craved, and asked what good a birthright whose value lay in the future could do him, so he agreed to give up his claim to Jacob for a meal. The birthright he surrendered carried the firstborn's peculiar advantages of honor and authority in family and tribe, consecration to God for the priest's office, and a double portion of the father's goods. Indulged appetite overpowered his judgment so that he preferred momentary earthly indulgence to the future spiritual inheritance, lightly valuing what was sacred and should have been sacredly cherished. Once he had despised and surrendered the blessing he could not regain it even when he sought it earnestly with tears and bitter remorse. The birthright represents the lasting spiritual good of the heavenly inheritance and eternal life, while the pottage is only a cheap temporary price, so his foolish exchange warns against trading heaven for appetite and selfish pleasure only to regret the loss when it is too late to recover it.
Esau's Words and Setting
Esau came in faint from the field with hunger and declared himself at the point to die, believing he would suffer great hardship or even die without the food he craved. He asked what profit the birthright could do him when its value lay in the future, treating what was distant as no help for present necessity. With immediate hunger absorbing him he counted the birthright worthless and of no value. In that state he agreed to give up his claim to Jacob in exchange for food, a meal, a mess of pottage.
Jacob used Esau's necessity to his own advantage by offering pottage on condition that Esau renounce all claim to the birthright, and so Esau sold it to Jacob. The birthright Jacob sought carried the first-born's peculiar advantages. These were special privileges of honor and authority in family and tribe next to the parents, consecration to God and selection to the priest's office, and a double portion of the father's goods.
Jacob acted from what his mother had taught him of God's word that the elder would serve the younger. Reasoning in his youth, he concluded the promise could not be fulfilled while Esau kept those advantages. He therefore obtained the birthright by his own schemes, fraud, impatience, and lack of trust in waiting for God to fulfill His promises in God's time. That obtaining was sin and brought hatred and lasting consequences, illustrating that wrongdoing reaps its harvest.
Jacob afterward truly repented of that sin. On the night of wrestling he pointed back to that repentance while pleading for deliverance from Esau. Because he had already repented God could hear his prayer and mercifully preserve his life. Without that prior repentance God could not have heard him and spared him.
Character of Esau's Choice
Indulged appetite overpowered judgment and every other concern, so that with hunger pressing and death seeming near the birthright was treated as worthless and traded for immediate satisfaction. Present comfort was preferred to future spiritual inheritance promised by God, a momentary earthly indulgence chosen over lasting good. The craving was felt as so urgent that great hardship or even death seemed certain without the desired food, and on that ground the question was asked what profit the birthright could do when its value lay in the future. In that state appetite made a sacred, eternal inheritance seem less valuable than present ease, and the blessing once despised and surrendered could not afterward be regained even with bitter remorse and tears. He imagined he might buy the birthright back later, which shows how indulgence can blind judgment to the permanence of the loss.
He passed the crisis of his life without knowing it, treating the birthright as a matter worthy of scarcely a thought. Those words revealed the prevailing traits of character, the settled choices, and the true estimate of what was sacred and should have been sacredly cherished. For a small indulgence to meet present wants he sold the birthright, valuing a morsel of meat more than the service of his Master, and that decision determined the aftercourse of life. Controlled by desires, with appetite and inclination ruling, the act for one morsel sold the soul, sold peace, sacrificed integrity for selfish advantage, and walked unguarded into Satan's snares.
Such indifference to divine blessings and requirements made him a profane person who lightly valued the birthright and traded it for momentary gratification of unrestrained appetite. His grief afterward came not from true repentance but from the unexpected consequences of his sin. Sorrow over guilt or loss is not godly sorrow when the heart remains unchanged.
