Genesis 33:1

CHAPTER XXXIII

Esau, with four hundred men, meets Jacob, 1.

He places his children under their respective mothers,

passes over before them, and bows himself to his brother, 2, 3.

Esau receives him with great affection, 4.

Receives the homage of the handmaids, Leah, Rachel, and

their children, 5-7.

Jacob offers him the present of cattle, which he at first

refuses, but after much entreaty accepts, 8-11.

Invites Jacob to accompany him to Mount Seir, 12.

Jacob excuses himself because of his flocks and his children,

but promises to follow him, 13, 14.

Esau offers to leave him some of his attendants, which Jacob

declines, 15.

Esau returns to Seir, 16,

and Jacob journeys to Succoth, 17,

and to Shalem, in the land of Canaan, 18.

Buys a parcel of ground from the children of Hamor, 19,

and erects an altar which he calls El-elohe-Israel, 20.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII

Verse Genesis 33:1. Behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men.] It has been generally supposed that Esau came with an intention to destroy his brother, and for that purpose brought with him four hundred armed men. But,

1. There is no kind of evidence of this pretended hostility.

2. There is no proof that the four hundred men that Esau brought with him were at all armed.

3. But there is every proof that he acted towards his brother Jacob with all openness and candour, and with such a forgetfulness of past injuries as none but a great mind could have been capable of.

Why then should the character of this man be perpetually vilified? Here is the secret. With some people, on the most ungrounded assumption, Esau is a reprobate, and the type and figure of all reprobates, and therefore he must be everything that is bad. This serves a system; but, whether true or false in itself, it has neither countenance nor support from the character or conduct of Esau.