What does Hebrews 12:17 mean, that Esau "found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears"?

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Whosoever Will · Accepted Answer

Whosoever Will, The Pastor at the Door: The pronoun decides the verse. “[h]e sought it carefully with tears”, and “it” is auten, feminine accusative. Its candidates are “the blessing,” eulogian, feminine, and “repentance,” metanoias, which stands in the genitive. Auten agrees with the blessing. So the sentence reads: he sought the blessing with tears. Not repentance. The blessing. Genesis confirms it beyond argument. “Esau lifted up his voice, and wept... Bless me, even me also, O my father” (Gen 27:38). He weeps twice for the blessing and asks twice for the blessing, and he never turns to God. He had already “despised his birthright” (Gen 25:34) for one meal. So this stone is not a salvation text at all. What Esau lost was a birthright and a blessing, an inheritance and a standing, sold for a bowl of stew and never bought back, not even with tears. That is a warning about forfeiting an inheritance, and Hebrews states it as exactly that. Use the verse for what it says. Do not drag Esau across 6:4-6 and turn the whole letter into a machine for losing heaven. Stew is not the order of salvation. Different image, different loss. Scripture, King James Version: Genesis 27:38, "And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept."; Genesis 25:34, "Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright."; Hebrews 12:17, "For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.".

What does Hebrews 12:17 mean, that Esau "found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears"?

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