Esau espouses a sad and somber testament; one who would serve as an example as we glean through his recorded history. He started life as an avid combatant. In his mother’s belly, he was already wrestling incessantly with his twin, who would bird-dog him, even at birthing. He was born a sturdy child with red hair all over his body. And so he was named Esau, meaning “red” and this color red would haunt him the rest of his life. A strong child, born the elder of twins. “Jacob, still holding on to my heel, yes, but always, only, at my heel!”
In his youth, he loved the spread of the wild and the fields where he would hunt. An able hunter, he excelled in the art of stealth, guile and disguise. So skilled was he, that he was his father’s favorite. Isaac, like any red-blooded male, would be so proud of this manly and adroit offspring; a son who would honor him with frequent savory meals, hunted and cooked with his own hands. Which father would not be so envious? Esau’s hunt was up-close, his bow and arrow a distant cry from modern-day ballistics. Able to scout, stalk and predatory within meters, he was a hands-on, skilled harbinger of death. Esau would not be squeamish ; daring, stamina, brutality, and slaughter were well within his vocabulary and armory. Did he include also, a bizarre fascination for the red, of fresh spilled blood? It takes more than simple resolve, to deliberately skewer even a fallen but not quite dead animal. The gore and the acrid tang of congealed blood, with little water to waste on washing, would be a pungent companion. The smell of the field, his father was accustomed to, was certainly not the smell of desert flowers! Like David, he spent his nights out in the fields, but not as a shepherd. He was the thrilled hunter. They both looked into the same night-skies; they shared the darkness, cold and hunger. They knew the blazing heat, desert thirst and the camaraderie of caves and campfires; only that one was the hunter, the other, the hunted.
A failed hunt and an empty belly egged him to ‘sell’ his birthright. An accomplished cook of savory meats, one wonders over his fetish for red lentil pottage. Was there really nothing else to eat in the whole of his father’s house? Was his brother’s offer or dish so irresistible or was it really with sneering nonchalance, that he had countered Jacob’s own recipe for entrapment? Shylock and his pound of flesh, would look like the choir-boy, when compared with Jacob. Esau was over himself when he so mishandled his birthright. Too much sun, an empty growling belly and an insistence for immediate gratification was to be his ignoble catastrophe. His careless disregard for words and oaths? An over-confidence in that he was his father’s favorite and in his inalienable first-birthed right? A contemptuous estimate of his cissy domesticated twin? He sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage, ate and went his way!
Before we would twit our thumbs, it would be prudent also, not to cast stones at Esau; how dearly do we regard our own birthrights? Have we sold them or are they on offer; for the sun, for the thrill, for our bellies, for pottage or whatever our fancy, for our success, for our repute, for manliness, or our parents even? Like Esau, we may also consider our birthright inalienable, forgetting that we can, like Esau, effectively ‘sell’ them. Once sold, could they be recovered? Esau apparently could not.
It was Esau’s pride that really tripped him over; pride in all that he was, and all that he had established himself to be. Esau, though able, had wanted; always to be his own man.
(To be continued)
God bless.
/ckh
In his youth, he loved the spread of the wild and the fields where he would hunt. An able hunter, he excelled in the art of stealth, guile and disguise. So skilled was he, that he was his father’s favorite. Isaac, like any red-blooded male, would be so proud of this manly and adroit offspring; a son who would honor him with frequent savory meals, hunted and cooked with his own hands. Which father would not be so envious? Esau’s hunt was up-close, his bow and arrow a distant cry from modern-day ballistics. Able to scout, stalk and predatory within meters, he was a hands-on, skilled harbinger of death. Esau would not be squeamish ; daring, stamina, brutality, and slaughter were well within his vocabulary and armory. Did he include also, a bizarre fascination for the red, of fresh spilled blood? It takes more than simple resolve, to deliberately skewer even a fallen but not quite dead animal. The gore and the acrid tang of congealed blood, with little water to waste on washing, would be a pungent companion. The smell of the field, his father was accustomed to, was certainly not the smell of desert flowers! Like David, he spent his nights out in the fields, but not as a shepherd. He was the thrilled hunter. They both looked into the same night-skies; they shared the darkness, cold and hunger. They knew the blazing heat, desert thirst and the camaraderie of caves and campfires; only that one was the hunter, the other, the hunted.
A failed hunt and an empty belly egged him to ‘sell’ his birthright. An accomplished cook of savory meats, one wonders over his fetish for red lentil pottage. Was there really nothing else to eat in the whole of his father’s house? Was his brother’s offer or dish so irresistible or was it really with sneering nonchalance, that he had countered Jacob’s own recipe for entrapment? Shylock and his pound of flesh, would look like the choir-boy, when compared with Jacob. Esau was over himself when he so mishandled his birthright. Too much sun, an empty growling belly and an insistence for immediate gratification was to be his ignoble catastrophe. His careless disregard for words and oaths? An over-confidence in that he was his father’s favorite and in his inalienable first-birthed right? A contemptuous estimate of his cissy domesticated twin? He sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage, ate and went his way!
Before we would twit our thumbs, it would be prudent also, not to cast stones at Esau; how dearly do we regard our own birthrights? Have we sold them or are they on offer; for the sun, for the thrill, for our bellies, for pottage or whatever our fancy, for our success, for our repute, for manliness, or our parents even? Like Esau, we may also consider our birthright inalienable, forgetting that we can, like Esau, effectively ‘sell’ them. Once sold, could they be recovered? Esau apparently could not.
It was Esau’s pride that really tripped him over; pride in all that he was, and all that he had established himself to be. Esau, though able, had wanted; always to be his own man.
(To be continued)
God bless.
/ckh
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