Genesis 25:23

And the Lord said, two nations, &c.— We have in the prophecies delivered respecting these sons of Isaac, more ample proof of what has been before asserted, that these prophecies were meant not so much of single persons, as of whole nations and people descended from them: for what is predicted concerning Esau and Jacob was not verified in themselves, but in their posterity. The Edomites were the offspring of Esau, as the Israelites were of Jacob; and who but the Author and Giver of life could foresee, that two children in the womb would multiply into two nations? Jacob had twelve sons, and their descendants were all united and incorporated into one nation. What an over-ruling Providence then was it, that two nations should arise from the two sons only of Isaac? But they were not only to grow up into two nations, but into two very different nations: two kinds of people were to be separated from her bowels. And have not the Israelites and Edomites been all along two very different people in their manners, customs, and religions, which made them to be perpetually at variance one with the other? The children struggled together in the womb, which was an omen and token of their future disagreement: and when they were grown up to manhood, they manifested very different inclinations. Esau was a cunning hunter, and delighted in the sports of the woods: Jacob was more mild and gentle, dwelling in tents, and minding his sheep and his cattle, Genesis 25:27. Our English translation, agreeably to the Septuagint and the Vulgate, has it, that Jacob was a plain man. The word in the original (תם tam) signifies perfect, which is a general term; but being put in opposition to the rough and rustic manners of Esau, it must particularly import that Jacob was more humane and gentle, as Philo the Jew understands it, and as Le Clerc translates it. Esau slighted his birth-right, and those sacred privileges of which Jacob was desirous, and is therefore called, Hebrews 12:16 the profane Esau; but Jacob was a man of better faith and religion. The like diversity ran through their posterity. The religion of the Jews is very well known: but whatever the Edomites were at first, in process of time they became idolaters. Josephus mentions an Idumean deity named Koze: and Amaziah king of Judah, after he had overthrown the Edomites, 2 Chronicles 25:14 brought their gods, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them; which was monstrously absurd, as the prophet remonstrates in the next verse, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand? Upon these religious differences, and other accounts, there was a continual grudge and enmity between the two nations. The king of Edom would not suffer the Israelites, in their return out of AEgypt, so much as to pass through his territories, Numbers 20. And the history of the Edomites afterwards is little more than the history of their wars with the Jews. See Bp. Newton.

And the one people shall be stronger, &c.— The family of Esau was the elder, and for some time the greater and more powerful of the two. But David and his captains made an entire conquest of the Edomites, slew several thousands of them, 1 Kings 11:16. 1 Chronicles 18:12 compelled the rest to become his tributaries and servants, and planted garrisons among them to secure their obedience, 2 Samuel 8:14. And he put garrisons in Edom, throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants. In this state of servitude they continued without a king of their own, being governed by viceroys or deputies appointed by the kings of Judah. In the reign of Jehoshophat king of Judah, it is written, there was then no king in Edom; a deputy was king, 1 Kings 22:47. But in the days of Jehoram his son, they revolted, and recovered their liberties, and made a king over themselves, 2 Kings 8:20. But afterwards Amaziah king of Judah slew of Edom in the valley of salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel unto this day, says the sacred historian, 2 Kings 14:7. And other ten thousand left alive, did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought them unto the top of the rock, whereon Selah was built, and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they were broken all in pieces, 2 Chronicles 25:12. His son Azariah, or Uzziah, likewise took from them Elath, that commodious haven on the Red-Sea, and fortified it anew, and restored it to Judah, Exodus 14:22. 2 Chronicles 26:2. Judas Maccabeus attacked and defeated them several times, killed no fewer than twenty thousand at one time, and more than twenty thousand at another, and took their chief city Hebron, and the towns thereof, and pulled down the fortress of it, and burnt the towers thereof round about, 1 Maccabees 5 : 2 Maccabees 10 : At last his nephew Hyrcanus, the son of Simon, took others of their cities, and reduced them to the necessity of embracing the Jewish religion, or of leaving their country, and seeking new habitations elsewhere; whereupon they submitted to be circumcised, and became proselytes to the Jewish religion, and ever after were incorporated into the Jewish church and nation.

The elder shall serve the younger— This passage serves for a key to explain the ninth chapter to the Romans, where the words are quoted: for it proves to a demonstration that this cannot be meant of God's arbitrary predestination of particular persons to eternal happiness or misery, without any regard to their holiness or unholiness: a doctrine which some have most impiously fathered upon God, who is the best of beings, and who cannot possibly have hated from eternity, far less have absolutely and unconditionally doomed to everlasting misery, any creature that he has made: but that it means only his bestowing greater external favours, or, if you please, higher opportunities for knowing and doing their duty upon some men, or upon some families or nations of men, than he does upon others, and that merely according to his own wise purpose.