CHAPTER 31
Time for Jacob to flee.
Too many wrong colored sheep and goats.
He and his family flee without giving word. Laban takes after and catches up saying “Why did you dupe me by
stealing away secretly? You did not
tell me! I would have sent you off with
joyful singing to the sound of tambourines and harps!” Yeah, sure.
Because that’s so incredibly the Laban we’ve seen so far. C’mon, Laban – save it for the
tourists! Jacob knows you, man. And Jacob notes how he worked for 20 years,
and had his wages change 10 times and all that.
Laban is also upset that his household gods have been
taken. Rachel took them, but Jacob
doesn’t know this, and not only tells Laban that he’s barking up the wrong
tree, but says if he finds them here, the person who has them will be put to
death. Rachel hides them in a camel
saddlebag and sits on it. She then
tells her dad she can’t get up because she’s having her period. So she gets away with it. Man, everyone in this family is a con
artist! (But it’s another sign of early
pre-Hebrew polytheism. God is the God
of the family, not the only supernatural force out there. Clearly Rachel likes the old household gods
she grew up with).
Eventually, Laban and Jacob come to an agreement. They set up some stones and say they’ll stay
on their own side of the stones and not cross them.
CHAPTER 32
One family crisis over, another to begin. If Jacob is going to stay on the non-Laban
side of the stones, that means he’s on the Esau-side of the stones. And we remember how well those two got
along. We get the news that Esau is
coming and he’s bringing 400 men. Oh,
shit. Jacob is scared and prays to God
to be saved “I am unworthy of all the acts of kindness and faithfulness that
you have performed for your servant” he says to God. I like this. I like the really human moments here. Jacob is a sharpster and an angle-playing
con man and he knows it, but damn man he’s in a fix and who else can you turn
to for help by God? This goes a long
way to explaining the appeal of religion.
He sends out a series of peace offerings -- herds of animals, kept separate and given
as separate gifts.
Then comes one of the stranger moments of the Bible. Jacob is by himself, away from his family,
by the river (River Jordan?) when a
stranger comes to him. They wrestle all
night long and apparently Jacob wins, but not before having his hip socket wrestle.
In the morning, Jacob asks the stranger to bless him. The stranger does bless him and says that for now on his name
will be Israel “because you have contended with divine and human beings and
prevailed.” Jacob asks for the
stranger’s name and the stranger replies, “Why do you ask for my name?” and
blesses him. Jacob believes he’s seen God faced to face and been spared. I don’t have any idea what to make of that
story, but it sure is memorable.
CHAPTER 33
Well, after fleeing from his in-law and wrestling with God,
it’s time for Jacob to meet his brother.
He has his wives and kids all out, and Jacob goes out before him to meet
his brother. Will he be slain? Will he escape? What’ll happened. Awwwww
– Esau is thrilled to see his brother!
Absolutely tickled pink!
Frankly, based on what we’ve seen on how Jacob has treated his brother,
there’s no reason for Esau to feel this way, but hey, they are brothers. It has been over 20 years since Jacob
left. He did give Esau a bunch of
gifts. And Esau can see the wives and 12 kids of Jacob. “Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, and
flinging himself on his neck, kissed him as he wept.” Awwww! The big dumb
lug!
Then Jacob immediately goes back to being Jacob. Sure they’ve had this touching scene, but when
Esau says they should go somewhere together, Jacob starts giving a series of
excuses and gets out of it. They go
separate directions. So Jacob keeps his
prerogatives from the stew-for-birthright deal.
CHAPTER 34
Now for a ghastly story.
It’s actually the chapter that inspired David Plotz to write “The GoodBook.” He was a never religious Jew who
happened to stumble on this once and was so stunned by it, it inspired him to
read the entire Bible (Old Testament to Christians) and record his thoughts.
Jacob’s daughter Dinah is raped. And that’s just the
beginning of the ugliness. The rapist
is a guy named Shechem and his dad is named Hamor, and they have an offer to
Jacob. (Side note: given that his 11th
oldest child is old enough to have been raped.
Jacob must be in his 70s, at the least by now). Shechem and Hamor know Jacob’s family is
really teed off about the rape (gee, ya think?) and Hamor has a proposal to
solve the problem: let Shechem marry Dinah.
Wait –what? How
could he possibly think that’s a good solution? You’re handing the rape victim over to the rapist for life. I guess it’s some sort of Near East ancient
civilization over defiled women or something, but that really strikes me as an
ugly solution. Shechem says let me do
this, and I’ll grant whatever favor you ask – no bridal price is too much.
Boy, is he ever talking to the wrong family. If there is one thing that Genesis has shown
us so far, it’s that Clan Jacob is a punch of sharpsters. Jacob is.
His mom is. His uncle is. His favored wife is. These guys know how to play the angles.
