Genesis 25:34

lentils The pottage here described is made of a small reddish kind of bean much in use for food in Palestine, Arab. -adas. Cf. 2 Samuel 17:28; 2 Samuel 23:11; Ezekiel 4:9. It makes the reddish pottage now called in Palestine mujedderah, a very popular dish.

so Esau despised his birthright These words summarize the narrative. Esau's character is portrayed as that of a careless, shallow man, living from hand to mouth, and paying no regard to things of higher or spiritual significance. It is this trait which is referred to in Hebrews 12:16, "or profane person as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright." The advantage of the birthright may have been indefinite. But, as we may judge not only from the story in ch. 27, but also from that of Genesis 38:28-30 and Genesis 48:13-19 (cf. Deuteronomy 21:15-17), the privilege of the birthright was accounted sacred in the social life of the early Israelite. The Lat. paraphrases the sense of the last clause, parvi pendens quod primogenita vendidisset.

The birthright was Esau's by God's gift, not by his own merit. Hence it symbolized eternal blessing. Esau's repudiation of the unseen and intangible, for the sake of immediate self-gratification, is the symbol of a large proportion of human sin and thoughtlessness.