Mess of pottage

Engraving
Esau Sells His Birthright for Pottage of Lentils, a 1728 engraving by Gerard Hoet.

A mess of pottage is something immediately attractive but of little value taken foolishly and carelessly in exchange for something more distant and perhaps less tangible but immensely more valuable. The phrase alludes to Esau's sale of his birthright for a meal ("mess") of lentil stew ("pottage") in Genesis 25:29–34 and connotes shortsightedness and misplaced priorities.

The mess of pottage motif is a common theme in art, appearing for example in Mattia Bortoloni's Esau selling his birthright (1716) and Mattias Stomer's painting of the same title (c. 1640).[1]

  1. ^ See Old Testament figures in art, by Chiara de Capoa, ed. by Stefano Zuffi, tr. by Thomas Michael Hartmann (Los Angeles : Getty Museum, 2003), pp. 111–112.