Then, in the selection of Jacob in preference to Esau, even before their birth, the great principle of the sovereignty of God is asserted. It is needful sometimes for us to be reminded that God has perfect right and power to select whom He chooses, and to reject whom He chooses; and that no living being has any claim on Him whatsoever, except such claim as He Himself bestows, and the common claim of a creature on a creator, of weakness on power. In no way can this be more fully demonstrated than in the selection of the younger son before the birth of any: for when the younger son is selected—like Joseph or David—after birth, it may be said that their actions or natural characters have entitled them to this preference, or that the actions and characteristics of the other sons have precluded their claims. The important principle is that none of them have claims at all, and they require to be occasionally reminded of the fact, otherwise the instruments which God uses in His service would be apt to be self-complacent and arrogant; as it is there is no ground for anything in regard to the matter but gratitude to the Absolute and Almighty Ruler for His grace in taking up any one of us for service. Nor has Esau any ground for complaint; for if Jacob was chosen before his birth it was not said “Esau have I hated” till long after his birth, nor till his character and the character of his posterity had been fully revealed. To notice this fact removes a difficulty found by some in Rom. 9:1313As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Romans 9:13).
It frequently happens that so soon as God is going to raise up a man for some special work or destiny the adversary has another ready to anticipate the true one on the same lines; this is the most important of the two chief characters of opposition which are always being directed against any divine work (the other is violence, which never thoroughly succeeds). It was thus that “Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses “; that Korah withstood Aaron; that Simon Magus would have caricatured Philip, and the Pythoness-soothsayer would “co-operate” with Paul; that Theudas, and many other false Christs have sought in the past, and will seek in the future, to take the ground from under the feet of the true Messiah, or the wind out of the sails of the gospel ship. Where God builds a city the devil develops a Babylon: where there is a Mount Zion there shall presently be a Mount Gerizim. To alter Defoe by one word— “Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The devil always builds [another] there, And 'twill be found upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.” The heresy of the Nicolaitanes quickly competed with the Gospel, and the craze of Antinomianism with the Reformation.
Often the counterfeit presentation precedes the real one, as where the personality of Nimrod overshadowed Abram, or Ishmael anticipates Isaac: or, as here, Esau is born before Jacob, and for a time evidently takes the lead in prosperity. Under their resemblances there is a vital antipathy and contrast: Nimrod is the man of sight against the man of faith; Ishmael is the flesh persecuting the spirit, and Esau is the “profane person” who “despised his birthright” in contrast with Jacob who, with all his faults, was in the main a devout person who esteemed it.
It is usual to contrast the characters of Esau and Jacob very much to the advantage of the former—to display Esau as of a fine generous disposition, noble, manly and forgiving, and Jacob as the precise reverse. This is done by friends of the Bible to enhance our thoughts of the divine grace in choosing Jacob, and by enemies in order to disparage “God's favorites.” But the truth is that there is no ground for this fiction except the forgiving attitude of Esau when Jacob returned and met him at Peniel; yet there seems little doubt that his conciliatory attitude then was the result of God's interposition, and that Esau had originally started out with the four hundred men in order, to be revenged. Then as to his generosity—it is true he says, “I have enough my brother, keep that thou hast unto thyself:” but he takes the present for all that. After making the best bargain he could for his birthright he tries to get it back surreptitiously and only fails because Jacob forestalled him. That he was a brave, strong, capable, energetic man may be admitted, but that is a poor set-off against his counting on his father's death that he might be free to murder his brother, albeit that brother had grievously wronged him. This enmity against God's chosen ones always characterized the Edomites his descendants, until Obadiah's prophecy was, in comparatively recent times, fulfilled in their extermination. Herod the Great (descended from Esau through Antipater and a Philistine slave), and his evil family, are notable members of this line. Nevertheless “God hath spoken in his holiness over Edom will I cast my shoe, over Philistia will I triumph!”
But that in which Esau is representative is that he “despised his birthright,” which carried with it, besides other things, a double portion in inheritance, family rule and the privilege of transferring the “Blessing;” all these he surrenders for a mess of pottage. He barters manhood for animalism, and exchanges immense spiritual wealth and privilege for a morsel of sensuous satisfaction. In all this he is the standing type of the “profane person” who recklessly forfeits the future in grasping at the present, and traffics away the birthright of the spiritual affluence, with which God would endow him, for the momentary indulgence of temporal gratifications. He shall never be able to cancel the contract though he seek it “bitterly with tears.”
“But Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents,” whilst Esau was a somewhat heroic and attractive one dwelling in rocks. Yet God, who judged not by mere outward appearance, “loved Jacob and hated Esau;” and the tents of Shalem prove to have more enduring foundations than Edom's houses cut out of the solid rocks of Petra. The tent, readily moved from stage to stage on the surface of the earth (having no foundation therein) indicates the sojourner and the possessor of a divinely awakened faith. That he was grievously failing and inconsistent on many occasions must be admitted: that in his case “Complaint was the largest tribute heaven received, and the sincerest part of his devotion" that he wronged his brother, deceived his father, cheated his uncle, mismanaged his family and failed in his faith must be greatly deplored: it remains true nevertheless that his life was in the main right and Esau's in the main wrong.
I hold it to be an intensely mischievous error to transfer our sympathies from a right cause to a wrong one because of some repulsive elements in the advocates of the right, or some attractive ones in the advocates of wrong: which has frequently occurred in the case before us. Here is an instance of it: “Jacob was a plain man” &c.; the Hebrew word tahm, here translated “plain” means “perfect” or “upright,” and everywhere else it is translated in that sense, yet it is not corrected in the Revised Version. If Jacob is to be deprived of his general characteristic of uprightness because of some serious failures, what of Noah or David?
As Abraham represents the especial principle of Election; Isaac that of Sonship, so Jacob represents the principle of Discipline in its operations and effects.