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The Bible from Cover to Cover will be back soon after a long hiatus. I just need to reread everything I wrote first. Having lost the plot :-).

11 little patriarchs

Genesis 29: in which Jacob meets future wives Rachel and Leah, is cheated by Laban, and becomes a father.

Jacob meets the “graceful” and “beautiful” Rachel at the well at which she waters her father’s sheep. (He rolls away the heavy stone cover of the well for her.) Laban is happy to meet him, and Jacob is also introduced to Rachel’s elder sister, Leah. The two men agree that the Jacob will work for Laban for seven years for Rachel. However, on the wedding night Laban instructs Leah to sleep with Jacob, who discovers the subterfuge too late – “When morning came, it was Leah!”

Laban’s excuse is that it is not done to marry off the younger sister before the elder. So Jacob works another seven years for Rachel. When the Lord sees that Leah is unloved by Jacob he “open[s] her womb” and not Rachel’s. Leah bears Jacob four sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah (ancestor of the Davidic kings – Notes). The Notes suggest that Rachel’s barrenness is the price Jacob pays for cheating his brother out of the patriarchal blessing. Still, Jacob is becoming the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Each son has what the Notes call a “naming speech”, made by their mothers, and the name of each is wordplay based on the speeches. The sons and their naming speeches are listed below.

Genesis 30: in which Jacob’s wives quarrel, more children are born, and Jacob cheats Laban.

Rachel demands children from Jacob, who angrily retorts “am I in place of the Lord, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Like Sarah before her, Rachel sends her husband a substitute, in this case her maid Bilhah, “that she may bear upon my knees”. Apparently Bilhah’s children will be regarded as Rachel’s. Bilcah bears Jacob two sons, Dan and Naphtali, who receive naming speeches from Rachel. Not to be outdone, Leah sends Jacob her maid Zilpah, who bears Jacob Gad and Asher.

Reuben finds some mandrake which he give to his mother. Obviously thinking that this may help her conceive Rachel requests some from Leah – who is none too pleased at the prospect, but who does give her some in exchange for Leah being allowed to sleep with Jacob. “You must come to me,” she tells Jacob, “for I have hired you with my son’s mandrake”. Leah gives birth to Issachar, then to Zebulun, followed by a daughter, Dinah. Rachel’s plan didn’t work.

Now “God remember[s] Rachel”. Joseph is born to her, and gets two naming speeches, each from a different source text. The Notes point out that before this God also “remembered” Noah (and saved him from the Flood) and Abraham. In all these cases the remembering entailed a beneficial act towards the person. So I guess it should be read as a sign of God’s munificence, rather than indicating that Rachel had been left out in the cold previously.

Laban refuses to let Jacob leave and tells him that he can name his own wages if he stayed. (Laban says that he learned through divination that God blessed him because of Jacob.) Jacob chooses all the speckled and spotted sheep and goats, and all black lambs from Laban’s flocks, to which the latter agrees. Before Jacob can collect these animals Laban removes them from the herds. Undeterred, Jacob practises some sympathetic magic – he places partly stripped rods of wood at the troughs where the herds drink and breed, and takes the striped, speckled and spotted offspring of the strongest animals. (Under the influence of the varicoloured rods the animals drop varicoloured offspring.) In this way he becomes exceedingly rich in livestock, and also in male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. He shares his blessings in material possessions with his grandfather and father.

Points to ponder

In the beginning Jacob has a plan, which is foiled by Laban and Leah’s deceit. Then, although he does get to marry his first love, she is kept barren while God makes Leah “fruitful”. God has his own plan – and appears to accomplish it via Laban’s deceit. The Notes suggest that Jacob is now paying for his own past deceitful acts. Maybe this is also why he gets cheated out of livestock by Laban. And then of course Jacob himself cheats Laban to end up with what Laban agreed he should have, and more. So God has plans that are fulfilled no matter the machinations of humans? Are these plans fulfilled with the aid of human deceit, or do they change in response to them?

