This family has some issues. However, it is through some of these issues that the greatest story ever told is unfolding. God really does work in spite of us, amen? In the midst of Esau wanting to kill Jacob, Rebekah has Jacob go find a wife from their "homeland," which will birth the twelve tribes of Israel. However, Esau then realizes how disgraceful his marriages are to his parents. To respond to this, he goes and marries another woman – a woman from Ishmael's line – as if this would really help. You thought your family had issues.
Jacob is running and has a dream (Jacob's ladder) and is startled by the Lord. However, his response shows that he really doesn't know God yet. He says, "surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it," as if God isn't everywhere. I believe Him to be in all places at all times (omnipresence). However, Jacob doesn't know God intimately – yet. He makes a stand after this and an oath. If the Lord will protect him, he will claim God as his own. The deceiver is still trying to barter. Isn't this interesting? It fits with who Jacob has shown us he is so far. How often do you do this? How often do you make your service to Him conditional? Jacob says he will give God a tenth (yet another reference to the tithe – like Abraham to Melchizedek).
If you are a little creeped out by all the family ties that are being created, don't be. This was early on the earth, and at this point there were no rules as to who could and couldn't be married. Often, we marry those that have a major something in common with us. Sometimes it is shallow, "I was the quarterback, she was a cheerleader," or due to living in the same area or region, or going to the same college, having the same major, etc. In this case, the ties are herding animals and being of the same lineage. This is the affinity that is drawing them all together. Jacob loves Rachel and finds her to be attractive. However, when he wants to marry her, Laban pulls a trick on the trickster. In this Jacob marries Rachel and Leah – each of whom have maidservants. He ends up working 14 years in total for Rachel.
He ends up having 12 sons between his wives and their maidservants – in order (mother in parenthesis) they are: Reuben (Leah), Simeon (Leah), Levi (Leah), Judah (Leah), Dan (Bilhah – Rachel's servant), Naphtali (Bilhah), Gad (Zilpah – Leah's servant), Asher (Zilpah), Issachar (Leah), Zebulun (Leah), Joseph (Rachel) and Benjamin (Rachel). There were daughters in there as well, but these would become the twelve tribes of Israel.
This section ends with Jacob once again cheating someone to get ahead. This time it is his father-in-law, Laban. He finds a way to manipulate the breeding habits of the goats and sheep, and keeps all the speckled, spotted and dark-colored ones and has them mate with the ones that aren't. After this, most of them are speckled, spotted and dark.
In Mondays reading I have a few questions. How is Rebecca a virgin when it said that she was the wife of some man? Lastly, how did Abraham live to a ripe old age when he only lived to about 100 years old? Thanks
ReplyDeleteI love how jacob inadvertantly uses modern genetics and attributes it to the fact that the animals look at a kind of stick while reproducing.....
ReplyDelete- matt
Matt - I know isn't it interesting how many things they had figured out and acted ignorant about to get ahead!
ReplyDeleteJordan - about Rebekah - "The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up (24:16)." and Abraham - "These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people (25:7-8)." He was a very old man, so I am a little confused by the questions. Now, Rebekah was the daughter of his mother's brother, but was unmarried. Abraham was very old, but not as old as the previous old people, but in Genesis 6 it says that people were going to start living shorter and shorter (eventually no older than 120 years).
ReplyDeleteJust to clear my question up. The only reason I thought that Abraham was young is because people lived really old before, but when you said that people will live no longer than 120 years I know understand.
ReplyDelete