“…or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.”

Hebrews 12:17b-18

How many times have you repeated the phrase “I’m starving” to describe your desire to get something to eat right away? But how many of us have ever really been starving? Most, if not all of us, do not have a true grasp of the meaning of the word personally, do we?

In Genesis 25 we read the account of Jacob and Esau –

Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted! (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, Sell me your birthright now.

Esau said, I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me? Jacob said, Swear to me now. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Genesis 25:29-34

Esau was exhausted (one translation uses the word famished) to the point that he felt he was about to die. Really?

Esau was a man who lived for the moment. He didn’t think of the consequences of his actions because he was ruled by his appetite. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the blessing, he just wanted to have it both ways.

The writer of Hebrews uses Esau’s example to learn to value our relationship with God over the short-sighted appetites of this day.