Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #17 of Genesis, chapter 25, and we are going to read Genesis 25:29-34:

And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

In our last study, we saw that the Hebrew word translated as “sod” is most often (nine out of 10 times) translated in a negative manner related to pride: “dealt proudly,” “pride,” “presumptuously” or “presume.”  And “Jacob dealt proudly pottage,” in connection with the pottage.  And, again, yes, he was seething pottage – boiling it or sodding it – but that is not the point.  The point is the word that God used was Strong’s #2102 in the Hebrew, and it is teaching us something else.  And since Jacob was the one doing it, it would apply to him.  He “dealt proudly.” 

In our last study, we were just thinking and speculating to some degree concerning Rebekah’s role in this, as she had some foresight from the Lord as the Lord revealed to her after her twins were struggling in her womb that the younger was the one who would be blessed.  And Jacob became her favorite, and she loved Jacob, and she was probably “filling his head” with these things.  Of course, there was nothing wrong with telling him what the Lord had said to her, but it got into his mind, and he wanted the right of the firstborn, the birthright.  So he hatched this plan, from everything we can know, on his own.  It could have been so much on his mind that it was the first thing that popped into his head. 

You know, when we have close brothers, all kinds of things go on.  They make “deals,” like “I will do this for you, but you have to do this for me.”  That is common, and anyone who has a brother, especially an older brother that took advantage of you on occasion is aware of this.  You could play cards or all kinds of things, and if one brother wanted something you had very badly…and in this case it was the pottage.  Esau came from the fields, and he could have been out there for days, and maybe the hunting was not good, and he was just tired and weary, and he wanted what he smelled coming from the pot.  It smelled so good.  And Jacob took advantage; he saw an opportunity, and here is what happened, starting in Genesis 25:30:

And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

Now here is when Jacob dealt proudly.  What does the Bible command?  It commands us, “Love your brother.”  And a loving brother (who had plenty of soup and saw the weakened condition of his brother) may have joked around with him a little bit, but, eventually, he would have said, “OK, here, let me get you a bowl of soup.”  There would have been no conditions and no bargaining or saying, “I will give you this soup, if you give me $100.”  There would be no selling of it.  But, you see, this is where the rivalry, the jealousy and the envy might come in, based on the fact that Esau was the firstborn and had the birthright of the firstborn son, and Jacob really wanted this.  So Jacob is involved.  Typically, we would think as we read this account that it is all Esau’s wrongdoing, but who set him up?  Who set him up to fall?  That would be his brother Jacob, and Jacob was wrong to do that, especially when we read that Esau came from the field.  Esau was a “man of the world,” and he was weary, so God would have Jacob (who represents His elect people) to have concern, care and deep love for his fellow man.  But, again, God allows things to happen in this world, and based on what we can read about Jacob, I would say that Jacob may not have been saved at this point.  But, nonetheless, he is the one who was initially at fault by dealing proudly regarding the pottage, as we can see in the next verse, in Genesis 25:31:

And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

And now it had entered into a whole new level of meaning.  It was no longer just two young men have some fun, with one brother having fun at the other brother’s expense.  Actually, it could have started out as light-hearted, with Jacob just joking around.  But when it comes to birthrights and these kinds of things in the Bible, God is most serious, and God was listening in, as He always does, because all things are open unto His eyes and ears.  And He took this little “snapshot” in history that happened between these two, and He put it in the Bible for everyone to see how Esau despised his own birthright.  And, certainly, we can see that it was deemed a very little thing in Esau’s eyes to have the right of the firstborn.

Anyway, before we get further into that, let us go back to Genesis 25:29:

And Jacob sod pottage…

I mentioned that “sod” was #2102 in the Hebrew, and it is translated as “dealt proudly” and “presumptuously,” and so forth.  The word “pottage” is #5138, and when you look up that word, and you put it side by side with the Hebrew word for “sod,” you will see how all the consonants are the same, except for the “Nun.”  There is one difference, the letter “Nun,” and, yet, this word “pottage,” #5138, is always translated that way, and it does not seem to have anything to do with “pride,” like how the word “sod” is used.

The word “pottage” is found six times.  It is found twice here in Genesis 25, and it is found once in Haggai 2:11:

Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.

The Lord goes on to relate the contamination of these holy things to His own people, the nation of Israel, that had become unclean before Him due to their contaminating of His Word or Law.  But we can see the word “pottage” here, and I would not know the spiritual meaning of everything in that verse, but it is used there. 

The other three times it is used, it is found in 2Kings.  It says in 2Kings 4:38:

And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets.

I will stop for a moment.  I pointed this out in the last study, but the word translated as “seethe” is #1310, and it is found many times.  It is translated as “seeth” ten times; as “boil,” six times; as “sod,” six times; as “bake,” twice; and as “roast,” twice.  This is the word God could have used back in Genesis 25, but He did not.  It definitely has in view a pot and they have a bunch of stuff in the pot, boiling and cooking.

It continues to say in 2Kings 4:39-41:

And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.

Something they gathered –  the herbs, the wild vines, the wild gourds – was poisonous, and they put it in the pot, and they were eating it, but it would have killed them.  There was “death in the pot.”  It became a mixture that instead of being nourishing and good for their bodies, it would have destroyed them, and they would have died.  But Elijah told them to bring meal and cast it into the pot, and it became a meal that was good for them and which would help their physical bodies. 

