Esau was a man people liked. He was “a skillful hunter, a man of the field,” strong and outgoing, and his father loved him. But Esau lived for the moment. Coming in weary from the field, he sold his birthright for a bowl of red stew and said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?” Scripture's verdict is short: “Thus Esau despised his birthright.”
Esau's choices kept revealing his heart. At forty he married two Hittite women, “and they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah.” Later, seeing that his parents were displeased with the Canaanite women, he married a daughter of Ishmael — trying to please his parents without seeking the God of his fathers.
When Esau learned that Jacob had taken the blessing, “he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me—me also, O my father!’” Hebrews 12:17 says that “when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.” His tears were for the lost blessing, not for the sin of despising it. Then grief turned to hatred: “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
Twenty years passed. When Jacob came home, Esau came to meet him with four hundred men, and Jacob was terrified. But something had happened in Esau's heart. “Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” Jacob offered gifts, and Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” Jacob answered, “I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God, and you were pleased with me.”
Esau's story holds both a warning and a surprise. The warning: do not trade what is eternal for what satisfies for a moment. The surprise: the man who swore revenge chose to embrace. Jesus' picture of the father running to embrace the prodigal son in Luke 15 echoes this scene. Whatever else is true of Esau, he shows us that bitterness does not have to have the final word between brothers.