Hebrews 12:17

For ye know how that afterward The verse runs literally "for ye know that even, afterwards, when he wished to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no opportunity for a change of mind though with tears he earnestly sought for it." It is clear at once that if the writer means to say "that Esau earnestly sought to repent, but could not," then he is contradicting the whole tenor of the Scriptures, and of the Gospel teaching with which he was so familiar. This would not indeed furnish us with any excuse for distorting the meaning of his language, if that meaning be unambiguous; and in favour of such a view of his words is the fact that he repeatedly dwells on the hopelessness humanly speaking of all wilful apostasy. On the other hand, "apostasy," when it desires to repent, ceases to be apostasy, and the very meaning of the Gospel is that the door to repentance is never closed by God, though the sinner may close it against himself. Two modes of interpreting the text would save it from clashing with this precious truth. (1) One is to say (α) that "room for repentance" means "opportunity for changing his father'sor his brother'spurpose;" no subsequent remorse or regret could undo the past or alter Isaac's blessing (Genesis 27:33); or (β) no room for changing his own mind in such a way as to recover the blessing which he had lost; in other words, he "found no opportunity for such repentance as would restore to him the lost theocratic blessing." But in the N. T. usage the word "repentance" (μετάνοια) is always subjective, and has a deeper meaning than in the LXX. The same objection applies to the explanation that "he found no room to change God'spurpose" to induce God "to repent" of His rejection of him, since God "is not a man that He should repent" (Numbers 23:19). (2) It seems simpler therefore, and quite admissible, to regard "for he found no place for repentance" as a parenthesis, and refer "it" to the lost blessing. "Though he earnestly sought the lost blessing, even with tears, when (perhaps forty years after his shameful indifference) he wished once more to inherit it, yet thenhe found no room for repentance;" or in other words his repentance, bitter as it was, could not avert the earthly consequence of his profanity, and was unavailing to regain what he had once flung away. As far as his earthly life was concerned, he heard the awful words "too late." The text gives no ground for pronouncing on Esau's future fate, to which the writer makes no allusion whatever. His "repentance," if it failed, could only have been a spurious repentance remorse for earthly foolishness, not godly sorrow for sin, the dolor amissi, not the dolor aàmissi. This is the sense of "locus poenilentiae," the Latin translation of τόπος μετανοίας. The phrase itself occurs in Wis 12:10. The abuse of this passage to support the merciless severity of the Novatians was one of the reasons why the Epistle was somewhat discredited in the Western Church.

with tears "In former days he might have had it without tears; afterwards he was rejected, however sorely he wept. Let us use the time" (Luke 13:28). Bengel.