A Brief History of Reality, Episode 5 (The Brothers Strike Back)

 Let's see if we can finish the beginning...that is Genesis

    I skipped a little (understatement) incident in the conclusion of my last post. At some point after Rachel's death, Reuben (probably in his early 20s at this point) sleeps with Bilhah (Rachel's handmaid/Israel's concubine). The natural modern day reaction is of course disgust at the idea of sleeping with your father's wife, which still applies here, but there is even more going on. Culturally speaking, this act it seems amounted to an attempted usurpation of his father's place. But that is recorded here is that "Israel heard about it." There's no further commentary. It's reminiscent of his apparent stoicism surrounding the rape of Dinah. But rest assured, these two events will not be forgotten.

    So here proto-Israel is in the land of promise. Jacob has 12 sons. It's the first glimpse of the countless children Abraham had been promised.  Best guess is there's a 14 year age gap between the oldest (Reuben) and the youngest (Benjamin). It could be a year or two more. It's not entirely clear how long it took Israel to leave Laban to the point where Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin. 

    To the sons, it is abundantly obvious who the favorite is, and reading between the lines, Joseph knows it too. The eldest son of the favorite wife is of course the one Israel loves best. The story is among the most well known in the Bible. 

    When Joseph is 17, Israel sends him out to check on his brothers as they are tending the herds. Joseph comes back and gives his father a "bad report." Israel elevates Joseph further by gifting him a many-colored coat. This really is in elaborate gift for this time period. Most people only had one or two sets of clothing and dyed cloth was a luxury for royalty. Israel might as well have given Joseph a Rolls-Royce while his brother's were still driving around in granddad's old jalopy. I don't think the brother's missed the significance.

    Joseph has two dreams. In one he dreams that he and his family are gathering grain, and the sheaves stand up and the sheaves his brothers had collected bow down to his sheaf. In the second dream, the sun, moon, and 11 stars bow down to him. The Bible doesn't let us see into Joseph's mind here, but it's hard to imagine what possessed him to think it was a good idea to tell his brothers and his father about these dreams. Even Israel is offended, believing that Joseph expects "I and your mother and your brothers" to bow down to him.

    Sidebar: we're not explicitly told these dreams are prophetic, but the Bible isn't exactly in the habit of including meaningless dreams. The most interesting thing to me here is the second dream and specifically the "moon" in the second dream. We're given Israel's interpretation that it's Joseph's mother. The problem is Rachel (i.e. Joseph's mom) is dead (or at least her death is recorded two chapters earlier). This led me down a rabbit trail of research, and I don't have a definitive answers. But this is what I've found:

• Some argue that Joseph's mother here is Leah because she is the first wife and only free wife remaining (Zilpah and Bilhah are concubines). The thinking goes that Leah would have responsibility for Joseph and Benjamin as a sort of "head wife"
• Other's make a similar argument for Bilhah to be Joseph and Benjamin's surrogate mother. She was Rachel's handmaid so the thinking goes that the boys would default to her care
• Another proposed option is that Rachel was not yet dead. It's not clear what the age gap was between Joseph and Benjamin based on the text, but the argument goes that the story telling of Genesis 35-37 isn't necessarily chronological. Genesis 35 is seen as a summary of Israel's life up to and including Rachel's death, but chapter 37 is a switch of perspective to covering Joseph's life. The question this argument has to answer is what we are to make of the 11 stars if Benjamin isn't born yet.
• It's also been proposed that Jacob's interpretation of the dream isn't 100% accurate. Later on, when Joseph interprets other dreams, it always comes with a disclaimer that the interpretation is from the LORD. We aren't given this sort of statement here. So if  Jacob's take is inaccurate, what is the interpretation? In this scenario, one possibility is that the sun and moon are representative of Egypt and the stars of the sons of Israel. 
• The last explanation of which I am aware, and the one I think I lean towards: we don't need to explain it because it's not about Joseph's literal mother literally bowing down to him...literally. Rachel is dead, but she'll always be Joseph's mother. Jacob is offended because Joseph sees himself as greater than his ancestors, which is contrary to their ideas about the supremacy of those who came before.

