Jen Reads the Bible

Genesis 38: A Not-So-Romantic Interlude

We'll take a time out of Joseph's life right here to chat a bit about Judah, the brother who came up with the great idea of selling him to the Egyptians...

Judah leaves his brothers and goes to stay with a man names Hirah.  He meets a lovely Canaanite girl, marries her and they have three sons together.

The first son, Er, marries a woman named Tamar.  However, "Er's conduct was evil, and it displeased the Lord, so the Lord killed him." [Genesis 38:7]

Um... okay.  I guess we aren't getting any more details on that one.

So, Judah tells his second son, Onan, to go sleep with Tamar and "fulfill your obligation to her as her husband's brother, so that your brother may have descendants." [Genesis 38:8] (Not sure it really works that way, but whatever.)

But Onan knew that the children wouldn't belong to him, so when they do it, he lets his semen fall on the ground, so Tamar won't get pregnant.

This displeases the Lord, so the Lord kills Onan too.

So, Judah tells Tamar to go home and stay there until his last son, Shelah, grows up and can be with her.  Judah (not surprisingly) is worried that Shelah will be killed too.

Time goes by and Shelah grows up, but Tamar is never given to him in marriage.

She gets pissed and takes her mourning clothes off and covers her face like a prostitute.  She sits on the side of the road until Judah comes by and solicits her (obviously, not knowing that it's her).

Tamar agrees to sleep with Judah in exchange for a goat from his flock, but makes him leave his walking stick and seal with her until she is paid.

They have intercourse, she gets pregnant and returns home.

Later, Judah sends Hirah to take the prostitute the goat, but he can't find her.

Three months later, Judah finds out that Tamar is pregnant. Judah orders her to be burnt to death.

As she is being taken away, she whips out Judah's seal and walking stick and says "I am pregnant by the man who owns these things." [Genesis 38:25]

Judah recognizes them and says, "She is in the right.  I have failed in my obligation to her - I should have given her to my son Shelah in marriage."

She has twins and a bit of a rough childbirth and this story is over.  Not sure what the point was.

Genesis 37: Something About a Dreamcoat...

Now, we're shifting to the story of Joseph, Jacob's favorite son... you may know much of his story from a certain musical...

Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons because he was born to him when he was older.  And, to show his love, he gives Joseph a long, decorate robe.

When Joseph's brothers see the robe, they become jealous that he's the favorite. "They hated their brother so much that they would not speak to him in a friendly manner." [Genesis 37:4]

Not that Joseph does much to quell their jealousy. He starts dreaming.  Worse, he tells his brothers about his dreams.

Exhibit A: "Listen to the dream I had. We were all in the field tying up sheaves of wheat, when my sheaf got up and stood up straight.  Yours formed a circle around mine and bowed down to it." [Genesis 37:6-7]

Exhibit B: "I had another dream in which I saw the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowing down to me." [Genesis 37:9]

Gee, is it any wonder that his brothers hated him? 

One day, when Joseph's brothers were out of town, taking care of their flock, Jacob tells him to go check on them and come back.

His brothers see him in the distance coming toward him and decide to plot his murder. "Here comes that dreamer. Come on now, let's kill him and throw his body into one of the dry wells. We can say that a wild animal killed him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams." [Genesis 37:19-20]

Ouch.

But, one of the brothers, Reuben, convinces the rest to spare his life and just throw him in a well alive, planning to save him later. So, they do.  They also tear the sleeves off his fancy coat.

While the brothers were eating, they see some Egyptian traders come by. Judah, one of the brothers, thinks of a way that they can get rid of Joseph, without the hassle (and guilt) of actually killing him: Sell him to the Egyptians!

Twenty pieces of silver later, the Egyptians have themselves a new slave. 

The brothers take the sleeves of Joseph's coat, dip them in goat's blood and show their father.

Jacob, convinced that Joseph has been killed by a wild animal, spends the rest of his life mourning Joseph's "death."

Genesis 36: Esau Has Kids Too... Let's Name Them!

Ugh, another snoozer of a chapter.  Genesis 36 is a list of all of Esau's kids.  Read it yourself if you care to read the list. 

