After hunting, Esau returns to the family encampment to find his younger brother has cooked dinner: “Feed me, I pray thee … for I am faint.” He receives the curt answer at the top of our page, Jacob’s first words in Scripture. He seems to have had them in mind for some time, waiting for the right moment to take advantage of his impulsive brother. That moment came, and Esau sold his birthright for one meal, with terrible consequences (Heb. 12:16–17)—a warning to anyone who’s privileged to know the gospel but puts no value on it.

Esau, “a man of the field,” and the “homely man” Jacob (Gen. 25:27) were “chalk and cheese,” but was it brotherly love to treat him this way? Jacob knew there was more to life than pleasure—he was an heir with Abraham of God’s promise (Heb. 11:9)—but he did not live to please God. He even obtained Esau’s blessing by deceiving their father (Gen. 27). He went on to spend many years pursuing his own advantage but never seemed to be truly happy. May we be preserved from this as believers on the Lord Jesus so that we do God’s “good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13) and “by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).

Eventually, God had to touch Jacob in his body in a way that reminded him for the rest of his life of his weakness and need of dependence on Him (Gen. 32:24–31). Later in Egypt, he confessed his failure: “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life” (47:9). He made good use of the last ten years of his life as a worshiper of God (Heb. 11:21), and blesser and instructor of others: Pharaoh (Gen. 47:10), Joseph and his sons, and as our second verse shows, not only all his own sons but their tribes also. It was a good finish!