17 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.
I was going to include this scripture in my last post, but that didn’t feel right, and when I thought that I would include it in a post on the remainder of chapter 12, that didn’t feel right either. So, it gets a post of its very own. :)
The “he” in verse 17 is Esau. Verse 16 uses Esau as an example of a “profane person.” Noah Webster defines “profane” as “irreverent to anything sacred;” “irreverent; proceeding from a contempt of sacred things, or implying it.” That’s not a comprehensive list of definitions, but it will do for our purposes here.
Genesis 25:29-34 describes the account of Esau selling his birthright to his brother, Jacob.
29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
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.
31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
34 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.
Esau, seeing no value in the blessings that were available to him by right of his birth, sells them to Jacob for a bowl of pottage. Those blessings were sacred and worth much more than the bowl of pottage he received in exchange. The fact that he sold them for such a cheap price demonstrated his irreverence for those sacred things, and the writer of Hebrews is absolutely correct in using him as an example of a “profane person.” He knowingly gave those blessings up for what was expedient in the moment.
Thinking that he could still obtain what he had expressly given away, Esau prepares meat for his father in anticipation of receiving his birthright blessing, only to discover that Isaac has given it to Jacob instead. Between these two accounts, we know of nothing Esau did to redeem what he had sold, further illustrating his irreverence for the birthright. In fact, he marries Hittite wives, “which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.” When the time comes to finally and fully receive what should have been his, there is no longer a way in which to reclaim it. Esau receives a lesser blessing, mourns his loss with weeping and bitter tears, and sets his mind to kill Jacob once his father is dead.