The man is headed home. He’s exhausted: long day scanning the horizon, staring into the sun. The open country, they call it. Walking, running, focusing, hunting. He’s eaten nothing, and as he gets back to the tent, a shakiness, a wooziness, an almost frantic hunger is beginning to descend upon him. Suddenly it feels too much. A screaming, gnawing desire: every cell of his body. He is not going to die, this man – he’s too strong, too hardened by the elements – but in his mind he cannot, will not, go another moment without food. He strides in. Storms in. Inside, his brother, crouching over a pot. Stew, lentil stew. Bread.
“Quick,” the man gnashes. “Let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” His brother doesn’t move. He has a strange look on his face. “First …” he says quietly. First. First? The man is stunned. What, we’re bargaining now? “First,” says his brother, “sell me your birthright.”
The words hang in the air for a moment, shocked by their own brazenness. Imagine: the lifelong privilege and pride of place bestowed upon the firstborn – thrown away for a bowl of stew and some bread! It’s as insulting as it is brash, but the man’s brother has not spoken on a whim; he knows exactly what he’s doing. And the fact that they’re still both standing there shows that he has chosen the right moment, the right circumstance. Perhaps his brother expects an argument, but there will not be one.
“Look, I am about to die,” the man says, clearly not about to die. “What good is the birthright to me?” It’s an utterly stunning moment, an unthinkable capitulation, a betrayal of an honour system that is so irrational it would be laughable if it weren’t so deadly serious. His brother knows this. He knows how fragile this hinge moment is, and perhaps he never thought he’d even get this far, and so he invokes the highest form of confirmation that he can secure: a sacred oath. “Swear to me first,” he says. Suddenly they are both at the cusp of something far bigger than themselves. And against all logic, all reason, all that was passed down to him by his forefathers, the man gives his irrevocable oath. The birthright is no longer his, because he was hungry. He didn’t even really mean it, and later on he will, in anguish, try to undo this moment. But now he just eats. He drinks. He gets up. He walks out. He does not think about it again.
Esau’s sin was not being hungry. It was that he was prepared to do anything to gratify his hunger, no matter the cost.
The account of the twins Jacob and Esau, sons of Isaac, grandsons of Abraham himself, is one of the most notorious in the Bible. Even those who do not know the Scriptures will likely have heard of it – this strife between two brothers. The primary narrative is that Jacob stole his brother’s inheritance, that he tricked him out of it, that he deceived him. But a plain reading of the story shows that he did no such thing. It was, in fact, a valid transaction that fulfilled ancient customs of agreement and oath-taking. Later on, Jacob would deceive his nearly blind father by pretending to be his brother, but in fact the blessing his father gave him was rightfully his. He’d purchased it. Jacob was, it seems, some kind of conniver, a manipulator. A hustler. But actually, the one at greater fault was his brother.
One chilling sentence, in Genesis 25:34 (NIV), lays it out: “So Esau despised his birthright.”
In other words, Jacob didn’t just take it – Esau gave it away. And Jacob didn’t just desire an inheritance that didn’t belong to him – Esau hated the one that did.
There are many lessons to take from the story of the two brothers, but perhaps one that is not invoked often enough is made by Scripture itself, appearing in a piece of writing nearly two millennia later. We don’t know who wrote the letter called Hebrews, but near the end of this prosaic, urgent, sprawling letter to the first-century Jewish converts to Christianity, the writer had Esau on his mind. But he wasn’t concerned with deception or sibling rivalry; no, he linked this hot-headed, short-sighted man to something as specific as it is unexpected: being sexually immoral. After repeatedly pressing the seriousness of holding to Jesus, the horror of turning against Him, and the imperative of continuing on in faith, the image of Esau came into his mind.
Consider these words from Hebrews 12:16-17 (NIV): “See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.”
