Disdain for Spiritual Matters. Esau became a skilled and adventurous hunter, “a wild man.” Unlike his brother, “blameless” Jacob, Esau was fleshly-minded and materialistic. (Ge 25:27) But Isaac loved Esau, “because it meant game in his mouth.”​—Ge 25:28.

One day Esau, tired and hungry, came along from the field while Jacob was boiling up some stew. In response to Esau’s request, “Quick, please, give me a swallow of the red​—the red there,” Jacob asked him to sell his birthright. Having no appreciation for sacred things, namely, the promise of Jehovah to Abraham respecting the seed through whom all nations of the earth would bless themselves, Esau impetuously, by sworn oath, sold his birthright to Jacob for one meal of lentil stew and bread. By thus despising the birthright, viewing it as of little value, Esau showed a complete lack of faith. He perhaps wanted no part in suffering the fulfillment of God’s word concerning Abraham’s seed: “Your seed will become an alien resident in a land not theirs, and they will have to serve them, and these will certainly afflict them for four hundred years.”​—Ge 15:13; 25:29-34; Heb 12:16.

At the age of 40, Esau made his own arrangements for marriage. By choice he became a polygamist, and unlike his father Isaac, who had let his father Abraham arrange for a wife from the worshipers of Jehovah, Esau took two pagan Hittite women, Judith (Oholibamah?) and Basemath (Adah?), as wives. These women proved to be a source of bitterness of spirit to both Isaac and Rebekah.​—Ge 26:34, 35; 36:2; 24:1-4, 50, 51; see BASEMATH No. 1; JUDITH.

Divine Principles Illustrated. The personality of Esau clearly shows that the choosing of Jacob as a forefather of the promised Seed was no arbitrary choice or unreasonable favoritism on the part of Jehovah God. Esau’s lack of appreciation for spiritual things, coupled with his strong tendency toward satisfying fleshly desires, made Esau unfit to be in the direct line of the promised Seed. Hence, Jehovah’s words, through his prophet Malachi: “But I loved Jacob, and Esau I have hated.” Esau is excluded from among the faithful cloud of witnesses listed in Hebrews, chapter 11, when Paul says: “By faith Abraham . . . dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the very same promise.”​—Mal 1:2, 3; Heb 11:8, 9; 12:1.

Jehovah’s selection of Jacob over Esau shows that God’s choosing does not depend on man’s dictates. The apostle Paul uses this incident as an illustration of the fact that the true children of Abraham are not necessarily those of fleshly descent, nor those who depend on their own works, but those of the faith of Abraham.​—Ro 9:6-12.

Esau is set forth as a warning example to Christians so that they will not be guilty, as was Esau the materialist, of lack of appreciation for sacred or spiritual things.​—Heb 12:16; see EDOM, EDOMITES.