O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves (Gen 45-46)

Ugh, sorry for not updating, my adoring fans (all three or four of you) but I've been down with a nasty stomach flu. Still, it probably beats spending several years in an Egyptian prison, I guess.

So Joseph is overcome with emotion, and he orders all of the Egyptians out of the room, beginning to weep so loudly that apparently a lot of people outside hear him. All alone with his brothers, he no doubt switches to speak to them in their own language, astonishing them with the proclamation "I am Joseph." Apparently, they say nothing, being completely dumbstruck. He repeats himself, and assures them that he is not going to take revenge on them, but that he believes it was all a part of God's plan to save the family from the famine. He invites them to come and live in the land of Goshen, and Pharaoh gives them some wagons to bring back all their belongings. Joseph gives them a lot of stuff to bring back with them, and tells them to be quick about it, and not stop to argue or get worried about their fate.

They go back to Jacob, and give him the news that not only is Joseph alive, but that he has a high position in the government of Egypt. This apparently causes Jacob to have something like a heart attack, but he revives, and agrees to come back to Egypt to see Joseph "...before I die," no doubt facing the fact that his life can't be too much longer (he's 130 years old, after all).

At the beginning of chapter 46, Jacob stops in Beersheba to give sacrifices to God, as his father and grandfather had done. There, God speaks to him in a similar manner that he had spoken to Abraham in chapter 22; in both cases, there is a difficult journey to be taken ahead that will have a happy ending. Yes, God calls Jacob "Jacob" rather than "Israel", and you can decide to take that as a serious problem and contradiction to earlier verses, but as I have said, I don't have a real problem with this personally. A new issue here, however is the promise God makes in verse 4 that he "will also surely bring [Jacob] up again." The SAB points out, quite obviously correctly, that Jacob dies in Egypt. Well, there are two possible explanations, and I personally would lean toward the latter myself. Firstly, it may simply be the fact that Jacob's body would eventually come to be buried back in Canaan. In the bodily sense, Jacob indeed came back up from Egypt. The other likely possibility is that when God claims immediately previous to this claim that He "will there make of [Jacob] a great nation", it should be clear that He's talking about the distant future, and when He says He will bring him up again, He's referring to his descendants. After all, it's a recurring literary method throughout the Bible to refer to a nation by the name of its king or patriarch. (A third option occurs to me as I finish this paragraph: it may be a spiritual concept that is being conveyed here, but it's hard to say. The fact that God promises to go into Egypt is very interesting, as most deities of that ancient period were considered to only have power within a limited geographical boundary.)

Most of the rest of chapter 46 is essentially a "roll call" of the family. The SAB points out some things that need some clarification. In verse 11, three sons of Levi are listed, but in Ezra 8:18, another son, Mahli, is mentioned. So who is Mahli? A peek at Numbers 3:20 verifies the answer to be the most likely one in such matters: Mahli is Levi's grandson, and any descendant of Levi could be called a "son of Levi" by Biblical conventions.

In verse 21, we have a long list of the sons of Benjamin, a list that does not agree with other lists given elsewhere. There are a lot of things that could be said about this, one of which, like the previous point, is that grandsons are sometimes called sons. That doesn't clear up the whole list by far, though. There's a lot of stuff to get into in 1 Chronicles, which is a rather daunting book to slog through. (I salute Steve Wells' perseverance in checking all this stuff out!) In any case, in addition to Ard and Naaman being grandsons, we can see that Shupham and Hupham (which can easily be transliterated from Hebrew into Shuppim and Huppim) are children of Ir, who himself is a son of Bela; this implies that these "sons" of Benjamin are actually great-grandsons! (It's slightly possible that the "Huppim" in the Genesis passage is the same, but that might be a bit of a stretch; Benjamin doesn't seem anywhere near old enough for great-grandchildren.) The KJV concordance notes that Jediael is "maybe the same as 'Ashbel'," but gives no explanation of this. Perhaps it's because Ashbel is only missing from 1Chr. 7, and that would be convenient, I don't know. Interestingly, "Aharah" means "a following brother", and may not be meant to be a name at all. Clearly, the whole matter of genealogies can be rather confusing, and various genealogies in the Bible can be edited in different ways for different purposes. For instance, the Numbers 26 passage probably refers particularly to families within the tribe of Benjamin that had a large number of fighting men within them. I really can't begin to make a whole lot of sense out of 1Chronicles, I admit. (As to Benjamin's supposed age, I addressed that in the last paragraph of yesterday's post.)