Methinks the Bible could have used an editor.

I hope this thing picks up again soon.

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Genesis 35: Childbirth Blows in Biblical Times

Genesis 35 is one of your hodge podge, "let's wrap up some loose ends before we move on to the next story" chapters of the Bible.

It starts with God telling Jacob to head to Bethel, live there and build an altar to me (to God, not to me).

So Jacob drags everyone to Bethel.  He tells his family, "Get rid of the foreign gods that you have; purify yourselves and put on clean clothes..." [Genesis 35:2]  I'm really curious as to how one "purifies oneself" bible-style, but that question doesn't appear to be answered here.

Anyway, it's off to Bethel with Jacob and his family.  Jacob builds the altar.  God blesses him, changes his name to "Israel" and tells him that "nations will be descended from you , and you will be the ancestor of kings." [Genesis 35:11]

Cool.

Later, Rachel is pregnant and having a very difficult labor.  The mid-wife tells her, "Don't be afraid, Rachel it's another boy." [Genesis 35:17] Not much consolation if you ask me.

As she breathes her last breath, she names her son Benoni, but Jacob apparently can't even give her that.  He changes the son's name to Benjamin.

There's another aside a few verses later that tells us that one of Jacob's sons (Reuben, Leah's son) has sex with Jacob's concubine, Bilhah, and Jacob gets pissed.

Later, Jacob dies too, at the ripe old age of 180.

Genesis 34: The Rape of Dinah... Revenge is Sweet

One day, Jacob and Leah's daughter Dinah goes to visit come Canaanite women.  On her way there, Shechem, son of the chief of the region, sees her and rapes her.

"But he found the girl so attractive that he fell in love with her and tried to win her affection." [Genesis 34:3]  (Here's a hint for next time, if you want a girl to like her don't rape her... geez.)

When Dinah's brothers find out what happened, they are majorly pissed.

Hamor (Shechem's dad, the big chief of that tribe) says to Jacob, "My son Shechem has fallen in love with your daughter; please let him marry her. Let us make an agreement that there will be intermarriage between our people and yours." [Genesis 34:8-9]

Hamor continues by saying that he'll give Jacob and his sons anything if he lets this happen (gifts, etc.).

Leah's brothers tell Hamor, "We cannot let our sister marry a man who is not circumcised; that would be a disgrace for us. We can agree only on the condition that you become like us by circumcising all your males." [Genesis 34:14-5]

Somehow, these terms actually seem fair to Hamor and his son.  They go back to their peeps and explain that these are good people (Jacob's peeps) that they should all intermarry with, but the only way that can happen is if all the males in town get circumcised.

Inexplicably, the entire town goes along with this and agree to be circumcised.  Methinks Hamor has amazing powers of persuasion.

A few days later, "when the men were still sore from their circumcision" [Genesis 34:25] Simeon and Levi (Dinah's brothers) come to the city and kill all the men, including Hamor and Shechem.  They rescue Dinah and bring her back home.

When Jacob finds out, he's pretty mad, thinking that everyone will hear about this and will attack them.  But Simeon and Levi answer, "We cannot let our sister be treated like a common whore." [Genesis 34:31]

I have to say, this is by far my favorite story so far.  Finally, someone doesn't get away with raping an innocent women. I have a feeling that this may be as "girl power" as Genesis gets.

Genesis 33: Esau Is Way Nicer Than I Would Have Been

Soon, Jacob sees Esau approaching. 

Since he's still not sure how nice he's going to be, he situates his family so that the mistresses and their children will be most vulnerable to Esau's attack, then he lines up Leah and her kids behind them, and finally Rachel and Joseph.  Talk about playing favorites.

Jacob leads the group towards Esau nervously, but Esau runs up and embraces Jacob.  Esau asks who everyone is and Jacob explains their sitch.

Then, Esau asks about the group of animals that arrived earlier.  Jacob is like, "Those were for you, since I wasn't sure if you'd be nice to me or not." Esau says that he doesn't need any animals, but Jacob insists.

So, everything is all good.  I guess because Jacob won that wrestling match?