    So Joseph is an arrogant little twit with an overinflated sense of self, or maybe, he really is just oblivious. In either case, his brothers are agreed: he has to go. And when they are out in the fields tending the herds and see him coming again, in his brightly colored robe, it eats at them deeply, and they hatch a plan. 

    

    The brother's want to kill Joseph, but Reuben intervenes. He suggests they simply throw Joseph in a pit for now. Reuben was planning on coming back and rescuing Joseph later. So the brother's take Joseph and toss him in a dry well. Over dinner, Judah convinces the other brothers that if they're going to get rid of Joseph, they might as well get a profit out of it. Spotting a group of Midianite/Ishmaelite traders, they sell Joseph into slavery. It's a win/win. Joseph is gone without them getting blood in their hands, and they pocket a little extra cash.

    Apparently, Reuben is not around when they make the decision to sell him, and he is distraught when he returns and finds out what happened. At this point, there's nothing for them to do but continue with their plan. They take Joseph's coat, bloody it up, and return it to their father. He's naturally devasted, presuming a wild animal has killed Joseph, and he goes into a deep and extended mourning. He refuses all comfort from his other children. 

    The Midianites/Ishmaelites sell Joseph to an Egyptian official named Potiphar. 

    I'm going to have to finish up Genesis in one more post, but before I go, a note on the Midianites/Ishmaelites. These names should be familiar. Ishmael was Abraham's son through Hagar, and Midian was Abraham's son from Keturah (Abraham married Keturah after Sarah died). So these traders may very well be distant relatives of the brothers. 

    

    

A Brief History of Reality, Episode 4 (A New Name)

    We left off with Jacob still with Laban and flush with children (11 boys and 1 girl) to four different wives. Jacob is serving out his second set of 7 years with Uncle Laban to pay off the debt for marrying Rachel. In this time, Jacob continues to be blessed by God, as promised, and Laban is reaping the benefits. 

    As the 14 years of service come to a close, Laban is concerned about losing his cash cow (and assuming he's not completely heartless, he also doesn't want to lose his daughters and grandchildren). He and Jacob strike a deal. Jacob will continue managing Laban's flocks, and as payment, he'll get to keep the brown and speckled sheep, while Laban will have the white sheep. 

    In a detail that seems bizarre to our modern understanding, Jacob attempts to influence what kind of lambs are born (whether spotted or white) by carving up some sticks and placing them where the sheep will mate over them. Whether this seemingly superstitious act achieves his goal or it's simply a matter of genetics and heredity, the Bible isn't actually clear, but the result is that Jacob's flock of "imperfect" sheep thrives while Laban's diminishes. 

     Laban and his men start grumbling against Jacob, and the LORD appears to Jacob and tells him it's time to go back home. So without saying goodbye to Laban, Jacob picks up and leaves. Unbeknownst to him, Rachel, in a last dig at her father, steals his household idols. Laban quickly realizes both his household idols and his daughters are gone, and he takes up the chase. Armed men can move faster than a caravan full of women, children, and animals, so it doesn't take long for him to catch up. When he accuses Jacob of stealing the idols, Jacob rashly promises that if anyone is found possessing them, his life is forfeit. Laban searches every tent, but when he comes to Rachel's tent, he finds her sitting down (obviously on the idols). She tells him she cannot rise because "Aunt Flo" is visiting. He does what every man would do and leaves her be. 

    Laban and Jacob make a covenant. They set up a marker at that spot and promise neither will cross that line to harm the other. Laban also makes Jacob vow to treat Rachel and Leah and the children right. Laban kisses his daughters and grandchildren, blesses them, and returns home.

    Jacob continues on his way and encounters some angels. He gives the place a new name, calling it God's camp. He knows he is approaching Esau, and he is scared. He sends out messengers to greet Esau, and when they return, their only report is that Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men. Jacob divides his people into two camps, hoping that if one is attacked the other can escape. In a moment of reflection, Jacob prays to God, remarking that he had left, he had crossed the Jordan River (the boundary of the land of promise) carrying only his staff, and now he was returning twenty years later in numbers so great that he was now two camps. God indeed had blessed him on his way. 

    In a last ditch effort, Jacob sends three separate herds ahead as gifts of appeasement to Esau. He then camps for the night.

    As Genesis describes it, in the night a man appears and starts wrestling with Jacob. They struggle together the entire night until morning is about to break. At that point, the man seeing he could not defeat Jacob, reached out and dislocated Jacob's hip. He then tells Jacob to let him go, but Jacob refuses to let go until the man blesses him. The man asks Jacob his name, but when Jacob replies, the man tells him his name will no longer be Jacob but Israel "because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed." Jacob/Israel asks the man's name, but he responded, "why do you ask my name?" And he blessed him. Israel calls the place Peniel, "for I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared."

    Oceans of ink have been spilled over this account. It's so strange. Clearly, the man Jacob wrestles with is identified as being synonymous with God. We're again probably looking at another Christophany. But Jacob wins....maybe? Jacob is injured, but he secures the blessing he demanded. And he is now Israel. So significant is this moment, that there is still a country in our modern world, 4000 years later, named Israel for this nomadic sheepherder who had his hip dislocated in hand to hand combat with the Almighty. 

    An aside here. If ever there was evidence of the existence of the God of the Bible, isn't it in the continued existence of ethnic Israel? No other people group has maintained this kind of identity for so long.

    Israel limps onward, and that day he meets his brother Esau. And it is not what he expected. Esau embraces him and refuses all the gifts Israel had sent ahead. He marvels at his brother's family and want so lead them back with him. Israel declines and rather than following Esau back, he turns his family aside and settles in Canaan. 

    Tragedy befalls. While in Canaan, a local young man named Shechem (the son of the local chieftan) sees the beautiful Dinah and rapes her. He then tells his dad about Israel's daughter and asks him to arrange a marriage. They approach Israel and his sons. In addition to the marriage, they promise friendship and trade and further intermarriage. Israel is saddened by the whole affair and says nothing. Apparently independently of Israel, his sons Simeon and Levi (Dinah's full brothers through Leah) Shechem and his father that they can't give their sister to an uncircumcised man and that they cannot do business with them unless they become circumcised. Shechem is smitten with Dinah and has no problem with this. He and his father are persuasive and important and convince the rest of the men in their town to get circumcised as well. Once all the men are circumcised and still in pain, Simeon and Levi take up swords and slaughter all the men and plundered the women and valuables. Israel is furious because they made him "odious to the inhabitants of the land." He's afraid the Canaanites will band together and attack them. 

    The LORD speaks to Jacob again and tells him to return to Bethel, the place where he had seen the stairway to Heaven. Jacob seems to remember the promise he made at Bethel 20 years earlier to serve God should God see him through, and he orders his family to gather up all "foreign gods" from among them. He buries these idols and orders the worship of the God "who answered me in the day of my distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone." He then sets up an altar at Bethel.

    Another aside. Looking back at Jacob from the perspective of someone with a knowledge of the full Bible and things like the 10 Commandments, it's easy to forget the position Jacob is in. God has appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, but he has never had a name. Moses is still hundreds of years from being born. There is no Mosaic Law. The only prohibition on "graven images" comes from the manifest absurdity of praying to a hunk of wood you carved rather than a clearly divine being who has manifested himself to you and has a history of making promises which keep coming true.

    God appears to Jacob again and reiterates that he is now Israel. He promises that not just a nation but an assembly of nations will come from him. Kings will descend from him. Israel sets up an altar and pours out on offering.

    Israel and company set out again from Bethel toward Ephrath (what will later be called Bethlehem). Rachel goes into labor with the last of Israel's children, but it is a difficult birth. And after giving her son the name Ben-oni, she dies. Israel calls his youngest son Benjamin and sets up a marker for Rachel's grave. 

