Valuing a Birthright (Genesis 25:29-34)

In the Ancient Near East, the firstborn son had certain rights and privileges: he was usually favored by his father, and when his father died, he would receive a double portion of the inheritance. In the case of Jacob and Esau, when Isaac died, all that he had would be divided up into three equal parts, of which Esau would receive two as his birthright, and Jacob would only receive one.

Being an eldest child myself, I quite like this arrangement! I can hear my younger brother crying out, “that’s not fair!” Well, tough. That’s how it was done back then.

Of course, there are extrabiblical documents recording the sale or bartering of a birthright. The so-called Nuzi tablets inform us that the transfer of inheritance rights could be given or sold to another. Theoretically, a younger son could trade something of value to the eldest son for the right to a double share of their father’s inheritance. This is exactly what Jacob has in mind in today’s Scripture passage.

Please read Genesis 25:29-34.

Isaac is still alive at this point, and his flocks and herds are still growing. The exact value of what his property will be when he passes on and leaves it to his sons is unknown. But it’s reasonable to assume that its worth more than a bowl of stew! That’s why Moses tells us that “Esau despised his birthright.” Jacob probably never would have tried to get Esau to trade it for stew if he thought that Esau valued it as deeply as he should have.

But Esau was an outdoorsman who lived in the moment. He was a hunter who always focused on his next prey. He wasn’t worried about the future. In that moment, he was hungry. He wanted food now! Why would he care about what that would cost him later?

So many of us have this attitude in life. That’s one of the reasons that our society is so deep in debt: if we can charge it on our credit cards, then we can get what we want now and worry about paying it off later. It’s one of the reasons that young couples in our churches give in to sexual temptation: we know that we will get married later, so why not enjoy having sex now? And this is one of the reasons that our society struggles so much with obesity: I know that this will cost me later, but that cookie looks so good right now, and I’m sooooo hungry!

When we sacrifice the future to indulge in momentary lusts of the flesh, we are saying by our actions that we despise our future selves. Esau despised his birthright, and traded it for a bowl of stew. But Jacob practiced wisdom.

Jacob planned this whole deal out. Esau had a regular pattern of working in the field and coming home hungry, so Jacob made sure that the stew he was cooking would smell delicious and be perfectly ready, right around when Esau would be coming home hungry. Esau wasn’t literally starving, but the good smell of the stew exaggerated his hunger, and he just had to have it now, no matter what the cost. Jacob knew this, and so he asked for something of Esau’s that Esau wouldn’t even miss in the moment, something that was so far in the future that is was way out of Esau’s thoughts: his birthright.

As the firstborn, Esau knew that he would have the birthright, so it wasn’t important to him—it was just something that he took for granted. But as the younger son (and only by a few minutes at the most!), Jacob would have seen the uneven distribution of his father’s wealth as an insult, and was stewing over it for years (pun intended). Finally, he saw his opportunity and he pounced—in a moment when Esau was weak with hungry, Jacob got him to make a formal vow. When Esau looks back on it later, he rages that Jacob “stole” his birthright. But Jacob was merely living for the future, while Esau was living for the moment. 

Each one of us has that same choice to make every day: do we live in the moment like Esau, not caring about how it will affect us in the future? Or do we practice wisdom like Jacob, and plan ahead for the future, while still enjoying the little things in life, like making stew, or tricking our brother?