Loss That Could Not Be Undone
Esau despised and surrendered the blessing for food because he believed he would suffer great hardship or even die without what he craved, letting appetite overwhelm every other concern until the birthright seemed worthless beside immediate hunger. He imagined he might buy it back later, but once surrendered it could not be regained even at great cost, even when sought earnestly with tears and bitter remorse and regret after desire was gratified. The blessing had been removed from him, so when he would have inherited it he was rejected and found no place of repentance. His selfish act to gratify carnal desire for one morsel of meat sold the soul, sold peace, sacrificed integrity for selfish advantage, walked unguarded into Satan's snares, and made him a profane person failing of the grace of God. The same danger faces those who know present truth and whose names are registered on church books when they gratify their own desires for selfish influences, showing the need for close inspection of motives, actions, and daily influence and for departing from all iniquity, lest spiritual experience and the soul be disastrously traded away for a momentary price.
His choice was foolish and reckless, treating a birthright of future value as worthless because immediate hunger seemed to matter more. It stands as a warning that people may foolishly give up a lasting spiritual good, their inheritance of heaven, for appetite and other selfish pleasures and a passing desire for a meal. They then regret the loss when it is too late to recover what they surrendered.
Like Esau, those who trade their heirship to heaven for temporary pleasures, especially gratification of appetite, corrupt passions, and selfish gratifications, will awake too late to see the folly of the rash exchange when the loss cannot be recovered. They may later grieve their choice, but like Esau find they cannot undo it when judgment comes in the day of God.
Because repentance may come too late, selling eternal interest for a cheap price, a mess of pottage, is departing from the living God for enthroned and worshiped self. The birthright is life which measures with the life of God, while the pottage is room for self instead of room for Jesus, light, love, meekness and lowliness of heart, warning against trading lasting spiritual good for temporary desire and selfish gratification. The seller is left with life or death set before him, demanding choice this day whom to serve, repentance, conversion, renewal of covenant at the cross of Calvary, cleansing of the soul-temple of moral defilement, and death to self by crucifying self, for if self is not crucified the life that measures with the life of God is lost.
What the Birthright Represents
The birthright stands for a lasting spiritual good, the heavenly inheritance and eternal life, the life that measures with the life of God, while the pottage stands for a cheap, temporary price. To ask what profit the birthright can do when hunger presses is to treat that lasting good as worthless beside an immediate meal and immediate appetite. It is to sell eternal interests for a mess of pottage, to depart from the living God for enthroned and worshiped self. The exchange is room for self instead of room for Jesus, light, love, meekness and lowliness of heart. It is the danger of choosing personal desire over loyalty to God and surrendering something sacred for short-term gain.
It is also a sacred inheritance and God-given privilege entrusted for the blessing of humanity. It includes spiritual experience, godly character, and the soul itself with its hope of heaven, all precious and lasting and not to be sold for worldly gain or what is temporary. To treat it as worthless in the face of immediate hunger, appetite, or need warns against wasting that inheritance through intemperate appetite, greed for money, and dishonest practices. Uncontrolled appetite that trades spiritual privilege and godly character for indulgence brings unhappiness and degradation, leads to yielding temptation and turning from truth, and disastrously trades away the soul for a momentary price.
Knowledge of biblical truth is likewise a birthright, one that can nearly be sold through neglect and failure to use one's abilities for good. The same danger faces those who know present truth and whose names are registered on church books when they gratify their own desires for selfish influences. A selfish act to gratify carnal desire for one morsel of meat sells the soul, sells peace, sacrifices integrity for selfish advantage, walks unguarded into Satan's snares, and makes a man a profane person who fails of the grace of God. After desire is gratified regret follows, yet as with Esau the blessing when it would have been inherited may be rejected with no place of repentance though sought carefully with tears, showing the need for close inspection of motives, actions, and daily influence and for departing from all iniquity.
Esau represents those who lightly value the redemption purchased for them by Christ and sacrifice their heirship to heaven for perishable things of earth. They live only for the present with no thought for the future, crying let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die, controlled by inclination and refusing self-denial. When forced to choose between gratification of depraved appetite and the heavenly blessings promised only to the self-denying and God-fearing, they let appetite prevail and virtually despise God and heaven. This includes professed Christians who cling to health-injuring indulgences that benumb the soul, who are offended by the duty to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and perfect holiness in the fear of God, and who abandon the strait way to eternal life because they cannot keep hurtful gratifications and secure heaven together. Multitudes thus sell their birthright for sensual indulgence and mere temporary pleasure that weakens and debases, sacrificing health, enfeebling mental faculties, and forfeiting heaven.