    Yet another aside. Jacob/Israel sets up a lot of altars/markers. The text notes concerning the marker for Rachel "it is the marker at Rachel's grave still today." I don't take this to mean that in the year A.D. 2023 there is an identifiable marker at Rachel's grave, but it was there 400 years later when Moses wrote the Pentateuch. The point is that with each of these markers Jacob placed (and this happens elsewhere in the OT) a lasting physical reminder was set as evidence of what had happened there. Israel returning to the Promised Land under Joshua could find those markers and see that these things had happened just as they had been told. In the same way that a person can go visit the history sites of Pearl Harbor or Gettysburg or Normandy, ancient Israel could visit those connections to their past.

    Israel makes it home to see his father Isaac at Mamre (Hebron) where Abraham had also stayed. Isaac dies at 180 years of age, and Jacob and Esau come together to bury their father. 

    Israel is now back in the land of promise with his 12 sons. Esau is living to the south with his people (the Edomites). Genesis gives a rundown of Esau's descendants. It's easy to skip over these genealogies, but if you read them, you start recognizing the names from the peoples that cause problems for Israel in the future. 

A Brief History of Reality, Part the Third

Let's try to speed things up a little bit    

    Abraham had his son, Isaac, the son of the promise, and he was living in the land of the promise, but he still didn't own any of it. This is beautifully highlighted when Sarah dies. Abraham is still a sojourner, and he needs a place to bury his wife. So he buys a field with a cave from the locals as a burial plot. This becomes an anchor point in the Promised Land. It's almost as though Abraham puts a deposit down on the promise. 

    After Sarah dies, Abraham sends his servant out to bring back a wife for Isaac. The servant travels to the land out of which Abraham had been called to find a wife from his relatives. He fortuitously meets Rebekah at a well, learns her identity, and promptly asks if she'll go marry Isaac. In the process, we meet her brother Laban, who seems very interested in capitalizing financially on his sister's nuptials.

    Abraham dies, and Isaac and Ishmael come together to bury their father side by side with Sarah in the cave Abraham had purchased. He dies in faith, far from his homeland, trusting that God will fulfill his promises that his offspring will outnumber the stars and that this land in which he is buried as a sojourner will be the homeland of his descendants. 

    After a period of childlessness only resolved with the miraculous intervention of the LORD, Isaac and Rebekah conceive. Due to the seeming violence going on in her womb, Rebekah calls on the LORD for an explanation. He responds that there are two nations warring within her and that the older will serve the younger. She gives birth to twins. Esau is born first with Jacob grasping at his heel. 

    It's not clear if Isaac was aware of what God told to Rebekah, but we do know that regardless, he preferred Esau because Isaac liked wild game and Esau was a great hunter. Rebekah favored Jacob. As the boys grew up, they grew apart. 

    Esau grew into a foolish and shortsighted man. On a particular occasion, upon returning from a hunt, he found Jacob making a stew. When he asked for some, Jacob asked for Esau's birthright in return. Esau thought so little of it, that he agreed. 

    A famine comes on the land and Isaac is ready to pack up and leave, but the LORD appears and tells him to stay. He reiterates the promises made to Abraham. He says Isaac's descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky. Isaac stays.

    Esau marries some local Canaanite women, and they are apparently cause endless grief for Isaac and Rebekah.

    Later, as Isaac was growing old and blind, he sought to give his patriarchal blessing to Esau so he sent Esau out to hunt game and prepare it for him. Rebekah, aware of her husband's plan, took it upon herself to ensure the LORD's promise to her came to be. She convinced Jacob to wear Esau's clothes and covered him in furs to trick Isaac. She prepared a meal for him to take to his father. And though Isaac was thrown off by the sound of Jacob's voice, the ruse was successful, and Isaac bestowed the blessing of the first born onto Jacob. When Esau returned and the trick was discovered, he begged for a blessing of his own, but the "blessing" Isaac was able to give him promised a life far less appealing than the one promised to Jacob. 

    Esau vows that once his father is dead, he will come for Jacob. Fearing Esau's rage, Rebekah encourages Jacob to leave and seek shelter with her brother Laban. She tells Isaac she wants Jacob to find a wife from her own family (not like those horrible wives Esau has). Isaac blesses Jacob again (this time with full knowledge of who he is blessing) and wishes upon him the blessing of Abraham. He tells him not to marry a local girl like Esau but to find a relative. Jacob leaves and doesn't see his family again for 20 years.

