Genesis 36:1-8 – Choices in life shape what we become

Esau was not only carefree but also careless. He had no appetite for spiritual things at all. While Jacob his brother was to be blamed for being deceptive, he on his part was to be blamed for being frivolous. He sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. By being so careless about a position so sacred, he had despised his birthright. He was an outdoor, active kind of a man and very impulsive. While being an active outdoor man was not wrong, it was his inability to gain a tight reign over his appetite and emotion that ruined him. He lived for what was set before him whether it be food or women. His motto was self-gratification. The kind of enjoy now, worry later. So he sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage and he slept carelessly with foreign women just to spite his parents. He was the kind that would cut his nose to spite his face. From him we learn much lessons on the necessity for self-discipline and self-control. Nothing can be more destructive than one’s unfettered appetite, the let go and let loose kind of lifestyle.  

Hebrews 12:15-17 warned us against this kind of life. We are warned not to emulate Esau. The three verses in Hebrews said this precisely, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birth-right for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.” In selling his birthright, he not only sold himself short, he literally despised his God ordained position.    

His inability to control himself was in part due to his sensual nature. That had driven him sadly into a lifestyle of sin. His sensuality also drove him into polygamy. His marital life was a washout. In Genesis 26:35 we read that he openly defied his parents and took wives from the idolatrous Hittites and brought them into his tent. What he did was calculated to make life difficult for Isaac and Rebekah. Again in Genesis 28:8-9, we learn that he married an Ishmaelite woman. Indiscipline and carnal, this was the trajectory of his life. The one good thing we read about Esau was his willingness to forgive and be reconciled with Jacob his brother. When his father died, we read briefly that he and Jacob buried his father alongside their mother Rebekah and their grandparents, Abraham and Sarah.

What can Esau’s genealogies and unrestrained life teach us? His decision to be unequally yoked had its consequences. He had chosen to cut himself off from the line of the chosen people. Verses 6-8 record another of his monumental mistake. His departure from the Promised Land was an indication of the last connection he had to the blessing. He gave up his right to the land. It was a choice that he made. He literally walked out of the line of God’s chosen people and His promise to them. While it was sad to see Esau go down this route, it was significant to Jacob for it sealed his claim to what God had promised him. We must know the responsibility for the decision we make in life belongs to us. In consultation with God, we must look at life from the perspective of where we hope to land. The journey of a thousand miles begin with the first step. So it is needful to begin well but just as needful to end well. Our ability to end well begins with the first step we take. We must begin with what we hope to accomplish in mind. Choosing wisely today for a glorious tomorrow!