Genesis Chapters 29-35

Chapter 29

So, after Jacob has his dream of grandeur, he heads east toward his uncle’s.  After a while he comes upon some guys watering their sheep and asks them if they know his uncle Laban; they say yes and point out his daughter Rachel who’s approaching the well to “water” her sheep.  So, Jacob goes over, helps her water her sheep and kisses her.  After he kisses her, he tells her who he is. (29:1-12)

Rachel tells her dad about Jacob, and instead of killing him for attacking his daughter he invites him to his home, where Jacob tells him that he is his nephew.  Jacob stays there for a month free of charge. (29:13-14)

After a while Laban asks Jacob what he wants and what he has to offer. Jacob offers seven years of service for Rachel, even though Rachel has an older sister Leah. Laban accepts the deal and Jacob works for him for seven years. (29:15-20)

At the end of seven years Jacob says it’s time for Laban to honor his deal and give him his wife so he can “…go in unto her.”  So Laban throws a big feast, and that night Jacob takes his mother’s cousin, Leah and goes “in unto her.” (29:21-23) and Laban gives Leah his maid. (29:24)

Well, Jacob doesn’t realize that he went in unto the wrong sister until morning.  He goes to Laban and complains about being tricked.  Laban tells him that the youngest daughter can’t get married before the older, but if Jacob will work for him for seven more years he can have Rachel too. Jacob agrees, so he marries his sister-in-law, and works for her dad/his great-uncle for seven more years.  During this time, he treats Rachel better than he does Leah. (29:25-30)

God sees how Jacob is treating his first wife, so he makes Rachel Barren and makes Leah quite fertile.  Leah ends up having four sons:  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. (29:31-35)

Chapter 30

Rachel starts getting jealous of her sister/sister-in-law’s having children when she’s not.  At first she gets all dramatic and blames Jacob for her not having any kids, but then decides that if her maid gives birth in her lap then it’s the same as if she gave birth.  She has Jacob sleep with her maid Bilhah. (30:1-4)

Jacob starts sleeping with Rachel’s maid and she starts having kids, which Rachel, who doesn’t seem to understand the idea of childbirth, starts taking credit for.  Bilhah has two sons in Rachel’s place:  Dan, and Naphtali. (30:5-8)

Not to be outdone, Leah pimps her maid Zilpah to Jacob, and Zilpah has two sons:  Gad, and Asher (30:9-13)

As time goes on Reuben, Leah’s oldest boy, finds some mandrakes.  Rachel tells Leah that she can have her turn with Jacob in return for the magic roots.  Leah takes her up on her offer, and as a result has three more children: two boys, Issachar, and Zebulun, as well as a girl, Dinah. (30:14-21)

Now that Rachel has mandrakes God allows her to have a kid whom she names Joseph. (30:22-24)

After Joseph is born Jacob decides that it’s time for him to get ready to move back home, so he makes a deal with his great-uncle/father-in-law to earn some livestock.  Jacob then uses magical animal-husbandry to increase his own stock while depleting Laban’s stock. (30:25-43)

Chapter 31

Jacob finds out that his brothers-in-law/cousins are upset about his using magic to increase his own herds and depleting their father’s.  Jacob and God decide that it’s time for Jacob to run away back to his father’s land.  Jacob gathers all his livestock, children and wives together, and tells his wives to take whatever they think should be theirs.  Rachel does as Jacob suggested, and the Jacob clan takes off. (31:1-21)  It takes Laban, Rachel and Leah’s father, three days to notice that the Jacob clan had fled. (31:22)

Seven days later, Laban catches up with Jacob and company, and God tells Laban not to talk with Jacob, so Laban goes to talk with Jacob. (31:23-25)

Laban asks Jacob why he snuck away without a goodbye and subtly mentions that he could kill him, but chooses not to because God told him not to.  Jacob uses a version of his father’s and grandfather’s old excuse and says he did it because he thought Laban would take his wives. (31:26-31) Then Jacob claims ignorance of Rachel stealing anything. (31:32)

So Laban searches for the stuff that Rachel had stolen, but doesn’t find it.  Then Jacob throws a hissy fit, and Laban says that even though everything Jacob has is technically his he will make a deal with him. (31:33-44)  Laban says that as long as Jacob doesn’t mistreat his daughters, then he will let everything slide.  Jacob agrees and promises to do right by the girls, and the two men part amicably. (31:45-55)

Chapter 32

Jacob takes all of his ill-gotten gains and heads toward home.  On the way he sends a messenger to Esau to let him know he’s coming.  The messenger comes back and says Esau is headed their way with 400 men, and Jacob gets scared, so he divides his crew into two groups, and then has some men take a bunch of livestock and get between him and Esau as an offering for Esau, then he prays for help, and hides his family. (32:1-23)