Genesis 32: A Wrestling Match With God

Now that the Laban situation has been resolved, Jacob et. al. continue on their way to Jacob's homeland.  When they're not too far away, Jacob sends a messenger to his brother Esau (Remember him? The hairy guy that Jacob screws out of his inheritance?  I wonder how this will go.)

When the messenger comes back, he tells Jacob that Esau is on his way to meet him... and he's bringing 400 other men.

Jacob is like, "oh crap" and then he prays, "Save me, I pray, from my brother Esau. I am afraid - afraid that he is coming to attack us and destroy us all, even the women and children."

The next day, Jacob decides to try to bribe Esau with a gift, so he gathers together 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 female sheep, 20 male sheep, 30 milk camels and their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. He sends them ahead to Esau along with some of his servants.

Jacob figures that if Esau attacks them instead of taking his gift, maybe everyone else can get away.

Next, Jacob sends his two wives, two mistresses and eleven kids across the Jabbok River for their safety.

He stays in camp alone that night.

Then, a man comes and starts to wrestle with him.  They wrestle until daybreak.  When it looks like the man isn't going to win, he hits Jacob on the hip and throws it out of joint.  But, they keep wrestling.

At daybreak, the man says, "Let me go; daylight is coming." [Genesis 32:26]

Jacob says, "Not until you bless me."

Finally, the man says, "You name will no longer be Jacob. You have struggled with God and with men, and you have won; so your name will be Israel." [Genesis 32:28]

Jacob asks the man's name, but the man won't tell him.

The man blesses Jacob and leaves.  Jacob's hip hurts from wrestling and now that's why "the descendants of Israel do not eat the muscle which is on the hip joint, because it was on this muscle that Jacob was hit." [Genesis 32:32]

Uh, weird.  So, I guess he was wrestling with God or an angel or something?

Genesis 31: Jacob Decides to Leave Laban

Finally, Jacob starts to actually think a little bit about how Laban has been treating him. (Don't forget that Laban tricked him into marrying Leah instead of Rachel and got another 7 years of labor out of him, not the nicest father-in-law to have.)  There have also been some murmurings in the community that Jacob took things from Laban that he shouldn't have (namely, his sheep - I decided to skip the convoluted story about the sheep Laban gives Jacob as wages [because he didn't have any daughters left, I guess].)

Jacob decides it's time to get out of dodge... after all, he hasn't seen his dad and other relatives in quite a while.

So, Jacob tells Leah and Rachel to pack everything up.  He says, "You both know that I have worked for your father with all my strength. Yet he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times." [Genesis 31:6-7]

While they're packing (they're going to slip out while Laban is off shearing his sheep - no, that's not a euphemism), Rachel steals the household gods (I'm assuming these are religious idols of some sort, please post in the comments if you know more about what these are) from Laban.  And they're off.

Three days later, Laban finally realizes that Jacob and his two daughters aren't around anymore and decides to pursue them. 

When Laban finds Jacob, he says, "Why did you deceive me and carry off my daughters like women captured in war? Why did you deceive me an slip away without telling me?" [Genesis 31:26-7] 

He also says, "I have the power to do you harm, but last night the God of your father warned me not to threaten you in any way. I know that you left because you were so anxious to get back home, but why did you steal my household gods?" [Genesis 31:29-30]

Jacob's like, "I didn't take anything!"  In fact, he goes so far as to say that if Laban finds that anyone has his household gods, they'll be put to death.

So, Laban searches the entire camp for his household gods. Rachel (unbeknownst to Jacob who doesn't even know she stole them) wraps up the gods and sits on them. 

When Laban comes into her tent, she stays seated on the gods, telling Laban that she can't stand up because it's that time of the month. 

Laban doesn't find them.

By this point, Jacob is pretty pissed.  He's like, "Look, you searched everywhere and couldn't find them.  What right have you to hunt me down when I haven't done anything wrong?"

Laban is like, "Fine.  Let's just make a pile of stones to make it up to each other."

They make a pile of stones to remember that they're cool and even sacrifice an animal for good measure.

All is good.  Laban returns home and Jacob continues back home. 

Talk about anti-climactic.

Genesis 30: Jacob Has a Boatload of Kids

By this point, Leah has given Jacob four sons (Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah... if you were wondering who they were).  Rachel is a little miffed that she hasn't gotten pregnant, so she gets jealous of Leah.

Rachel demands that Jacob give her children.  Jacob's all, "Hey, it's not my fault, God's the one who keeps you from having kids."

So, of course, to remedy that she gives Jacob her slave girl, Bilhah, and tells him to sleep with her.  Soon, Bilhah bears two sons for Jacob (and, ostensibly, Rachel).

But, once Leah realizes that she isn't having any more kids, she gives her slave girl, Zilpah, to Jacob.  So, Zilpah bears two sons for Jacob (and, ostensibly, Leah).

Talk about your open marriages.

Later, Rachel notices that Leah's son Reuben has harvested some mandrakes (a plant that is believed to promote fertility) and she asks Leah for some.  "If you will give me your son's mandrakes, you can sleep with Jacob tonight." [Genesis 30:15]

When Jacob comes home that night, Leah stops him and says, "You are going to sleep with me tonight, because I have paid for you with my son's mandrakes." [Genesis 30:16]

Jacob is accommodating, as usual.

As a result, Leah bears Jacob yet another son... then another... then a daughter.  I guess Leah gave Rachel a lot of mandrakes.

"Then God remembered Rachel; he answered her prayer and made it possible for her to have children." [Genesis 30:22]  (Thanks god!)

So, Rachel finally gets pregnant and gives birth to Joseph.

For those of you interested in a final tally....

• Leah: six sons and a daughter

• Rachel: one son

• Zilpah (Leah's slave): two sons

• Bilhah (Rachel's slave): two sons

Damn, Jacob was a busy boy.

Genesis 29: Seven Years of Labor for a Wife? Sounds Like a Deal!

Finally, Jacob arrives in Mesopotamia.  And one of the first people he sees is Rachel, a member of Rebecca's family... how convenient!

Rachel is thrilled to find out that Jacob is related and brings him back to her father, Laban.  Jacob stays and start working for Laban.

One day, Laban says to Jacob, "You shouldn't work for me for nothing just because you are my relative. How much pay do you want?" [Genesis 29:15]

Luckily, Jacob already knew what he wanted... and it wasn't cash.  He had already fallen in love with Rachel, and he told Laban, "I will work seven years for you, if you will let me marry Rachel." [Genesis 29: 18] Laban thought that was a pretty good deal, so he agreed.

"Jacob worked seven years so that he could have Rachel, and the time seemed like only a few days to him, because he loved her." [Genesis 29:20]  Awwww....

Once the seven years are up, Laban gives a wedding feast and invites everyone in the area.  But, that night, instead of bringing Rachel to Jacob, he brings her older sister Leah instead.  Jacob, for all his love of Rachel, doesn't notice and they have sex.  In fact, Jacob doesn't realize that he slept with Leah instead of Rachel until the next day.  He must have partied pretty hard at that wedding feast.

Jacob goes to Laban and is basically like, "What the F?"

Laban feeds him a lame story about how he can't marry off Rachel until Leah is married because Leah is the older sister.  It seems to me that that should have come up a little sooner, but whatever.

Laban then says, "Wait until the week's marriage celebrations are over, and I will give you Rachel, if you will work for me for another seven years." [Genesis 29:27]

Inexplicably, Jacob agrees to this asinine plan.

At the end of the week, Laban gives Rachel to Jacob and they do it too.  So basically, Jacob gets himself two wives (sisters, no less!) in exchange for a total of fourteen years of labor.  Not sure what to think of that.

Anyway, it's only a matter of time before God steps in.  God notices that Jacob doesn't like Leah as much as Rachel, so he makes it possible for Leah to have children -- but Rachel remains childless.

Leah winds up having four sons with Jacob... but it doesn't appear that he starts to love her any more for it.

I just have to say, for someone who says he loves Rachel so much, he sure doesn't seem to mind sleeping with her sister.  Not my idea of a great relationship...