Genesis 27:34

Gen 27:34 And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, [even] me also, O my father.

Ver. 34. He cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.] Not for his sin, in selling the birthright; but for his loss, in missing the blessing: {a} though having sold the birthright, he had no right to the blessing. This is the guise of the ungodly. He cries, Perii; not Peccavi. If he "howl upon his bed," {Hos 7:14} it is for corn and oil, as a dog tied up howls for his dinner: it never troubles him, that a good God is offended, which to an honest heart is the prime cause of greatest sorrow.

{a} Non dolet de peccato venditionis, sed de damno perditionis. - Par.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

27:34-35 Esau was very bitter, and angry enough to kill (27:41).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

34. He cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry. Though Esau persists in imploring the blessing, he yet gives a sign of desperation, which is the reason why he obtains no benefit, because he enters not by the gate of faith. True piety, indeed, draws forth tears and great cries from the children of God; but Esau, trembling and full of fears, breaks out in wailings; afterwards he casts, at a venture, his wish into the air, that he also may receive a blessing. But his blind incredulity is reproved by his own words; for whereas one blessing only had been deposited with his father, he asks that another should be given to him, as if it were in his father’s power indiscriminately to breathe out blessings, independently of the command of God. Here the admonition of the Apostle may suggest itself to our minds,

“that Esau, when he sought again the forfeited blessing with tears and loud lamentations, found no place for repentance,” (Hebrews 12:17;)

for they who neglect to follow God when he calls on them, afterwards call upon him in vain, when he has turned his back. So long as God addresses and invites us, the gate of the kingdom of heaven is in a certain sense open: this opportunity we must use, if we desire to enter, according to the instruction of the Prophet,

“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6.)

Of which passage Paul is the interpreter, in defining that to be the acceptable time of the day of salvation in which grace is brought unto us by the gospel. (2 Corinthians 6:2.) They who suffer that time to pass by, may, at length, knock too late, and without profit, because God avenges himself of their idleness. We must therefore fear lest if, with deafened ears, we suffer the voice of God now to pass unheeded by, he should, in turn, become deaf to our cry. But it may be asked, how is this repulse consistent with the promise,

“If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live?” (Ezekiel 18:21.)

Moreover, it may seem at variance with the clemency of God to reject the sighings of those who, being crushed by misery, fly for refuge to his mercy. I answer, that repentance, if it be true and sincere, will never be too late; and the sinner who, from his soul, is displeased with himself, will obtain pardon: but God in this manner punishes the contempt of his grace, because they who obstinately reject it, do not seriously purpose in their mind to return to him. Thus it is that they who are given up to a reprobate mind are never touched with genuine penitence. Hypocrites truly break out into tears, like Esau, but their heart within them will remain closed as with iron bars. Therefore, since Esau rushes forward, destitute of faith and repentance, to ask a blessing, there is no wonder that he should be rejected.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

34. an exceeding … cry] These are the words to which reference is made in Heb_12:17. Esau had hoped to win back through his father’s fondness the privileges which he himself had bartered away through his own thoughtless folly. His disappointment is all the greater, because he believed that he was about to recover that which his conscience told him he had already forfeited in an unworthy and trifling spirit.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when Esau heard the words of his father,.... That another person had been before him, and got the blessing; and especially when he heard this ratified, and confirmed, and made irrevocable:

he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry; as loud as he possibly could, and in as doleful and hideous a manner as can be imagined; according to the Vulgate Latin version, he roared like a lion:

and said unto his father, bless me, even me also, O my father; thou art my father, and I am a child of thine as well as Jacob, show paternal affection to me; give me also a child's blessing, one at least equal to what thou hast given Jacob, if not a greater, as being the firstborn.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Roared, through savage fury and envy of his brother. (Eusebius) (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

He cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, not for any sense of his former sin, in despising his birthright, but for grief at his great loss therein, because God would not suffer him to be perjured in keeping that birthright blessing which he had sold and sworn away.

Bless me, even me also, O my father, i.e. Thou art my father no less than his, and therefore, as a child, I claim a share in thy blessing.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

34. Esau… cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry — Here comes his penalty and sorrow for his part in the attempt to move against the prophecy and against the spirit of his own oath solemnly made to Jacob — to yield him his birthright. There is something truly touching in his bitter cry, and yet we note that, like all the “profane,” he mourns not his sin or error, but the consequences. “He found no place of repentance,” no possibility or chance of repairing his loss by repentance, “though he sought it carefully with tears.” Heb_12:17.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry literally, he cri ed a cry, great and bitter exceedingly; expressive of the poignant anguish of his soul (Kalisch, Bush), if not also of his rage against his brother (Philo, Eusebius), of his envy of the blessing (Menochius, Lapide), and of the desperation of his spirit (Calvin). Cf.; Heb_12:17and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. A proof of Esau"s blind incredulity in imagining it to be within his father"s power to impart benedictions promiscuously without and beyond the Divine sanction (Calvin) a sign that he supposed the theocratic blessing capable of division, and as dependent upon his lamentations and prayers as upon the caprice of his father (Lange); an e vide nce that now at last he had learned in some measure adequately to value" the birthing? (Candlish); but if so it was post horam.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

he cried with a very great and bitter cry

Esau's anguish was similar to the taste of something bitter. AT: "he cried loudly" (See: Metaphor)

has taken away your blessing

This is a figure of speech meaning Jacob took what was Esau's. AT: "I have blessed him instead of you" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

bless

deceive

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

כשמוע...גם אני, “I am also your son, no less than he is.” The letter א in the word אני has the vowel kametz, although it does not signify a comma or something similar, as it is intended to stress the word “I.” We find a similar construction in 31,52 אם אני לא אעבור אליך, where we also would not have expected the kametz instead of the vowel patach. There too, the kametz is used to provide emphasis on the word “I.” Another example of the use of the kametz in the word אני as a means of emphasizing the speaker is Psalms 89,28 אף-אני בכור אתנהו, “I will appoint him firstborn.”

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.