Hebrews 12:17

Hebrews 12:17. For ye know (a fact familiar to every Hebrew) that when afterward he was desirous of receiving the blessing (part of his birthright, and involving the rest), he was rejected (rejected after trial, as the word means), by his father and by God (Genesis 27:33); for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it (i.e the blessing) carefully and with tears. The previous clause, ‘for he found no place of repentance,' is best regarded as a parenthesis (compare chap. Hebrews 12:20 and Hebrews 7:11). The tears expressed sorrow for the loss he sustained, not for the low, sinful preference of which he had been guilty. Whose repentance did he not find? His own (as all the Greek fathers hold, with Luther, Calvin, Bengel, and Delitzsch), or his father's (as Beza, Tholuck, and others)? The word has always an ethical meaning, and describes a change in the deeper recesses of our nature, which is followed by a corresponding change in the outer life. Such a sense is hardly applicable to Jacob. It seems better, therefore, to regard the words as applicable to Esau. He is regarded as a type of the hopeless apostate, who throws away his birthright through sensual indulgence or love of the world, and who, too late, finds the door of repentance closed to him, because repentance itself, in its true and deep sense, is impossible. Other commentators give the lighter interpretation to ‘place of repentance,' and understand by it locus penitentiae, a chance and opportunity by repentance of repairing the mischief a result in this case impossible; and then they understand by ‘it' such repentance as might repair the loss he had suffered (Alford). Others give to ‘repentance' its deeper meaning, and refer the ‘it' to that repentance. Thus regarded, the whole passage teaches that a time may come, possibly in the history of any of us, when through sensual indulgence and worldly tastes repentance becomes impossible, though men seek it carefully and with tears. There is a striking sermon of Melvill's on the text as thus interpreted. In favour of referring ‘it' to the blessing rather than to repentance, is the historical fact; and in favour of the deeper sense of repentance (not merely a change of his father's mind, or a cancelling of the result) is the uniformly ethical meaning of the word. In any case the lesson remains; sensual, worldly preferences may be so indulged as to become our masters; and we may wish to die the death of the righteous, and reap their rewards, and yet be rejected. That path cannot be safe where such a possibility is incurred. Whether the repentance comes too late, or the repentance, though in some sense desired, is really unattainable, or whether both suppositions are true, it is in any case an awful destiny, and men should take warning in time.