03.05. "Tears, Idle Tears."

"Tears, Idle Tears."

Hebrews 12:17.

There are few passages of Scripture which have made a greater or more poignant appeal than the narrative in the book of Genesis describing Esau’s sale of his birthright for "a mess of pottage," and his later futile appeal to Isaac to bestow on him a blessing. The writer to the Hebrews, giving an exhortation to Christians to have constant faith, patience and godliness, urged them to look diligently,

"Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears" (Hebrews 12:16-17, (Common Version).

Esau the profane.

We need not recapitulate the long narrative in Genesis 25:1-34 and Genesis 27:1-46, for it has been familiar to most of our readers since childhood. God had prophesied before the birth of the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, that they should be the heads of two nations (Israel and Edom), and that the elder should serve the younger. Both parents, Isaac and Rebekah, showed unworthy favouritism, Isaac for Esau and Rebekah for Jacob; for which sinful folly both suffered greatly in later days. The sympathy of most readers has gone out to Esau. Jacob, the supplanter, had many unlovely traits. His readiness to take advantage of his brother’s weakness was detestable. The subterfuge by which he impersonated Esau, deceived his father and obtained the blessing, would ordinarily be regarded as worthy of a sneak and cunning rascal. Who has not been moved by the lament of Esau: "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing." The pathos of Esau’s last, vain appeal can hardly be excelled: "And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept."

We dare not excuse Jacob; he was in part mean and contemptible. Had his mother and he been content to rest in God’s promises, the supremacy of Jacob and of Israel would have come about without the trickery and sin which caused them both so much ill. But the story reveals such defects in Esau’s character as makes us acquiesce in the preferment of Jacob.

Esau, the writer to the Hebrews says, was a "profane person." Etymologically, the word "profane" means before or outside the fane or temple. "Inside the walls around the temple lay the sacred, undefiled garden, the loveliest spot in all the land. But the unwalled ground outside was common, and trampled bare by the foot of man and beast. Esau was ’a profane person’; his life was all spent outside the sacred enclosure, and he profaned every hallowed thing, treating it as cheap and vile." Esau did not prize the good; he "despised his birthright." He lived for the pleasure of the moment. He could not curb his appetite, and was willing to exchange a lasting joy for a brief, present gratification. He succumbed to the temptation which overcomes many a weak, passionate, easy-going man to-day. Charles Kingsley has said: "It is natural, I know, to pity poor Esau; butt one has no right to do more. One has no right to fancy for a moment that God was arbitrary or hard upon him. Esau is not the sort of man to be the father of a great nation, or of anything else great."

We must accept Kingsley’s judgment in the last quoted sentence. Dr. Hastings points out that "even in his selfishness and meanness Jacob showed his sense of the superior value of things unseen and distant, and his willingness to make a sacrifice to secure them." He erred sadly by seeking in devious ways to anticipate or ensure the promise of God; but he had a capacity for greatness such as Esau never had. He was capable of the great transformation from Jacob the Supplanter to Israel the prince of God.

Tears and repentance.

Why Hebrews 12:17 comes within the scope of our present series of studies is because of the difficulty of saying what the writer meant us to understand as having been sought by Esau diligently with tears, and how he found no place for repentance. The structure of the verse is ambiguous; to punctuate even is to interpret, and of course there is no punctuation of Scripture texts with other than human authority. It would be interesting, if space permitted, to collate the different interpretations of the passage--a large number of them quite legitimate, if a few seem very foolish.

While other versions are worthy of quotation, three stand out above all others, our Common and Revised Versions and the American Standard Revised Version. We have quoted the first at the beginning of this article. The others, which read as follows, should be carefully compared with the more familiar rendering. The English Revised Version reads: "For ye know that even when he afterwards desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it diligently with tears." The passage runs as follows in the American Revision.. "For ye know that even when he afterwards desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for a change of mind in his father, though he sought it diligently with tears." (The words "in his father" are printed in italics to indicate that there are no words corresponding to them in the Greek text.) What did Esau seek with tears?

Esau "sought it diligently with tears." Grammatically, "it" could refer either to the blessing or the repentance. Our English Revised Version by its punctuation shows that the translators referred it to the former. Nobody, questions the legitimacy of this, and a reference to Genesis 27:1-46 shows that it was the blessing for which Esau entreated with tears: "Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept" (Genesis 27:38). We therefore accept this view. It is interesting to note that Weymouth substitutes the words "the blessing" for the "it" of the original, rendering the passage definitely, "he sought the blessing earnestly with tears."

It is quite possible, however that it was repentance which Esau sought with tears. Moffatt and Rotherham so translate the passage as to imply this. On this reading, whose repentance would it be? Rotherham gives no indication. The American Standard Revised Version says that of Isaac: Esau "found no place for a change of mind in his father." This was certainly true, the statement fits the Genesis story, that not even tears of entreaty made Isaac retract the blessing already given to Jacob, and many modern commentators have adopted the interpretation. On the other hand, there are many who believe that a repentance of Esau’s was meant. Thus Moffatt renders the passage: "He got no chance, to repent, though he tried for it with tears." if this were the case, then "repentance" must here be used, as Dr. Davidson says, "not strictly of a mere change of mind, but of a change of mind undoing the effects of a former state of mind--i. e., such a repentance as "would reverse the consequences of his profane levity and win him back the blessing." There was no possible way of undoing the consequences of his act.

We dismiss as impossible the view that Esau was anxious to repent (in its ordinary sense), and though he was so willing that he cried over it, he could not succeed. Farrar truly says that "if the clause means that Esau desired to repent, and no chance of repenting was allowed him, it runs counter to the entire tenor of Scripture." To us the most probable interpretation of the passage is that suggested by our English Revised Version that it was the blessing which was vainly sought with tears; and that, despite his intense regret at the lost blessing Esau did not repent. To be sorry at the consequences of our acts, to weep over lost privileges, is not repentance.

F. W. Farrar mentions the interesting historical fact that Hebrews 12:17 was one of the passages by which the Montanists and Novatians sought, in the second and third centuries, to justify their refusal to grant absolution to those who fell into sin after baptism. He also notes that this abuse of the passage led by way of reaction to a tendency to discredit the epistle to the Hebrews in the western church. In familiar lines Keble has sought to pass on and to generalise the teaching of our text: