Genesis 27- 29: The Soap Opera continues.

Genesis 27

Isaac is counting the days, wants some venison, which is quite dear.

[What do you call Bambi with his eyes poked out? No idea. What do you call Bambi with his eyes poked out and his legs chopped off? Still no idea.]

Esau heads off to get some while his mum, Rebekkah, overhearing, decides to play favourites.

She gets Jacob into drag (he ain't hairy, he's Esau's brother) and he feeds Isaac, pretending to be Esau. Isaac supplies an apparently non-revocable and Once Only blessing on Jacob.

Esau was mighty sore he saw what Jacob had done.

Er, is this a repeat of the Cain and Abel thing, with the honest horny handed son of soil being shafted by the untrustworthy “knowledge worker”

Anyhow, this is another of those iconic stories that I used to hear in my youth, that used to be part of our collective heritage (I shan't say memepool ) that seems to be fading? Or was it ever thus? How would you prove it?

Rebekkah tells Jacob to get the fuck outa Compton

Verse43-4 “Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice: and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran. And tarry with him a few days, until thy borther's fury turns away.”

A few days?? I thought the pre-TV version of human was abel to hold a grudge a bit longer than that!

Chapter 28

At Rebekkah's inistence, Isaac tells Jacob that he can't have a wife from Canaan, and that he should head off to Padan-aram. Esau takes some wives also not from Canaan to keep on his dad's good side (Stockholm syndrome is my diagnosis).

Jacob has his dream, the one with the ladder.

Verses 13-14 “And behold, the LORD stood above it and said I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it, and to thy see:
And thy seed shall be s the dust of the earth and though shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: an d in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”

Oh dear. The hallucination of a Bearded Sky Man telling you everything you see is yours is no basis for territorial claims in the 21^st century. Grow up.

Jacob wakes up, presumably has the three eshes, then finds some sheep and a stone and a well.

Chapter 29

Jacob hooks up with his mum's family, and fancies Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother. (So, er, his cousin)

Verse 11 “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept.”

Jacob, who don't forget has had to leg it cos brother Esau Wants Him Dead, then sticks around for seven years in order to marry Rachel who was “beautiful and well favoured.” I am under strict instructions from t'wife not to speculate that well-favoured might be a euphemism for incapable-of-breaking-her-nose-if-she-fell-forwards...

But come the big day, seven years later, Laban does a bait and switch on Jacob.

Verse 23 "And it came to pass, that in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her into him; and he went in unto her."

Jacob is peeved, Laban says

Verse 26 “...It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the first born.”

Gee, you think Laban would have explained that at some point in the last seven years, or found someone to take Leah off his hands. She probably had a lovely personality.

So another seven years until he can get his, er, hands, on Rachel. Who God makes barren.

As philosophy prof John Clark says “If you just keep in mind God was a Jewish comedian it all makes perfect sense.”

Anyhow, Leah pops out four of the little brats- Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah.

People ask me if I like children, and my standard response is “Yeah, but I couldn't eat a whole one.”