Then Jacob spends the night wrestling with some angel who decides to change Jacob’s name to Israel. (32:24-32)

Chapter 33

Jacob meets with Esau in the morning, and introduces his family.  Esau it seems was happy to see him and had brought the men to help Jacob defend his family and livestock, so Jacob had been scared of nothing. (33:1-15)

Then Esau goes home, and Jacob sets up camp in Shechem and builds an altar which he names Eleloheisrael. (33:16-20)

Chapter 34

The local prince sees Dinah, rapes her, then decides that he would like to marry her, so he tells his dad to get her for him. (34:1-4)

So the boy’s dad meets with Jacob, and Jacob says that if every man in the city will get circumcised then he’ll agree to the marriage.  The king says ok, and has every man get circumcised.  Three days later when all the men of the city are hurting from the crude penile surgery, Jacob and his men go in and kill all of the men, take the women and children as slaves, and destroy everything else. He does this because he doesn’t want his children breeding outside of the family. (34:5-31)

Chapter 35

God tells Jacob to go to Bethel.  Jacob has his clan change their clothes and hand over all their jewelry and gods, which Jacob stashes under an oak tree by the city that he had just destroyed. (35:1-4)

As Jacob travels, everyone leaves him alone since he had already destroyed one city, and Jacob eventually arrives in Luz where he had started his run from Esau.  While there, God promises him all the stuff that he had promised his father and grandfather, they bury Rebekah’s dead nurse, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel, even though an angel had already done that, obviously without telling God about it, and Jacob renames the place Bethel having completely forgotten that he had already renamed the place Bethel before, and that he had gone there since God told him to go to Bethel. (35:5-15)

After leaving Bethel, Rachel dies giving birth to a son that she names Benoni.  Jacob doesn’t like the name and changes it to Benjamin, then buries Rachel in Bethlehem, before heading out again “beyond” Edar. (35:16-21)

While near Edar, Reuben Jacob’s oldest boy, gets his late-mother’s maid Bilhah pregnant and she gives birth to a son who doesn’t get a name. (35:22-26)

Soon after Jacob gets home, Isaac dies (1758 BC) and is buried. (35:27-29) Esau doesn’t kill Jacob, since they have made up since Esau’s vow. And so ends our trip through the Bible for this time.

Since the family tree gets quite convoluted in the preceding chapters I have include an updated family tree through Jacob (below left), and then a separate family tree for Jacob and his immediate family (below right).  (Click on either table to see a larger image if need be) With explanations as needed below the trees.

Updates on the Abrahamic Family tree:

• Rachel and Leah are Jacob’s second cousins/wives
• Rachel is Leah’s sister/sister-in-law.  The reverse is also true.
• Jacob has 13 children and 1 grandchild.  4 of the children and the grandchild are born out of wed-lock
• Bilhah is Rachel’s maid, Jacob’s mistress, and Reuben’s servant-with-benefits.
• Bilhah is the mother of two of Jacob’s children and the mother of his grandchild.
• Bilhah is Reuben’s aunt, and the mother of his child.

Next time:  

We learn about Esau’s huge family; more incest (of course); God kills some of Jacob grandkids; and we get into the story of Jacob’s son Joseph (of “coat of many colors” fame)

Genesis Chapters 25-28

With chapter 25 we reach the halfway mark for the book of Genesis.  However, this does not mean that the incest and genocide are anywhere near an end as there are many more examples of God’s special types of love to come.

In this post:  Abraham gets remarried then dies; Brotherly love Bible style; Isaac tries his hand at the family con; Rebekah teaches Jacob how to lie and swindle his father; More incest;

Chapter 25

This chapter starts by telling us that Abraham remarried after Sarah’s death and had several children with his second wife (no blood relation this time) and that he also had some children with mistresses.  Though none of these children were allowed to stay around, and everything Abraham had went to Isaac. (25:1-6)

Then in 1863 BC at the age of 175 Abraham dies and is buried next to Sarah. (25:7-10)

After Abraham dies God gives his blessing to Isaac who is still living in Lahairoi. (25:11)

We then learn that Ishmael had several children and died in 1815 BC at the age of 137.  He wasn’t buried in the family plot. (25:12-18)

We then backtrack a little and learn that Isaac eventually made an honest woman of Rebekah after their first-date night of sex.  They were married in 1898 BC when Isaac was 40, and they soon discovered that Rebekah is barren (possibly a result of inbreeding), but God takes care of it and she gets pregnant. (25:19-21)

Rebekah has a hard time with the pregnancy and talks to God about it.  God tells her that there are two different people in her, one stronger than the other and that the older and stronger of the two will serve the younger. And, sure enough, in 1878 when she gives birth, it is twins:  the first out is a hairy red-head they named Esau, and the other comes out holding his brother’s foot; they name him Jacob. (25:22-26)

