The Bible: Commentary and Controversy

I have come to the point where I wonder why great parts of the bible are included. It seems much the same story is told over and over, in a different way, and with a different cast of characters. True, the story of Jacob’s early life seems unique – the deceiving of his father to steal the blessing from his brother.  But viewed in the light of the 21^st century, it’s hard to swallow if, of course, you are not an orthodox Jew (and probably even then.)

Jacob disguises himself as his brother and gets his father’s blessing. When his father learns he has been deceived, he bows to convention, saying he can only give the blessing once. I don’t see the reason for that explained anywhere, but assume it’s part of the Jewish tradition.

God help me, I’m not out of Genesis yet, and my mind is cramping with what I’m reading. For example: Judah, Joseph’s brother, “took a wife for Er his first-born, and her name was Tamar.  And Er, Judah’s first-born, was wicked in the sight of Jehovah. And Jehovah slew him.  And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto her, and raise up seed to thy brother.  And Onan knew that the seed would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did was evil in the sight of Jehovah: and he slew him also.”

We have no clue about how Jehovah slew the brothers, or even proof that was what really happened, but obviously God could “slew” them any way He wanted to. However, from what the bible says, it would appear that He made it plain that it was He doing the slaying.

So then Judah’s wife dies, and he goes to Timnah to shear his sheep. And hearing of this Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and gets Judah to have sex with her, receiving a goat as payment, and requiring as collateral “thy signet and thy cord and thy staff that is in thy hand.” And of course she becomes pregnant. Judah tries to find her to pay here the goat, and cannot.

Three months later Tamar appears, hands Judah the signet, cord, and staff, and Judah “acknowledged them, and said, ‘She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son.’ And he knew her again no more.” What? Of course Judah wasn’t exterminated by God for “his wickedness.”

I’m losing my way, here.

So Isaac then tells Jacob to go to Paddan-aram to find a wife, because “You must not marry a Canaanite woman.” Jacob travels toward Haran, lies down for a nap at sundown, and dreams of a stairway that reaches from the earth up to heaven, and the angels of God (Young translates it “the messengers of God) going up and down it.”

At the top of the stairway stands the Lord, who says (again according to Young’s translation) “I am Jehovah, God of Abraham thy father, and God of Isaac.” He then gives the land on which Jacob is lying to him and to his seed, and blesses Jacob and all his progeny to be. And in the morning Jacob names the spot Bethel, which means House of God.

So Jacob hurries on toward Haran, meets a group of shepherds, and they tell him his cousin Rachel is coming. Jacob kisses her and instantly falls in love. He asks his uncle if he can marry her. His uncle agrees, and says “Stay and work with me.” So Jacob stayed and worked for seven years to “pay” for Rachel.

On the night of their wedding, his uncle substitutes his older daughter, Leah, for Rachel. For some inexplicable reason, Jacob doesn’t notice, and has intercourse with her. In the morning, realizing he has been deceived, he goes to his uncle, who says it’s the custom for the older daughter to be married first, and asks Jacob to “spend the wedding week” with her, which Jacob does. Then the uncle tells Jacob to spend seven more years working for him and he will give Rachel to him as his second wife. To which Jacob agrees. So a week after Jacob had married Leah, his uncle gives him Rachel, and Jacob stays and works another ten years.

Evidently Rachel was incapable of conceiving, so the Lord enabled Leah to have children, of which she had four: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, and then stopped having them.

Well, Rachel becomes jealous of all these children her sister is having, and confronts Jacob about it, saying “Give me children or I’ll die.” Jacob replies it is not he, but God who has stopped her from having children. Then, in the biblical way, Rachel tells Jacob to have sex with her maid, Bilhah, so that through her she can have a family, which Jacob agrees to do.

So Bilhah gets pregnant, twice, and gives birth to Dan and Napthall. Seeing this, Leah gets mad because she can’t have any more children, and Rachel is gaining on her in that department, so she gives her servant to Jacob for another wife. And Zilpah, the aforementioned servant, has two children, Gad and Asher.

Then Leah has sex with Jacob again, and eventually has two more sons and a daughter, which puts her way ahead of Rachel in the child department. So Rachel prays to the Lord, and he hears her prayers, and makes her fertile again, and she bears Joseph, which is probably where this whole story was pointing.

Then there’s that whole thing about the spotted and speckled sheep, with Laban and Jacob scheming to cheat each other. Jacob wins in the end, due to God’s intervention, and becomes very wealthy. Then God tells him to go back to the land of his birth. Jacob gathers all his livestock, and belongings, and family, and servants, leaves secretly so Laban won’t see them, and heads for Gilead. I don’t know how you would manage to get that kind of caravan past a blind man, much less Laban, but he doesn’t find out for three days that Jacob has left, whereupon he gathers his people and heads after him, murder in his heart. Fortunately, God appears to him in a dream and warns him to leave Jacob alone.

He still pursues Jacob, and chastises him for stealing Labon’s family’s possessions, but when they search Jacob’s camp they find none of them, mainly because Rachel has tucked the important things – Laban’s family’s idols – into her saddlebags and is sitting on them, apologizing for not getting up because she is “in the way of women.”

Jacob and Laban then make a covenant, establishing a boundary which neither will cross.  Laban kisses his daughters and granddaughters and goes back home.

So Jacob goes to reunite with Esau, first sending his wives, servant wives, children, livestock, and possessions on their way, leaving him alone. During the night God comes and wrestles with him, and is losing the match until He touches Jacob’s hip and wrenches it out of its socket. Then God said “Let Me go, for dawn is breaking.” But Jacob won’t let Him go until He blesses him, which He does, and renames him Israel, “because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”

Okay. Completely believable. Man wrestles God; man wins.

At any rate, Jacob and Esau are eventually reunited, and tearfully hug each other.

Later Jacob’s daughter Dinah slips away, as you or my daughter (or son) might, to a festival to see what’s happening. She is there raped by Shechem, the son of a prince, who falls in love with Dinah as a result. He begs his father to get Dinah for his wife.

So the sons of Jacob tell Prince Hamor that can’t happen because Shechem is uncircumcised, and that would defile Dinah. However, they tell him, that can happen if every man in your tribe is circumcised. Hamor agrees to make that happen. Which it does.

And while all the men are still “sore” from the circumcision, two of Dinah’s brothers took their swords and slew all the males, including Shechem and Hamor, and brought Dinah back home. Then Jacob’s sons, seeing all the men were slain, “plundered the city because they had defiled their sister,” taking all the livestock, all the women and children, and anything else worth carrying off.

Jacob, fearing retribution, rebukes his sons. But God saves the day again, appearing to Jacob and telling him to move to Beth-el. Which Jacob does, and God clears the way for him by terrifying all the cities in the area so they are afraid to pursue him.

Jacob and his people flee to Bethel, even though that place had not been named Bethel yet, and God appears to him again, blessing him, and apparently forgetting he had already named him Israel, he names him that again. Then God says “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Be fruitful and multiply. You will become a great nation, even many nations. Kings will be among your descendants!  And I will give you the land I once gave to Abraham and Isaac. Yes, I will give it to you and your descendants after you.” Then God leaves and Jacob set up a pillar of stone and poured oil on it, and named the place Bethel.

They continue their journey, toward Ephratha (which is Bethlehem) and Rachel gives birth to Benjamin, but dies doing so.

Don’t go away, though. Now comes the story of Joseph, and it is some kind of story.