Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Hebrews 12:17
Hebrews 12:17 . For As if he had said, Beware of profaneness, because Esau was punished for it, and so will you be if you fall into it; ye know how that afterward After the blessing had been bestowed on Jacob, Genesis 27:30. This afterward was probably not less than forty or fifty years after; for he sold his birthright when he was young, and now, when he wished to recover the blessing, Isaac was about one hundred and forty years old: so long, it seems, he lived in his sin, without any... read more
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Hebrews 12:17
For ye know how that afterward ... - When he came to his father, and earnestly besought him to reverse the sentence which he had pronounced; see Genesis 27:34-40. The “blessing” here referred to was not that of the birth-right, which he knew he could not regain, but that pronounced by the father Isaac on him whom he regarded as his first-born son. This Jacob obtained by fraud, when Isaac really “meant” to bestow it on Esau. Isaac appears to have been ignorant wholly of the bargain which Jacob... read more