Life Revealed in its Progress
H. W. Beecher. Genesis 25:27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. One ship is as good as another in the harbour. It is outside of the harbour that the comparative merits of different vessels are made to appear. There their qualities, whether superior or inferior, show themselves. It is what ships do on the sea that determines that one is better or worse than another. And as with ships, so with men. Two men start about alike on the morn of life. They go along at first about together. But follow them five or ten years, and about the fifth, the sixth, or the seventh year, the one — a man of pleasure, a godless man, a man that does not believe in a Divine supervision of the affairs of this world — begins to degenerate; while the other — a sober Christian man, who believes that God controls the world and all that are in it — in the beginning lays his foundation, going down so deep that he seems for a time to burrow like a marmot; but then, little by little, he begins to work upward, and he builds so that every hour men see that he is building strongly and surely. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. WEB: The boys grew. Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.