Naming speeches

Son	Mother	Naming speech
Reuben	Leah	Because the Lord looked on my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.
Simeon	Leah	Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.
Levi	Leah	Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have born him three sons.
Judah	Leah	This time I will praise the Lord.
Dan	Rachel (Bilhah)	God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son.
Naphtali	Rachel (Bilhah)	With might wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed.
Gad	Leah (Zilcah)	Good fortune.
Asher	Leah (Zilcah)	Happy am I! For the women will call me happy.
Issachar	Leah	God has given me my hire because I gave my maid to my husband.
Zebulun	Leah	God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.
Dinah	Leah	None
Joseph	Rachel	God has taken away my reproach. (E) | May the Lord add to me another son. (J)

Jacob’s ladder

Genesis 28: In which Jacob is sent on a journey to acquire a non-Canaanite wife, and dreams of a stairway to heaven.

Isaac, determined that Jacob shouldn’t marry a Canaanite wife, sends him to the house of Bethuel in Paddan-Aran. There he is to take as wife one of the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother. Isaac blesses Jacob, and also bestows the patriarchal blessing on him:

May [God] give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien – land that God gave to Abraham.

Esau meanwhile, seeing that Canaanite women displease his father, goes to Ishmael and takes one of his daughters, Mahalath, as wife.

What is interesting about the patriarchal blessing Jacob receives is that this time he receives it without any subterfuge. As the Notes say, here it seems as if Esau is not eligible because of his Hittite wives. He tries to rectify it by adding a wife from the patriarchal line, but he remains married to his first wives. Also, Ishmael’s lineage does not culminate in God’s chosen’s people. At any rate, now Rebekah and Jacob are blameless, and Esau is the black sheep, as opposed to the J story in Genesis 27.

So Jacob sets off to Haran, and along the way comes to a “certain place” (”place” also meaning “shrine” in Hebrew) where he sleeps. He has a dream in which he sees a great ladder reaching up to heaven, with angels going up and down it. God appears in the dream and gives him the patriarchal blessing in person, confirming that he is the next chosen patriarch. He is promised the land he lives in for himself and his children, that God will be with him and keep him forever, and that he will be brought back to the promised land, “for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you”.

Upon awakening he takes the stone he had used as a pillow and sets it up as a pillar, anointing it with oil. He calls the place Bethel, the “house of God” (bet-el). He makes a vow of his own:

If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you.

Points to ponder

It’s a bit strange that Jacob makes his vow conditional on God’s actions. In the dream God promised all those things Jacob now sets as conditions. It does remind me of something I heard a lot in my childhood – you’re not allowed to bargain with God: that is, “I will be good if you do this and that for me”. Maybe things are different for patriarchs. The Notes don’t indicate that anything is amiss with Jacob’s vow, so I guess it’s not meant that way. On the other hand, at this point his vow does make it seem as if there is a partnership between him and God, with both parties having to fulfil certain conditions.

The patriarchal line skips Esau and continues with Jacob. After this chapter it seems that the continuation of the patriarchal line is now unblemished by deceit – Jacob is chosen by God and Isaac, and Esau never had a chance.

Note

• “A similar stairway to heaven that gods traverse is known from Mesopotamian texts.” Ziggurats or temple towers “are also described as linking heaven and earth”. (Notes)

Image: Jacob’s Dream, by Giovan Battista Tiepolo (1696 – 1770)

The blessing way

Genesis 27. In which Jacob steals Esau’s blessing by Isaac.

The aging Isaac instructs Esau to hunt game and prepare him savoury food of it so that he can bestow the blessing due the first-born son (berakah) on him. Rebekah overhears, and immediately takes steps to ensure that her beloved Jacob receives the blessing instead. She has him fetch two kids, and prepares food of them. Then she dresses Jacob in Esau’s clothes, and covers his arms and neck with the skin of the kids – since Esau’s skin is hairy and Jacob’s smooth.

Isaac seems to be suspicious. He wonders how Esau managed to hunt and cook the animal so quickly, and Jacob answers “because the Lord your God granted me success”. This is heavily ironic, since what is happening is that what God told Rebekah while her children were still in her womb is now coming true. Jacob’s name means “he supplants” or “he takes by the heel” – a reference to his being born grasping the heel of his older brother. The elder now has been supplanted and will be ruled by his brother. Since his sense of smell and touch seem to confirm the identity of his first-born Isaac blesses him:

May God give of the dew of heaven,
and the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let the peoples server you,
and the nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.

When Esau returns from the hunt what has transpired becomes clear to him and Isaac. Apparently the blessing can’t be revoked once given, and therefore all Isaac can do in response to Esau’s pleading for a blessing is tell him the following:

See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be,
and away from the dew of heaven on high.
By your sword shall you live,
and you shall server your brother;
but when you break loose,
you shall break his yoke from your neck.

