Esau was the elder brother just returned from his hunting rounds, apparently without a game, without a catch. When Jacob informed Esau what it would mean to take the food that day, Esau casually said, “OK. I take your offer. From today, you are the elder and I have become the junior.” And he signed the deal by swearing in the name of the Lord. Words.
For Esau, maybe, it was just words that he had spoken, which could never reverse the solid historic fact of their births. Besides, he still had his birth papers, and could also speak other words, if need be, to unsign the deal, if any. He still had a mouth, after all. He was later to learn, sadly, that words, or all words, were not mere breath that one let in and out as one wished. He had lost the position of first born merely by the words that he spoke (Hebrews 12:16-17). Accordingly, the Registry of Heaven had promptly revised (or updated) his birth records (Genesis 25:30-34). Esau had spoken those weighty words in a casual moment of hunger, but they had been potent nonetheless.
When Pay Day Came …
Days later, it was Pay Day. Their father Isaac was about to take off to the Other Side of existence, but he would download to his sons what he carried, before he died. There was Something for the first born. When that time came, Divine Justice contrived that Esau could not eat his cake and still have it. By several interventions, the blessing of the first born went to Jacob, to whom Esau had sold it by the words that he spoke. But that is not where my narrative is headed now.
For those who know the story, when Esau eventually reached Isaac to get his blessing, The Blessing, the old man had already downloaded it upon Jacob. As far as Esau was concerned, perhaps, that was no problem. It was words that Isaac had spoken. He could speak other words to retrieve what he had given to Jacob and put it upon himself. He cried, asking, “Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me? … bless me, even me ALSO, O my father” (Genesis 27:36, 38). In other words, “Can’t you just say something again? Just say it.” It was beginning to dawn on him. You don’t ‘just say’ everything.
Irreversible Words
The story says that Isaac “trembled very exceedingly” when he realised that he had put the blessing upon the ‘wrong’ person (Genesis 27:33). He had blessed ‘by mistake,’ but it was potent all the same. He could still speak words, but they would be mere carcasses, for Something had left him with the words that he had spoken upon Jacob. The same words, even from the same lips, do not always carry the same force.
Now, this is my point in this message: If Isaac were any of our conventional pastors, Esau would have had no need to cry, for the pastor would simply have spoken more words, even loftier words than he had proclaimed over the first comer. But Isaac couldn’t, because it would be mere sounds without content, for the earlier words had carried the blessing to the first comer. Something had left that couldn’t be recalled (Mark 5:30). That day, Esau learned his lesson about words.
19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
20 Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I CANNOT REVERSE it (Numbers 23:19-20). Amen.