Repeating Esau's Bargain Today
Selling the birthright means sacrificing heaven and selling everlasting life for temporary worldly satisfaction, valuing immediate self-indulgence and worldly pleasure above the heavenly birthright and holding immediate inclination above lasting blessing at infinite loss. Esau treated his birthright and the lasting good it represented as worthless beside an immediate meal, and to keep worldly mindedness, wrong and thoughtless words, and uncontrolled temper instead of reforming, being refined by grace, purified, made white and tried, and being prepared to be hid in the day of trouble and made fit for angels and Jesus is to make his bargain now. Seeking education from selfish ambition and inclination while neglecting duties to parents, home burdens, faithfulness in little things, and the interest of the soul is imitating Esau and bartering away heaven just as cheaply.
Trading spiritual privilege for money or other present desires, for worldly gain, influence, or worldly advantage, for financial relief or revenge, and for a small temporal thing while losing the soul repeats his choice, for a soul and its hope of heaven must not be sold for what is temporary. Trading spiritual life and eternal riches for worldly position or praise means losing eternal life, which is worth every sacrifice, and becoming a traitor to God for temporary gain is warned against, as A. R. Henry was urged not to follow Esau by selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. Losing the soul in this way reaches beyond oneself, for corrupt words, example, and false principles draw others away from Christ into perplexity and destruction instead of healing and saving them.
It means holding to earthly treasures instead of laying up treasure in heaven and withholding from God the proportion that belongs to Him in tithes and offerings. Those who do this strengthen love of the world, hinder the work of preparing a people to stand in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed, and bring the curse of the Lord upon themselves for failing to render to Him His own.
It means trading loyalty to God for a desired object by yielding to impulse and unconsecrated passion, such as choosing an unbelieving wife over God, yielding up the claims of God and promising to give up the Sabbath of God to obtain her consent to marry. Such a choice sells God in a very cheap market, imperils the soul, brings the reproach of disloyalty upon the Christian life, brings unhappiness into the family, and destroys the respect a wife ought to feel for her husband.
It includes choosing friendship with the Lord's enemies over spiritual inheritance, and failing to cultivate strict integrity by seeking gain through questionable dealings, intemperate appetite, greed for money, and dishonest practices. The birthright represents a sacred inheritance entrusted for the blessing of humanity, and selling it for food warns against wasting that inheritance in those ways.
It includes despising a responsibility or trust, as when giving large sums to another person to manage according to that person's judgment neglects one's own stewardship of the entrusted means. His example illustrates the folly of foolishly surrendering a lasting spiritual inheritance for temporary satisfaction, like spending money on outward display instead of valuing inward Christian graces.
Students and seekers of education repeat it when pursuing education but neglecting prayer, religious duties, and responsibility to others, for knowledge gained at that cost defeats its purpose. The same exchange occurs when education is sought from selfish ambition and inclination while neglecting duties to parents, home burdens, faithfulness in little things, and the interest of the soul, which is bartering away heaven just as cheaply.
Uncontrolled appetite can lead to yielding temptation and turning from truth, trading spiritual privilege and godly character for indulgence that brings unhappiness and degradation. Selling the birthright for a mess of pottage represents trading a spiritual inheritance for indulgence, and many repeat this choice through intemperate habits and greed, including ministers and youth who are warned not to waste their God-given inheritance or betray sacred interests.
A selfish act to gratify carnal desire for one morsel of meat sells the soul, sells peace, sacrifices integrity for selfish advantage, and walks unguarded into Satan's snares, making a man a profane person who fails of the grace of God. The same danger faces those who know present truth and whose names are registered on church books when they gratify their own desires for selfish influences. After desire was gratified Esau regretted what he had done, and when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected and found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears, showing the need for close inspection of motives, actions, and daily influence and for departing from all iniquity.