And here’s where we learn that the sons are good at it,
too. Any bridal price? Fan – get circumcised. We’ll only let our sister marry a
circumcised men. You and every male in
your dwelling must do it – and apparently Shechem and dad have their own town
or something. Shechem is game and gets the town to go along with it – that way
Jacob and his rich family will settle, and their livestock will be part of the
town’s property. So they all get snipped.
And that was their fatal mistake – literally, fatal.
You see, Simeon and Levi, sons No. 2 and 3, know that it
takes a few days to recover.
Apparently, circumcision is painful.
So three days after the mass snipping, Simeon and Levi go to town with
their swords … and kill every adult male they can find. It’s a massacre. Everyone is too laid down to resist. They find Dinah in Scechem’s pad and take her back. Then the rest of the sons sack the
town.
Jacob finds out only after the fact and is horrified – you
brought shame against me and now I won’t be able to live here. The sons say, “Should our sister be treated
like a prostitute?” Yeah, they got a point there.
Wow – several things.
First, you can see why this inspired Plotz to look at the rest. This isn’t what you’d expect from the Bible
necessarily. Second, this is a minor
issue, but based on how it ended I have to wonder – what was Jacob’s plan? Was he just going to accept his daughter
getting married off to the guy that raped her?
Hell, maybe – he’s now afraid that everyone in the area will come and
slaughter his family. Maybe he thinks
this is the best-case scenario he can get.
(But if so, why did he press for some actual tangible wealth as part of
he bridal price? Con man that he is,
Jacob is typically good at that. Is he
really going to drop the ball – he, the man that turned a stew into the
birthright on an elder? That’s not
Jacob at all).
The main issue here is the morality of the story. This is massacring an entire town. OK, there was a rape, but ….ya killed every
single adult male in town! That’s at
best questionable morality. What is
this doing in the Bible? Actually it’s
in the Bible because it’s so questionable.
Jacob is upset with his second and third oldest sons, and he’ll bring
this up again when he gives out inheritances.
When the Bible is written, the tribe of Judah, associated with the
fourth oldest son of Jacob, is the main one, with about half of the Hebrew population. When it comes time for Jacob to dole out
final statements to his children, Judah will get the key position, unusual for
the fourth child – but sons 1, 2, and 3 have all angered him in various
ways. Here’s where Simeon and Levi lose
out.
The Torah is supposed to be made of four different sources
put together, two of them – the oldest two – come from the divided kingdom
days. I don’t know for sure, but I’m
assuming that this came from the Judah kingdom source (called the E author).
CHAPTER 35
Jacob returns to Bethel, where he had his ladder/stairway
vision once before. When he sets out,
he tells his household to get rid of all foreign gods among you. I point this out because apparently his
household had foreign gods amongst them.
Oops. (Hey – no first
commandment yet telling them not to do that!)
Not a hell of a lot happens. Mostly just some restating of things like Jacob’s name is now
Israel (though the people will still call him Jacob most of the time. Oh well).
There is some general family news. Randomly, we’re told that Rebekah’s nurse Deborah has died. Wait – did we ever hear of Rebekah’s
death? I don’t think so, and she’s the
mother of Jacob and Esau and a dynamic character in her own right. I don’t remember Deborah, but there we find
out she died.
Speaking of death, in depressing news Rachel dies giving
birth to the 12th son of Jacob: Benjamin. So that’s six for Leah, and two for the other three women
(Rachel, Rachel’s servant Bilhah, and Leah’s servant Zilpah). The 12 sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.
One last bit of death news – the chapter ends with Isaac
dying. He lived to age 180, so we’ve
now outlived all the pre-Abraham guys.
Eber (Generation 14) would’ve died in 2187, and Isaac around 2228). As always, I'm just doing the math on my own, not checking anything out authoritatively, so I might be off some - but Eber should be dead by now.
He didn’t do all that much, that Isaac, but
he made a nice placeholder between the key patriarchs, and ended up living
longer than any of the others.
Oh, and there’s a key bit of non-death news to add in as
well: Reuben, eldest son of Jacob, takes it upon himself to sleep with Blhah,
his father’s concubine. Yeah, that
ain’t good. A few things, first – it’s
a direct shot at his dad over who is the real man of the house. Second, like the massacre initiated by Levi
and Simeon in Chapter 34, this paves the way for fourth son Judah to be the
preferred heir. The three eldest have
all discredited themselves in various ways.
This story must’ve come from the kingdom of Judah in the divided kingdom
days.
Lastly – hey, Jacob has a concubine! No, it’s not that surprising given that he
has two wives (though Rachel dies just before this) and slept with both of
their servants, but I love how the Bible just casually mentions it like this is
some throwaway bit of info. (NOTE: No, I got this wrong – it’s one of the
servants and the mother of two of Jacob’s kids. Yup, Reuben just slept with the mother of two of his
brothers. Um, eww).
CHAPTER 36
Had to happen eventually – a boring chapter.
This is all about the descendents of Esau. It’s pretty much a list of names, but without the fun of reading
about people having kids at age 187 and then living another several
centuries. Plus, a list of kings of
Edom.
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