Genesis 25-33: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob

Despite his advanced age, Abraham somehow manages to remarry after the death of Sarah, and fathers yet more children (as if the first two hadn't resulted in enough troubles). Fortunately - since there's quite enough internecine bloodshed in this book as it is - they seem to be happy enough to be sent away with 'gifts' on Abraham's death, as befits the sons of a mere concubine.
Ishmael also dies at a great age, bestowing on us the phrase "gave up the ghost" (Ch 25 v 17).
There is also a certain sense of repetition in many of the themes. Rebekah, like her mother-in-law, proves to be barren, necessitating more prayer from Isaac before the Lord relents and 'opens her womb' (interesting how the bodies of women are such potent tools of men's relationships with their God, despite the fact that many of the women concered don't even seem to believe in the same deity. In a similar manner to Robert Graves' interpretation of way in which different versions of the Greek Myths reflect the shift of power from women to men in Bronze and Iron Age societies, could all of this be a reflection of the declining power of female deities in the region and concomitantly of women in increasingly patriarchal societies?)



So, despite her initial barrenness, Rebekah conceives, accompanied by predictions of yet more familial strife:

"And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger" (Ch 25 v23)

And this prediction is brought about by the younger - Jacob - very sneakily cheating his starving brother out of his birthright in exchange for "a pottage of lentiles" (actually I'm not convinced that this is such a bad deal, if you've got a really good lentil soup recipe).
In yet another sense of deja vue, Isaac imitates his father's weird shenanigans by telling poor old Abimelech, King of the Philistines, that Rebekah is his sister not his wife, again apparently in fear that having a good-looking wife will get you killed. This is despite the fact that Abimelech proved himself perfectly honourable last time, and does so again, although he must be getting pretty confused about hsi repeated bizarre guests who go around apparently getting jiggy with their sisters.
Unsurprisingly, relations with the Philistines start to deteriorate somewhat, although the whole weird sister/wife thing is just a sideline to the growing economic (read: sheep) power of Isaac. In yet another disturbing precursor to modern strife in the region, Isaac and the Philistines get aggro over water supplies, with some proper conflict (Ch 26 v16-22) and a bit of extra well-digging and negotiation, leading to the establishment of the modern city of Beersheba.
Having cheated him of his birthright, Jacob and Rebekah now collude to make sure that when Isaac is dying, Esau is also deprived of his father's blessing. This is achieved by Jacob dressing up in the skins of a couple of young goats, which just goes to show the amount of blood and killing that goes into keeping these internecine conflicts going, and even the poor livestock get hauled into it all.
And, just so that history can repeat itself yet again, Jacob gets sent away to marry "outside the land of Canaan" (more exogamy), as Rebekah and Isaac have already been angered by Esau marrying some local Hittite girls:

"34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the duaghter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:
35 Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah."

In order to find a wife from outside Canaan (but not very exogamous - he's gone to find his uncle Laban to marry one of his daughters), Jacob heads off to Haran, now in modern Turkey. He falls sufficiently madly in love with Rachel, Laban's second daughter, that he's prepared to work for seven years to earn her, and is therefore somewhat understandably miffed when he gets given Leah, Rachel's older sister, instead. As usual, Laban is calling the shots and the women aren't obviously getting much of a look-in here (however, as I'll be writing about later, we could put some of this down to the male authors, not entirely to events themselves, and there are some attractive literary alternative versions of this story.)
But to stick to official version for the moment, once Jacob has done two lots of seven years labour in return for Rachel, she turns out to be barren as well:

"And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren."

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the LORD giving Leah some kind of consolation for the fact that she's stuck with a husband who's doing nothing to hide the fact that his is profoundly dischuffed to be married to her, or if he's just playing more nasty games with women's bodies. I have my suspicions.
In an attempt to address the fact that Leah has stopped bearing children (after four, which seems reasonable enough) and that Rachel's not having any at all, Jacob now also gets to sleep with Bilhah and Zilpah, Rachel and Leah's handmaids respectively. So yes, once again, the slavegirls get shagged, presumably without anyone asking their opinion on the matter. And have we learnt from all the bitterness and jealousy and people getting slung out into the desert that we saw with Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael? No we haven't. And, as with Sarah, Rachel finally gets pregnant after all that anyway and produces two sons to get all jealous and internecine with Leah's six and the several that the slave women have had forced on them too.
After all that, you'd think that Laban might actually be quite glad of the peace and quiet of a smaller family, but Jacob feels compelled to sneak off with large numbers of sheep and goats which he has legitimately earned. A bigger deal seems to be the fact that Rachel secretes the household gods in with the packing too, pretending to be menstruating when Laban asks where they are, which implies that there is still little unanimity on the subject of the LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but not apparently of their wives and other relatives.
However, on the way Jacob wrestles with a mysterious figure who might indeed be God himself and who renames Jacob Israel, just as he's about the cross over the Jordan River back into Canaan. This is a key moment in the consolidation of both a religious and ethnic identity amongst this branch of the descendants of Abraham. And, despite his general sneakiness a couple of decades before, Jacob finally comes home to Canaan to a warm and generous welcome from his brother Esau.

Genesis 32-4: The usual rape and pillage.