Esau, we learn, becomes a great hunter and “man of the field” who feeds his family and is the favorite of Isaac, while Jacob becomes a momma’s boy who hangs out at home all the time. (25:27-28)

To end the chapter we are told a little story of brotherly love Bible style.  It seems that one day when Esau returned home famished from actually working to feed the family, he found that Jacob had made some bean soup, with what was apparently the last of the food Esau had worked so hard for.  Esau asked Jacob for some soup since he was so hungry he felt faint.  Jacob says that Esau can have some soup if he gives up his birthright as firstborn. Esau, who is half-starved, agrees.  It seems that Jacob had been well-trained in the art of extortion by his grandfather/great-uncle/great-great-uncle.  (25:29-34)

Chapter 26

This chapter starts with a famine similar to that which Abraham had experienced.  Isaac, unlike his father, does as God tells him and goes to Gerar (the same Gerar where Abe and Sarah last pulled their sister/wife scam) and not Egypt.  In return, God makes all the same promises to Isaac that he had made to Abraham who had done everything that God told him to do. (26:1-6)

Isaac tries to pull his father/uncle’s old routine of “she’s not my wife she’s my sister,” but the king had already fallen for this trick before with Abraham and Sarah, and calls Isaac out on it, and puts out a decree saying that anyone who touches Isaac or Rebekah would be put to death. (26:7-11)

So, Isaac and Rebekah stick around in Gerar growing wealthy, making deals with the king’s men when he isn’t around, and digging wells.  Isaac even renames Beersheba:  he calls it Shebah, so everyone calls it Beersheba.  I know, it’s confusing, but that’s what it says. (26:12-33)

Then we’re told that Esau gets a couple of wives (not blood relatives) that Isaac and Rebekah don’t like. (26:34-35)

Chapter 27

Fade in on an old blind Isaac who believes that he’s going to die soon.

Isaac calls in Esau and says that if he will bring him some savory venison that he will grant him his blessing before he dies. (27:1-4)

Rebekah overhears the conversation and when Esau heads out, she tells Jacob to get some goats and they will use them to think Isaac into blessing Jacob instead. (27:5-10) Gotta love this family.

Jacob points out to Rebekah that Esau is hairy and if Isaac touches him he will know that he isn’t Esau.  But, Rebekah has that covered and tells Jacob to do as he’s told.  So they get the goat meat, Rebekah makes it so it will taste like Isaac’s favorite venison, and she has Jacob wear Esau’s clothes and she wraps goatskin around his hands and neck. (27:11-16)

So Jacob takes the meat to Isaac, who falls for the stunt like a moron, even though he notices that the voice is wrong, and gives Jacob the blessing meant for Esau. (27:17-29)

No sooner than Jacob leaves with his stolen blessing, in walks Esau.  They quickly figure out what has happened and Isaac says that because of the blessing, Esau must serve his brother, but that in time he will be free from that service. Esau leaves swearing that when his father dies he will kill Jacob. (27:30-41)

Rebekah finds out about Esau said and has Jacob run and hide at her brother’s house in Haran, until Esau calms down. (27:42-45)  Then she goes to Isaac and says she’s worried that Isaac might marry some local girl, and she doesn’t want that to happen. (27:46) She doesn’t mention her role in swindling him earlier.

Chapter 28

Isaac then calls Jacob in, blesses him and tells him to go look for a wife at his uncle’s place. (28:1-5)

Esau overhears Isaac talking to Jacob, and decides to beat him to marrying a cousin by marrying one of Ishmael’s daughters, so he now not only beat Jacob to the incest punch, but has three wives. (28:6-9)

While Jacob is on his way to get a wife from his uncle, he spends the night in Luz.  While asleep he has a dream that the place he’s in is the stairway to heaven (Jacob’s Ladder) and that God blesses him as he had blessed Abraham and Isaac.  When he wakes up, Jacob renames the place Bethel, and vows that if God will give him everything he wants then he will give ten percent back.  (28:10-22) Quite a deal.

Since Esau dragged poor Ishmael into the Abrahamic tradition of incest I have included an updated family tree at right.

So now:

• Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, is Esau’s wife/cousin, Isaac’s niece/daughter-in-law, Rebekah’s cousin/daughter-in-law, and Jacob’s cousin/sister-in-law
• Jacob is Esau’s cousin by marriage/brother
• Ishmael is Esau’s uncle/father-in-law

Fortunately, Ishmael didn’t live to see his child dragged into the family tradition of incest.

Next time:  Jacob has sex with a lot of sisters and maids, and rips off his uncle then runs away; some rape and war; brothers make up; and Isaac dies.