In Esau, the Bible documents a striking story of a leader with no clear vision. While some people's eyes are bigger than their stomachs, in this case it was exactly the other way around.
Isaac and Rebekah's firstborn son, Esau, loved the outdoors from a very early age. He was a skilled hunter, strong, resourceful and rugged in a way few others were. But he lived entirely in the present, in today, and relied completely on his own strength and his own resources. As a result, he failed to see clearly into the future. Tomorrow simply did not matter.
Esau is not alone in this. Even today, many leaders have the same problem. Looking at Esau's shortsightedness, the following points can be drawn out:
- Esau focused exclusively on the here and now, convinced that there was no tomorrow.
- Esau relied on his natural gifts and his birth order rather than on God's plan.
- Esau's shortsightedness led him to give up the highest thing in order to gain the most immediate one (a single meal).
- Esau, who was favored by his father, may have thought that Isaac's love would protect him from any bad decision he might make.
- Esau's limited vision led him to marry a Hittite woman, a decision that grieved his parents.
- Esau's clouded vision made him blind to the deception of his brother Jacob.
In his legacy, which stands symbolically for his life, Esau's descendants became enemies of Israel. Whenever the word Edom appears in the Bible, or whenever Israel's conflicts with the Edomites are spoken of, it traces back to Esau. For it is through him that these stubborn adversaries of Israel first came into being. The hostility between these two ancient peoples is even made plain in the Psalms:
Psalm 137:7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
Looking back, Esau is known as a self-centered man with a deficient quality of vision. Hebrews 12:15-16 says that people should examine themselves, "lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright."
In the end, God still grants Esau his grace. For before he died, he showed that he had grown more mature. Genesis 32 and 33 describe a fearsome meeting between Esau and his estranged brother Jacob. When the two finally saw each other again after years of separation, Esau embraces the deceiver Jacob and forgives him on the spot. That is a happy ending. But what might have been, if Esau had developed this understanding of vision sooner?