The Birthright Sold for Soup

Twenty years after the camels came home, Isaac and Rebekah still had no children. So Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, and the LORD answered him. Rebekah was going to have a baby.

Soon there was so much kicking and shoving inside her that Rebekah could hardly sleep. "Why is this happening to me?" she asked, and she went to ask the LORD.

God told her, "Two nations are inside you. Two peoples will come from your body. One will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger."

When the day came, the first baby came out red all over and so hairy he looked wrapped in a fur blanket. They named him Esau. Then out came his twin brother, holding on to Esau's heel with one fist. They named him Jacob, which sounds like "heel-grabber" in Hebrew, the language this part of the Bible was written in.

The boys grew. Esau became a hunter who loved the open country, bow in hand. Jacob was a calm man who liked to stay among the tents. Isaac loved Esau best, because he loved eating the wild meat Esau brought home. Rebekah loved Jacob best.

Esau had come out first, so the birthright was his. (In those days the oldest son got a double share of everything his father owned, and one day he would lead the whole family. In this family it was a holy gift too, because this was the family God had made his promises to.)

One day Jacob was cooking a thick red stew of lentils, and the smell drifted all through the camp. In stomped Esau from the fields, dusty and starving.

"Quick, let me gulp some of that red stuff!" he said. "That red, red stuff! I'm exhausted!"

(From then on people called him Edom, which means Red. Not many people get nicknamed after their dinner.)

Jacob kept stirring. "First sell me your birthright."

"Look, I'm about to die!" said Esau. (People who are hungry often think they are about to die. Mostly they are about to eat.) "What good is a birthright to me?"

"Swear it to me first," said Jacob.

So Esau swore. He traded all of it, the double share and the leading of God's chosen family, for one bowl of lentils. Jacob handed him bread and stew, and Esau slurped it down.

The Bible tells the rest fast: he ate, he drank, he got up, he went away. Then it says Esau despised his birthright. He treated it as if it were worth less than soup.

Jacob had the birthright now, but he got it by bargaining with a hungry brother over a cooking pot. One twin sold God's gift for supper, and the other grabbed it.

Jacob's children had children, and the family grew into a nation. Kings came and went, and none of them was the one God had promised.

Then one more firstborn son went out into a desert. He ate nothing there for forty days, until he was hungrier than Esau had ever been. The devil said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into bread." He would not trade trusting his Father for a meal. "People do not live on bread alone," he said, "but on every word that comes from God."

Esau's soup was gone by bedtime, but Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry."