টীকা বর্তমানে শুধুমাত্র ইংরেজিতে উপলব্ধ। বাংলা অনুবাদ চলছে।
Genesis 25 — The Elder Shall Serve the Younger
Abraham takes Keturah and has more sons; he dies at 175 and is buried with Sarah. Ishmael's descendants are listed. Rebekah is barren; Isaac prays; she conceives twins who struggle in her womb. The Lord declares the elder shall serve the younger. Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew.
“Two nations are in thy womb... and the elder shall serve the younger.”
— Genesis 25:23
- v.1-6 Abraham's second family; his gifts to the sons of the concubines
- v.7-11 The death and burial of Abraham
- v.12-18 The descendants of Ishmael
- v.19-26 The birth of Jacob and Esau
- v.27-34 Esau sells his birthright for stew
Twenty years between marriage and conception (compare 25:20 with 25:26). Isaac prayed for two decades before Rebekah conceived.
The Lord was intreated of him. The Hebrew is rich — God responded because He was asked. Isaac kept asking. The conception came when both timing and prayer met God's appointed moment.
For those praying for fertility, ministry, or any long-delayed answer — Isaac's twenty years stand as both warning and comfort. The delay does not mean abandonment.
God's election before birth. Romans 9:11-13 quotes this passage to teach that God's choices precede human deserving. Jacob was chosen before he had done good or evil.
The elder shall serve the younger — a reversal of natural primogeniture. God's choices often invert the world's rankings. The last shall be first; the smallest tribe became the great nation.
Two boys, two characters, two callings. Plain (Hebrew tam) is the same word used of Job and Noah — meaning "complete" or "blameless." Jacob, despite his later schemes, is described in his youth with a word that meant integrity.
Esau was the impulsive man of action — strong, immediate, sensory. Jacob was the reflective dweller in tents. Both have place; but the dweller in tents tends to be the man for whom the long view of God's promises holds weight.
Esau dramatized his hunger. He was not actually dying. The mark of the man who despises eternal things is melodrama about temporary discomfort.
What profit shall this birthright do to me? The birthright included covenant promises stretching to eternity. Esau measured eternal worth against an immediate bowl of stew and chose the stew.
The verdict of Scripture on Esau: he despised his birthright. Despising is not just trading away — it is treating as worthless what God valued.
Hebrews 12:16-17 calls Esau a profane person. Profane (bebelos in Greek) means "outside the temple" — common, secular, treating sacred things as ordinary. The danger of the profane heart is the ease with which it sells what cannot be bought back.
What is your bowl of stew? What does the impulse of the moment want you to trade for what God has called you to? Esau's deal was not made over forty years; it was made in five minutes when he was hungry. Watch the small moments. They are where birthrights are sold.
Esau despised his birthright; the second Adam treasured His. In Hebrews 12 Esau is contrasted with the church, who are come to Mount Zion... to the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Christ is the firstborn (Romans 8:29), and to be His is to inherit what Esau threw away.
Full of years — Hebrew sabea, meaning satisfied. He had lived enough. He had seen the promise begin. He died not grasping for more but full.
Gathered to his people — a phrase suggesting more than burial in the family tomb. It implies reunion with those who had gone before. The Old Testament saints knew something of conscious afterlife even before Christ's resurrection.