This blessing is awfully like a curse, and calls to mind God’s description of the unborn Ishmael to Hagar in Genesis 16. Both are to have violent lives. Isaac’s words are all the more harsh since previously Esau had a good relationship with the earth, albeit as hunter rather than farmer. Esau’s breaking of the yoke is said to probably refer to “Edom’s successful revolt against Judah in the mid-ninth century BCE after a period of Judean hegemony (2 K. 8. 20-22)” (Notes).

Understandably the furious Esau wants to kill Jacob, but the latter is sent away by his mother to her brother Laban in Haran. “Why should I lose both of you in one day?” she asks Jacob – since if Esau killed his brother his death would not be far behind.

It is hard not to feel sorry for Esau (and Isaac), duped by Rebekah and Jacob, whereas the story of Esau’s loss of his birthright painted him as a non-too bright oaf. Esau does have has a hand in bringing his misfortune about – also by marrying outside the approved group. And apparently Jacob at least gets some of his just deserts as his story unfolds.

The chapter ends with one of those abrupt transitions from one story to something unrelated, apparently often signalling the move from one source to the next; in this case it’s from tje J to the P text. Rebekah tells Isaac that she is weary of life because of Esau’s Hittite women. She fears that Jacob may marry one too.

Point to ponder

The patriarchs are hardly blameless – Abraham is said to have walked with God, yet he lied about Sarah being his wife. Isaac lies about Rebekah being his wife (in a near identical story). And now Jacob starts his life as a patriarch in his own right by stealing his brother’s birthright and the blessing due the first-born son. That’s quite a substantial transgression. Rebekah, the matriarch, is instigator of this particular transgression – yet she was specifically chosen for Isaac by God.

Image: Isaac Blesses Jacob, by Govert Flinck (1615 – 1660)

Matriarch in distress (again)

Genesis 26. In which Isaac is the one to go to the land of King Abimelech in a time of famine, and pretend that Rebekah is his sister. This J source story mirrors the one from the E source found in Genesis 20.

In previous chapters (12 and 20) one twice finds Abraham moving to a foreign land in a time of famine, with his wife Sarah pretending to be his sister, and with her eventually taken as consort by the pharaoh or king, causing God to punish the royal household. In this chapter, famine drives Isaac and Rebekah into Gerar, the land of the Philistines, led by King Abimelech (the same one who tangled with Abraham and Sarah before). Once again a patriarch pretends that his wife is his sister, since he fears being killed by the King.

There are some differences: God specifically tells Isaac not to go to Egypt but to go to Gerar, the land he will give to Isaac’s descendants to fulfil the promise to Abraham. And this time the game is up when the king spots Isaac fondling his “sister” and realises that she must be his wife. (In Genesis 20 God warned Abimelech in a dream.) The King is not punished in this version of the story, since neither he nor anyone else took Rebekah as wife. Whereas previously the King bestowed great wealth on the man who deceived him, Isaac prospers as a farmer.

Isaac’s great wealth leads the king to tell Isaac to go away: “you have become too powerful for us”. In the beginning of the chapter it is said that Isaac settled in Gerar. In response to the King’s request that he leave, Isaac is said to depart from where he was and settle in “the valley of Gerar”. I am not sure how that constitutes “departing”. Here he opens all the wells his father had dug and the Philistines had filled in, and they again become a source of contention – this time between the herders of Gerar and Isaac.

At Beer-sheba, where God reassures Isaac that he will “make [his] offspring numerous for [God's] servant Abraham’s sake”, Isaac digs a well and build an altar. (Beer-sheba must have been fairly riddled with wells and altars at this point.)

As in chapter 20 the King meets with the patriarch: since he has seen that God is with Isaac he proposes that they swear a covenant to do each other no harm. Afterwards he takes his leave of Isaac.

The chapter ends with the 40-year old Esau taking two Hittite wives who make life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. This is because Esau transgresses the rule that the family of Abraham may only marry within their own lineage. Somehow or other, like Cain, Ham and Lot, Esau seems destined to be the black sheep of the family.

Notes

• This story repeats that of chapter 20 for the most part, but some of what happened in that chapter is remembered by the characters in this one (such as the wells Abraham dug, and the famine of his time). There is no reference to the unlikely similarity of the stories though. It’s hard to think of a reason for this story to be repeated in this manner.