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.
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