Esau

Overview

• Esau is the elder twin of Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, who sold his birthright and lost the elder son's blessing. He is the father of the Edomites.
• Though he lost the covenant line, Esau is still blessed by God and reconciled to Jacob — not the "reprobate" the Calvinist reading makes of him.

His Story

Esau was the firstborn of Isaac and Rebekah's twins, coming out "red, all over like a hairy garment," while Jacob followed grasping his heel (Genesis 25.24-26). He grew into a skillful hunter, a man of the field, loved by Isaac for the game he brought, while Rebekah loved Jacob (Genesis 25.27-28). Coming in famished one day, he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of red lentil stew — "thus Esau despised his birthright" (Genesis 25.29-34). He married two Hittite women, a grief to his parents (Genesis 26.34-35).

When Isaac grew old, he sent Esau to hunt game for a meal so that he might bless him; but in his absence Jacob, disguised, took the blessing first. Esau returned to find it gone, and "cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry," begging, "Bless me, even me also, O my father"; and Isaac did bless him — "Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above" — though foretelling a life by the sword and, for a time, in service to his brother (Genesis 27.30-40). Grieved and angry, Esau resolved to kill Jacob once their father had died (Genesis 27.41); and seeing that his Canaanite wives displeased his parents, he also took a daughter of Ishmael to wife (Genesis 28.6-9).

Years later, when Jacob returned from Haran in fear, Esau ran to meet him, fell on his neck, embraced him, and wept, and the estranged brothers were reconciled (Genesis 33.1-16). Esau settled in the hill country of Seir and became the father of the Edomites, whose generations Scripture carefully records (Genesis 36). He and Jacob together buried their father Isaac (Genesis 35.29).

"Jacob I Loved, Esau I Hated"

St. Paul cites the words of the prophet Malachi, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Romans 9.10-13; cf. Malachi 1.2-3), and the Calvinist tradition has read them as though Esau were a reprobate, condemned before birth by an arbitrary decree. Orthodoxy rejects that reading, and modern Orthodox teachers (such as Fr. Stephen De Young) press the point directly. As St. John Chrysostom insists, God's choice here rests on His foreknowledge, not on any arbitrary predestination that overrides freedom: God "does not wait, as man does, to see from the issue of their acts," but knows beforehand the character each will freely have — and "vessels of wrath" and "vessels of mercy" become such "of their own free choice."[^2] The "hatred," moreover, is the Hebrew idiom for being loved less or not chosen: it names which son would carry the covenant line toward Christ, not a sentence of damnation.

And Esau is not cast off. He receives a true blessing from his father — "the fatness of the earth, and the dew of heaven from above" (Genesis 27.39-40); he is reconciled warmly with Jacob (Genesis 33.4); and he becomes the father of a great nation (Genesis 36). God Himself gives Esau's descendants Mount Seir as their own inheritance and forbids Israel to make war on them: "I have given mount Seir to the children of Esau as an inheritance" (Deuteronomy 2.4-5). The genuine warning Scripture draws from Esau is the narrower, moral one of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which calls him "profane" for despising his birthright, selling the lasting things of God "for one morsel of food" (Hebrews 12.16-17) — a caution against trading away our inheritance for a passing hunger, not a verdict of eternal reprobation.

Sources

[^1]: Genesis 25; Genesis 26.34-35; Genesis 27; Genesis 28.6-9; Genesis 33; Genesis 36 — the life of Esau, including his own blessing (Genesis 27.39-40) and reconciliation with Jacob. [^2]: St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, Homily 16 (on Romans 9.10-13) — the election of Jacob over Esau as God's foreknowledge of free choice, not arbitrary predestination; free will preserved; "vessels of wrath/mercy" so "of their own free choice.". On Esau's continued blessing and inheritance: Genesis 27.39-40; Deuteronomy 2.4-5.