Of course, we can see the Gospel in this, as the “meal” would represent the true Gospel, the “bread of life,” the Lord Jesus Christ.  When it was added, then they could partake, eat and live – there was no more death.  So that is a clear picture of the Gospel. 

And when we see that Jacob “sod” pottage, I do not know how to relate the idea that the pottage is the Gospel.  I am not saying that, but I am just pointing out how this word is used elsewhere.  We do know that as Esau ate of the pottage, it was as though there was “death in the pot,” spiritually, because he lost his birthright.  It resulted in a spiritual calamity for him when he sold his own birthright.  And, again, Esau is a figure of mankind – Adam, Edom, man.  And man lost his birthright through sin when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It is interesting that Esau lost his birthright by eating something, and Adam and Eve lost the birthright on behalf of mankind because Adam was our figurehead, and they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  So it was man’s “appetite,” and he desired these things.  Of course, there was more behind it in the Garden of Eden.  There was a promise of becoming wise and “being like God,” but, nonetheless they ate of a food.

Let us go on.  Again, it says in Genesis 25:29-30:

And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

The word “faint” is a word that seems to point to someone in need of salvation.  For example, it says in Psalm 63:1:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

Here, it is translated as the word “thirsty.”

Also, it says in Psalm 143:6:

I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.

Again, it is the word “thirsty,” as a thirsty land.

It says in Proverbs 25:25:

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.

The good news would be the gospel, and our word is also translated as “thirsty.”

Let us go to one more verse, in Isaiah 32:2:

And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

Here, it is the word “weary.”  So we see a dry, thirsty land or a weary land, and Esau is in need of nourishment from the pottage, and we have seen how pottage can point to the Gospel.  So he is in need of salvation, but, instead, it was more like “death in the pot” for him.  And, again, Jacob was not doing right. 

It is a similar idea to what would happen later when Jacob had his sons, and they were furious at Shechem for defiling their sister Dinah, so they devised a plot and developed a plan.  They told the men of Shechem, “You need to become Jews and circumcise yourselves, and then we will allow Dinah to marry this man of Shechem, and you will be a part of us, and we will be a part of you.”  And the men of Shechem agreed, and they did circumcise themselves.  Then on the third day when they were weak, two men of Jacob came into the city and slew all the males.   And that was a grievous thing because they had agreed to become circumcised, and that is a picture of submitting to the will of God, because that would have been God’s command to all people at that time to become circumcised and to follow the God of Israel.  But despite the fact that these Gentiles were willing and obedient to the point of circumcision, they ended up being destroyed.

So, here, Esau is desiring pottage, but Jacob uses that as a weapon to take away his birthright, and Jacob said, in Genesis 25:32:

And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

Why did Esau say he was at the point to die?  Of course he was not – he was exaggerating.  But we have all said things like that, just being so tired and weary.  Maybe we had a really long day or a very physical day, and we are exhausted, and we could say, “I feel like I am about to die.”

But, actually, this is not the best translation, where it says, “I am at the point to die.”  Literally, this should be translated: “I am going to die.  What profit shall this birthright do to me?”  He said, “I am going to die,” which is a different idea than that he is at the point of dying.  In other words, Esau is not saying that he is going to die in the next minute, but he is saying, “I am a man.  I am a human being, and we are all going to die, so when I die, what good is a birthright?  What good is it to have blessing from God?”  You see, it is the same mindset people have when it comes to hearing the Gospel.  Those that have heard the Gospel have heard the Law of God where God is commanding things like, “Here is how you are to live.  Humble yourselves before my Word.  Follow my Word.  Obey my Word.  Follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and deprive yourselves of sinful pleasures.  Turn and repent from the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, as they are unprofitable.”  This is the Bible’s message and, oftentimes, the reaction of the man of the world is this: “Look.  I am going to die, and I just have a short time to live in the world and, therefore, while I live, I am going to eat, drink and be merry.”  Remember that statement in 1Corinthians 15:29-32:

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.

What the Apostle Paul is saying under the inspiration of God is, “If the Bible is not true when it speaks of the resurrection and a future eternal life, then why are we giving up the things of the world and the pleasure of eating, drinking, making merry, and partying on Friday and Saturday night?  If we are living a life of sacrifice and of keeping the body under and controlling our desires and the things that the flesh naturally wants, and if we are turning from them and living the way God wants me to live, but if it is not true what the Bible says about the resurrection of the dead and the life to come, then what advantage is it?  What benefit is it?  If that is the case that dead rise not, then let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 

You see, ultimately, the right of the firstborn, the birthright, has to do with eternal life.  It has to do with receiving spiritual blessings from God the Father and living forever.  That is what it finally points to, spiritually.  So Esau is sitting in this kitchen thousands of years ago, and he is speaking for mankind.  Mankind had received the birthright from God: you will live; you will be blessed; you can trust God; just follow Him. 

But he does not trust God.  He does not believe these things: “Behold, I am going to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?” It is implied, “What profit is the birthright, if that is the case?  I am going to die.  I cannot eat, I cannot drink, and I cannot make merry once I am dead.”  You see, it is portraying the idea of a lack of faith and belief in the living God and His promises – the promises given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they would receive the land as an everlasting habitation.  So this was Esau’s error.  It was his failing point and, as a result, he did lose the birthright.