    One night while heading to Laban (but before leaving the land of promise), Jacob has a vision of a ladder to heaven. He sees angels ascending and descending and he has a vision of the LORD. The original language is a little fuzzy here and some translations say that the LORD stood at the stop of the staircase, and others say he stood next to Jacob at the bottom of the staircase. In the context, I think it makes more sense that the LORD (likely a Christophany) stood next to Jacob. Again, the language allows for this to be interpreted either way, but it feels more in line with the rest of the LORD's history with Abraham and Isaac that he would also condescend to come down to earth and stand beside Jacob as well. He tells him that he will bring Jacob back to this place and he will fulfill what he has promised. Jacob awakes in awe and erects a standing stone as a monument in this place. He calls it Bethel (it's no accident that this is not the last time we hear of Bethel) and promises that if God does all these things that have been promised, he will serve him and pay him 10% of everything (this gets glossed over a lot, but this is a different tone than Abraham and Isaac took. They acted in faith based on a promise. Jacob wants to see some results first before he commits). 

    Jacob makes his way east and stumbles into his cousin Rachel, tending her sheep. Jacob puts the moves on her by watering her sheep and then introduces himself. She takes him home to her father Laban, where Laban quickly makes use of him. Jacob is smitten with Rachel and promises Laban seven years of work in exchange for Rachel's hand. He agrees. Seven years of work go by, and Jacob gets married. But when he wakes up sober in the morning, it's Laban's older but less attractive daughter Leah that he has wed. He's understandably irate at his uncle's treachery. Laban's only response is that it's not custom for the younger daughter to get married before the older daughter, but if Jacob really likes Rachel that much, he can work for another seven years for her. 

    Here comes a point that I didn't catch in the first 30 years that I'd known this story. I always thought Jacob had to wait 14 years to marry Rachel, but instead, Laban tells Jacob he has to spend the full honeymoon (one week) with Leah and then he can have Rachel too (but he'll still have to serve Laban for another seven years). So within eight days, Jacob has married twice. The text also notes that along with Leah and Rachel came their maids, Zilpah and Bilhah. This probably wouldn't have been worth noting in the text were it not for how things play out. 

    Poor Leah must have felt awful after that first week. Jacob now has Rachel, the wife he wanted, and Leah might as well be chopped liver. The LORD  takes pity on Leah and she conceives and gives birth to Reuben (Leah says to herself, "surely my husband will love me now."). This doesn't win Jacobs affection, so she conceives again and gives birth to Simeon. This still doesn't win over Jacob, and Leah conceives again and gives birth to Judah (saying to herself "this time I will praise the LORD").

    Rachel is now bitter that Leah has been blessed with children, and since she can't conceive, she pulls a Sarah and gives her maid Bilhah to Jacob for a wife. Bilhah gives birth to Dan. Bilhah conceives again and gives birth to Naphtali. Rachel declares this a victory over her sister (I can't imagine being Jacob and dealing with the obvious nastiness between these two sisters). 

    Leah has now lost her advantage so it is her turn to do the Sarah/Rachel maneuver. Zilpah gave birth to Gad (Leah: "What good fortune!"). Zilpah then gave birth to Asher (Leah is thrilled thinking she has finally conquered her sister). 

    We get a weird little anecdote next about Reuben (Leah/Jacob's eldest) finding some mandrakes for his mother. Apparently these are seen as having some sort of power to help conceive because Rachel sees them and demands them. Leah agrees on the condition that she can sleep with Jacob. Leah get's pregnant again and has Issachar. She sees this as a reward for giving Zilpah to Jacob. Leah conceives yet again and gives birth to Zebulun (she says "this time my husband will honor me because I have borne six sons for him).  After this she has the only daughter of Jacob we are told about, Dinah. 

    Jacob has ten sons before God open's Rachel's womb. She gives birth to Joseph, expressing relief that maybe now her pain is taken away, but in the next breath, she hopes for a second son.

So where are we? Jacob now has 11 sons and a daughter. He's still living with Laban, but things are going to change soon. I'm really just tired of typing.