Genesis 28:10-ch. 32
Introduction
This lesson continues with the drama surrounding Jacob and Esau, featuring Jacob’s Ladder
and his dealings with treacherous Laban over wanting to marry one of his daughters. It would be an understatement to say, It’s complicated
, and Jacob’s wrestling match with a mysterious stranger is a real head-scratcher.
Before we get started, please refer to a translation called the NET Bible. Its value lies in extensive notes, but as with anything else, keep a sharp eye out for bias and sectarianism, and of course it uses the Hebrew (Masoretic) text for the Old Testament.
Gen. 28
This is the account of Jacob’s dream of seeing a stairway reaching into the sky, with angels ascending and descending on it, and God Himself at the top. God then repeats to Jacob the blessing that had been given to Abraham and Isaac. The phrase the ground you’re lying on
can’t be taken any way but literally, and neither can the references to all four compass points and the families of the earth. Notice also note #23, how the Hebrew expresses this in much more engaging terms that what is typically considered a technically accurate translation, and the Greek does the same. Ancient historians put the reader into the scene, whereas English translators tend to make it as dry and boring as possible, in a misguided effort to achieve technical accuracy.
So Jacob, who for some reason had not yet formally accepted his father’s God, decided that if the journey went well for him, he would do so. It’s possible, per the first note on the next chapter, that Jacob stole his brother’s blessing because he was trying to get it by his own efforts, rather than by accepting and trusting his father’s God.
Notice also that he vows to return a tenth of everything God gives him. Is this a command for all people of all time to tithe
, since it predates the laws of Moses? As we noted before in the account of Abraham giving Melchizedek a tenth of the plunder of war, nothing is said here about a continual practice, nor that it would be binding on the wages of all his descendants.
Gen. 29
Remembering that Jacob knew his brother was waiting for the chance to kill him, the encounter with God certainly changed his life from that point on. So his frame of mind is quite different as he meets his future wife Rachel, who was tending sheep. He is overjoyed, and she runs home to tell her father Laban, who rushes out to meet him.
Jacob had spent a month with Laban’s household, during which time he fell in love with Rachel. But she had an older sister named Leah, and the custom was for the older daughter to be married before the younger. But Laban neglects to tell any of this to Jacob, who accepts his offer of working for him for 7 years and then being given Rachel as his wife. Laban is delberately deceiving and defrauding Jacob, because he has no intention of marrying off Rachael before Leah.
So when Jacob finds out 7 years later that Laban had done a bait and switch
on him, he confronts Laban, who only then tells him about the custom. Vs. 30 tells us that though Jacob grudgingly agrees to work 7 more years to get Rachael, he gets her at the end of what was called the bridal week
for Leah, rather than having to wait another 7 years.
We could rightfully ask the sarcastic question, What could go wrong?
, especially when vs. 30 also tells us that Jacob loved Rachael more than Leah. Like the Bad Parenting 101
we learned about in the account of his parents, this is another disaster waiting to happen. In our culture and time, we might wonder why such problems weren’t more common, since men often slept with concubines and servants as well, with the blessing of their wives. But we should also remember that God often tolerates what he never intended or ordained and lets us deal with the consequences of our choices.
Now as if things aren’t bad enough already, God intervenes on behalf of less-loved Leah by making her fertile and Rachael barren. Leah’s first four sons would turn out to be the heads of tribes to be known eventually as the tribes of Israel, and two would be the subjects of later covenants: Levi and Judah.
Gen. 30
Shockingly, Rachel gets jealous. So she demands children from Jacob, who, again shockingly, asks her if she thinks he’s God or something. So in a familiar move with predictable results, she decides to solve the problem by having her servant bear children for her. Thus were born the heads of the tribes Dan and Naphtali.
Now begins Round 2 of the sister feud. Leah, who by this time had stopped having children, decides to have them through her servant, who gives birth to the future tribal heads Gad and Asher.
Vs. 14 starts a section that makes no sense to us today: that somehow mandrake plants could make women fertile (see this discussion on the use of mandrakes as possible witchcraft). Coincidence or not, the sisters wheel and deal over them, and Leah conceives again and gives birth to Issachar and Zebulun. Her last child would be a girl named Dinah, who will turn out to be the catalyst of bloodshed later on.
After all those babies from Leah and her sevant, God decides to have pity on Rachel and she gives birth to Joseph— who will turn out to save their entire clan from extinction. One more son will come from Rachel, but first the text turns to the matter of tension between Jacob and Laban on the occasion of his completing the 2nd set of 7 years of work.
But Laban wants to keep him around because he realizes that he has only become wealthier due to God blessing Jacob. Jacob agrees to stay, but he has an ulterior motive, a plan to benefit from Laban’s greed, per note #84 in the NET notes. It’s complicated
indeed. You can read the details in the section starting with vs. 32.
Gen. 31
Now Laban’s sons see how it’s mainly Jacob who is getting richer, and they turn Laban against him. So God tells Jacob to return to his homeland, and this is where we find out what else has been going on: Laban has changed Jacob’s wages ten times and made a fool out of him. In spite of everything, Jacob credits God for his success, and not his own conniving.
He pleads with his wives to come with him rather than staying with their father’s clan, and they are more than willing since Laban treated them like garbage and squandered what should have been their inheritance. But vs. 19 tells us that before they all took off unbeknownst to Laban, Rachel stole her father’s idols.
It took Laban 3 days to even notice that Jacob had left, but he quickly mustered an army from his clan and went after him. But when he catches up to Jacob, God tells him to do nothing. So instead, he has a shouting match with Jacob, but Jacob knew nothing about the stolen idols. He allowed a search done, but Rachel kept them concealed in an ingenious way, per vs. 35.
The shouting match continues in vs. 36, until they finally call an uneasy truce in vs. 45, and Laban returns to his home.
Gen. 32
Jacob continues his travels, and along the way God appears to him again. But he knows he will have to deal with his brother Esau, so he sends messengers ahead to try and soften him up. But they return from the mission with the news that Esau is coming for them with a force of 400 men. As a precaution, Jacob divides his people into 2 camps so that if one is attacked, the other will escape. Then he prays to God for protection.
Still trying to appease Esau, Jacob sends ahead a gift of many animals, but tells the servants to keep distance between the various herds, in the hope that a string of surprise gifts might work. Meanwhile, he sends his family and possessions to another place so he would face his brother alone, and so his family might have a chance to escape.
Now as we see in vs. 24, he was met that night by a mysterious man who fought with him until daybreak. But the man couldn’t defeat him, so he struck one of Jacob’s hip sockets and dislocated it (this might be the first recorded case of sand-bagging). Even so, the man finally asks Jacob to let him go since the day was dawning, but Jacob responds with a very curious request for a blessing, without even knowing who this was.
But instead of a blessing, the man asks Jacob his name, then changes it— to Israel, which means God Fights
. So Jacob then asks the man who he is, but the man finally blesses him, and only then does Jacob realize that this was God appearing in human form. The timing certainly pertains to Jacob’s impending meeting with Esau.
Ch. 32 ends with Jacob limping due to his dislocated hip, and it explains that this is why the Israelites didn’t eat the tendon attached to the hip of any animal they ate. The text still refers to him as Jacob for a while, even though God changed his name to Israel.