Chapter 32

Jacob wants to head home, but is worried Esau is still sore [Ed: you've used this one before]
Jacob reminds God of His promises of safety, sends a big fat bribe

Verse 24-5 “Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams. Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals”. And a partridge in a pear tree.

And Jacob sends his two wives and two womenservants and eleven sons (the daughters aren't mentioned) over some ford and is All Alone.

And Jacob does some Greco-Roman wrestling (alright, that's anachronistic) with an evenly matched stranger. It's a stalemate until Jacob blesses the guy, who says “Now you're called Israel”

Verse 28 “... for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed.”

Anyhow, because these two were touching each other up at the hollow of the thigh, this is why

Verse 22 “Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.”

[Of course, for the really loopy dietary restrictions, wait till Leviticus, some time in February]

Chapter 33

Esau ain't sore [Ed: what did I just tell you? You're fired] and

Verse 4 “And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him: and they wept.”

He tells Jacob/Israel to keep his prezzies. “No, I insist.” says Jake.

Esau heads home,leaving some of his flock. Jacob heads of to “Succoth” and builds himself a house, then to Shalem where he buys some land and builds an altar.
Doesn't he worry about all the work he is creating for Biblical scholars and archeologists? His carbon dating footprint must be massive!

Chapter 34

Dinah, Leah's daughter went out to see the daughters of the land.

Verse 2 “And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw here, he took her, and lay with her, and he defiled her.”

Not clear if she's a willing participant (see this great column by Dan Savage about rape), but he loves her and wants her as a wife. So his dad Hamor meets Jacob and asks for her hand (well, all of her actually) in marriage for his son. And wider than this-

Verse 9 “And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you: dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein.”

So, straightforward exchange-of-women-as-foundations-of-civilisation stuff. Stops you from splashing around in the shallow end of the gene pool.

No can do, says Jacob's lot, cos you have foreskins, and our kinship possibilities are quite circum... scribed.

So these clowns have a big spokescouncil/Samoan circle

Verse 20 “And Hamor and Schehem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed ith the men of their city, saying..."

Jacob and his lot are so worth having around that (male readers of a nervous disposition may want to look away now. Everyone will unconsciously cross their legs...

Verse 24 “And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his cityl and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city.”

And you feel like yelling out, “It's a trick, don't do it”, like in a horror movie “Don't go down there!!”

And sure enough

Verse 25 “And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldl, and slew all the males.”

It's nice to know that such barbaric collective punishment isn't done anymore by soi-disant Chosen People of God. Oh, wait....

Anyhow, they go on a looting binge

Verse 28 “They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city ,and that which was in the field. And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house.”

Because two wrongs make a right, you see.

And Jacob worries about the perception management dilemma they know face

Verse 30 “...You have troubled me to make me stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me: and I shall be destroy, I and my house.”

“WTF, pa” say Simeon and Levy;

Verse 31 “Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?”

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.”

Genesis 25 and 26- Abraham dies, famines, water sports, in-law trouble

Apologies for getting the chapters muddled. Must Be More Careful...

Chapter 25

Abraham takes another wife, and shagged some concubines. Isaac stays his favourite-

Verse 6 “Unto the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward unto the east country.”

And then Abraham “gives up the ghost” aged 185. Isaac and Ishmael (Hagar's kid) bury him.

A modicum of begatting.

Rebekah gets up the duff with some IVF (Invisible Vengifier Fertilisation) but “her children struggled within her.”

“Whassup with this kicking, God?” she asks.

Verse 23 “And the LORD said unto her, “Two nations are in thy womb and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger.”

There may be trouble ahead...

Out pops red and hairy Esau, and from the description he's a bit like Groundskeeper Willie
Out pops Jacob “and his hand took hold on Esau's heel.”

Esau was a cunning hunter (or, as the spoonerism would have it, a German Casanova?)

Jacob was a “plain man” and dwelling intense. Or in tents.

Verse 28-34 "Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
And Esau said to Jacob, Fee me I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore his name called Edom.
And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright
And Esau said, “Behold I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do to me.
And Jacob said Swear to me this day: and eh sware unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob [for a mess of pottage]."

So, Jacob is a capitalist scumbag, waiting till the poor are desperate in order to hoover up their assets. (cf famines)

Chapter 26

There's a famine, Isaac is going to emigrate to Egypt, but God tells him to stay put.

Then Isaac passes his wife Rebekah off as his sister. (Just Like His Dad...)

But then the local king, Abimelech (the same as with Abraham? We're not told) is sitting in his palace one day...

Verse 8 “And it came to pass when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.”

I wonder if Isaac's defense to shagging his “sister” will be “no, it's ok, she's my wife”, a la Abraham?.... Yep, history repeats. Abimelech lets him off, shouts out a “don't fuck Rebekah” law and

Verse 12 “Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundred fold: and the LORD blessed him.”

Hmm, returns like that would make even the most trusting investor wondering if this was a Ponzi scheme...

Isaac gets rich and the king says “Go from us for thou art much mightier than we.”

So Isaac leaves and there are some water wars between his lot and the herdsmen of Gerar.

But Abimelech sees God is on Isaac's side and wisely makes peace, and so doesn't get smited (smote?)... yet.

And Esau, purveyor of birthrights, makes a match his parents disapprove of.

Verse 34 “Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekkah.”

It seems the parents-in-law aren't going to Hittite off...