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are recorded against him. One is the selling of his birthright for a mess of pottage; the
other his marriage with women outside the covenant:
"And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth:
if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of
the land, what good shall my life do me?" (Gen. 27: 46).
The word "fornicator" is not to be taken literally, but is rather explained by the apostle
to refer to "a profane person". Now this word profane (bebelos) is made up of the
particle be, denoting privation, and belos, a threshold of a temple; hence one who was
debarred from entry into a holy place. In the same way the Latin word profanes means
one who stands pro fano--at a distance from a temple; hence too, our English word
"fane", a church. Esau had no appreciation of either his birthright or the holy nature of
the Covenant of God. He becomes a warning to the Hebrews who were being tempted to
cast away the precious and enduring substance of their heavenly birthright for the mess of
pottage of present earthly ease.
Verse 17 is a complete explanation of the difficult passage in Heb. 6: There the
exhortation is to go on unto perfection. "But", says the writer, "It is impossible for those
who were once enlightened . . . . . if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto
repentance". So, of Esau it is written: "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". Esau and his example stand out in the closing portion
of Hebrews, as the children of Israel in the wilderness stand out in the opening section
(chapters 3: and 4:). The warning is for the Hebrews who, like their fathers and like
Esau, were in danger of drawing back, turning aside, losing the heavenly for the sake of
the earthly. Heb. 8: 7 continues "Then should no place have been sought for the
second", showing that the two Covenants are here in view. The apostle now brings
before the mind the two mountains, Sinai and Sion, which are explained in Gal. 4: as
representing the two Covenants, Sinai standing for "Jerusalem which now is, and is in
bondage with her children", and Sion for "Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our
mother" (R.V.) (Gal. 4: 24-26).
We have in Heb. 12: 18-21 Moses, the mediator of the old Covenant, and in
Heb. 12: 22-24 Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, and it is under the New
Covenant and not under the old, that the birthright can be enjoyed.
The figure called Polysyndeton (or "many ands") is employed in the description of
both covenants. Let us notice it:
"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, AND that burned with
fire, AND (nor? JP) unto blackness, AND darkness, AND tempest, AND the sound of a
trumpet, AND the voice of words . . .".
"But ye are come unto mount Sion, AND unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, AND to myriads of angels, a full assembly, AND to a church of firstborn
ones, having been enrolled in heaven, AND to God the Judge of all, AND to the spirits of
righteous ones having been perfected, AND to the Mediator of the new covenant--Jesus,
AND to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel."