This, as well as much else in the story, becomes clearer to us if we understand what was meant by the birthright. In patriarchal times, the father was absolute ruler over his descendants. At his death, the oldest son took his place and inherited as even in later times, twice as large a portion of the estate as any of his other sons. (See Deuteronomy 21.17.) But this is not all that was involved in the birthright. If it were all, Jacob's desire for it would have been mere avarice and ambition and would have justified that total condemnation which many a teacher has given him. But we must remember that the first born was also the religious head of the tribe. (See Numbers 3.45.) It was therefore most natural for Jacob to assume that God's promise to Abraham, with all its spiritual implications, naturally went with the birthright.
Now let us examine the characters as they appear in this chapter. Esau is not the consummate villain that he is so frequently depicted as being in later Jewish _agada_. But on the other hand, he is not the injured hero. The story characterizes him as a skilful hunter, interested in his woodcraft, and caring little about either the privileges or the responsibilities of his birthright. To Jacob however the inheritance of the blessing of Abraham was important, perhaps a knowledge of the prophecy that had preceded his birth making it even more so. Esau had forfeited his moral right to the blessing through his failure to appreciate it. Not too much stress must be laid on Esau's words "Behold I am at the point to die and what profit shall the birthright do to me?" as these are to be regarded not as a statement of sober fact but as the exaggeration of a hungry man, for the Bible takes pains to explain Esau's attitude in the words, "And he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. So Esau _despised his birthright_", showing that he was at the time perfectly satisfied with the bargain he had made. This takes from Jacob the stigma of having forced the bargain on Esau when the latter could not help himself. He merely took advantage of Esau's contempt for the birthright, which was sufficient evidence that he was not worthy to possess it. At the same time, Jacob's employing these means to secure the birthright does not seem, as will appear more clearly in later chapters, to meet the divine approval, because (1) this attempt to wrest the birthright from Esau through taking advantage of Esau's weakness in itself argues a lack of complete confidence in the realization of God's promise, in other words, a lack of that quality of _temimut_, of naive acceptance of God's will, which was so conspicuous a trait of Abraham's character, and (2) because he does not fully understand the spiritual character of his mission inasmuch as he regards its realization as dependent upon the legal status of the birthright, which he could, so he thought, secure by purchase.