Many, many books, articles, and think-pieces have been written on the subject of the lusts of the flesh, the cravings that well up within us and so powerfully take hold of our hearts, minds, and bodies. Lust is inescapably pervasive across society: it virtually drives the engine of the world, fuels the psyche of the common consciousness, sells almost anything. The people of God need a plan to defeat it. We need discipline. We need self-control. We need to dress properly. We need to regard one another appropriately. We need to order our steps carefully, monitor our lives diligently, avoid temptation soberly. Get off our phones. Choose movies differently. Change gyms. These are all deliberate steps taken in the cold, hard light of day, and they are absolutely necessary in order to be godly people in our generation. And yet there is a big-picture revelation that we also need: a glimpse behind the curtain, the shock of something going on at a higher level. And that – that is what the writer of Hebrews is doing when he links Esau with sexual immorality.
Esau’s sin was not being hungry. It was that he was prepared to do anything to gratify his hunger, no matter the cost. He was prepared to give something up, to toss it aside. He despised the good thing he was given in order to fill something, to feel something. His story is one of earthly gain and eternal loss, because all he could think about was filling his belly, making his craving go away. We would do well to see lust and sexual temptation not just as moral failings or sinful habits, but to see a ravenous man, unable to see or think straight, ready to forfeit his eternal inheritance for a single meal. That’s the actual picture, and that’s the context for all the commands of Scripture.
Think of Paul: “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” (2 Timothy 2:22, NIV)
Think of Job: “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.” (Job 31:1, NIV)
Think of the half-brother of our Lord: “… but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14-15, NIV)
Think of Paul again: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16, NIV)
Think of King Solomon: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?” (Proverbs 6:27-28, NIV)
And then think of the Lord Jesus: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8, NIV)
These are not mantras, or helpful phrases, or optimal behavioural modifiers, or ways we can improve ourselves. This is how we avoid becoming godless, like Esau! This is how we reach upwards, upwards towards God’s ways rather than plunging downwards into destruction. This is how, as Peter urged the crowd on the day of Pentecost, we save ourselves from this corrupt generation.
The warning of Esau in Hebrews is designed to make us think about the high cost of low pleasure …
Esau, we are told, could never gain back what he had lost. If he had not treated God’s gift with such contempt, we would have spoken of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Esau, but today we speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that he could not change what he had done and lost the blessing and inheritance of God forever. It’s a deeply sobering thought, and it’s the antidote to the hardening of so many hearts in the culture we live in. It brings fear, and fear is good. Fear stops us from doing foolish and rebellious things. The warning of Esau in Hebrews is designed to make us think about the high cost of low pleasure, and to be afraid of satisfying ourselves, getting up and walking away. He may have died thousands of years ago, but Esau speaks to us today as a profound warning.
But here’s the good news. The stark warning on parchment that was delivered to the Hebrews – that terrifying phrase – was not the final word, because after invoking the chaos of Esau’s cravings, the writer wrote on. And here are his next lines:
“You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.’ The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I am trembling with fear.’
But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:18-24, NIV)
With God, there is a way to find mercy. Our sin is no less catastrophic under the New Covenant, and the consequences no less serious, but we have One to throw ourselves upon: Jesus. Have we ruined our lives through giving in to our cravings? The blood of Jesus was shed for us. Have we done great damage to ourselves and to others through rampant, unchecked lust? The cross of Christ is powerful enough to help us. Have we tainted our innocence by what we have thought, seen and done? Jesus is powerful enough to justify us before God, and kind enough to comfort us in our brokenness. Have we traded the upward call of God in order to plunge downward, playing games in the gutter? Jesus reaches out His hand to restore.
And so today, again, there is hope. We can fight the good fight of the faith, and we can overcome. Until the day we die our flesh will demand to be gratified and will look for every opportunity; until the day we die our flesh will cry out to us, like Esau’s stomach trying to rule over him. But our flesh is not the only powerful agent in the equation. We have the Holy Spirit, we have the power of God, we have the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus, we have each other – we have everything we need.
And so we fight on. But we do not fight aimlessly; we fight in the power of God. Our fallen predecessor Esau may have traded his blessing for ungodly gratification, but our divine intercessor Jesus traded His perfect life for death in our place, so that we can overcome.