Summing up in verse 27, the author claims there were 70 people in Joseph's family (not counting women, I think?), but Stephen, in the book of Acts, claims there were 75. Not at all obvious this one, but there is an explanation for it. Stephen, as many in the days the New Testament was written did, quoted from the Septuagint, in which five more descendants of Joseph are named for some reason. Since Joseph didn't come with his family out of Canaan into Egypt, I suppose that technically, neither number is correct. (Also, without knowing the numbers of wives and/or daughters...you get the picture.) Robert Alter points out that 70 is probably just a nice round number.

Jacob and Joseph are finally reunited, and Joseph tells his family to tell the Egyptians that they are cattlemen, "for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians." This is an odd thing to tell them, as it's not quite clear what the purpose is, nor does there seem to be any extrabiblical collaboration for this statement. Perhaps due to the fact that the Egyptians are either agricultural or urban, they have a hard time accepting nomadic shepherds? In any case, it may help them to acquire the land of Goshen in some way.

And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel (Gen 35)

Genesis 35 is a bit of a hodgepodge of tying up loose ends, telling of the death of Isaac and finishing the part of the story that focuses on Jacob/Israel. Let's see what we have here.

God tells Jacob to go to Bethel, the place where he had that vision back in chapter 28. At that time, Jacob called the place Bethel, and here he seems to be naming it that again. I commented on this a bit back in chapter 28, but something I failed to mention then (probably because I missed it) is that the name Bethel first comes up way back in chapter 12. I'm actually a bit surprised that the SAB fails to note this, as it did note some similar things elsewhere. Putting all of this together, there are a few things I can say in addition to the comment that this was a personal name only Jacob used until now. The fact that Bethel is referenced back in Abraham's early days suggests two things, one or both of which could be true. The author of Genesis may have referred to certain places at times by names they didn't have until some time later, simply for the purpose of making it familiar to the audience at the time it was written. Whatever Abraham called Bethel, the readers probably would not recognize that name. The other thing is that despite the fact Jacob apparently originally names Bethel, God, having omniscience, already knew that that was the name it would have, and had always called it that. In any case, it's clear at least God knows the name before this naming, as He refers to it by name both in the early part of this chapter and in chapter 31.

Before going to Bethel, Jacob persuades his family and perhaps servants as well to "Put away the strange gods that are among you..." This involves throwing out any idols (such as the ones that Rachel has hidden, perhaps) as well as a number of items of jewelry that apparently have some sort of pagan connotation to them. Jacob buries them, and then as they travel, the Bible tells us that "the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them". The SAB marks this as "cruelty" and "injustice", but gives no explanation as to why. It seems to me that the simplest interpretation of this verse is that the people in the area are still aware of what happened to Shechem and his people in the previous chapter, and knowing that these people are apparently fully dedicated to God, they fear God indirectly through fear of them. Of course, it could also be some sort of supernatural intervention on the part of God, but it's hard to say, and I'm just not clear on what makes this cruel or unjust.

Once again, God appears to Jacob, and once again, the declaration is made that Jacob will be henceforth known as Israel. Both of these are issues for the SAB, and issues I've touched on before.

Shortly after this, Rachel goes into labor with her second and last son. She dies in childbirth. The SAB says that "...in the Bible, a woman is expected to die happily as long as she has a son." I'm not sure what this is supposed to imply (perhaps this comment is an allusion to a possible alternate phrasing of the translation which would mean the midwife is saying essentially, "I know you're dying, but on the bright side, it's going to be a boy!") but there is some truth to it I suppose. In the ancient Jewish culture, for a woman to have a son was indeed a matter of some prestige. Nonetheless, as she died, Rachel names her new son "Benoni", a name which means "son of my sorrow." Apparently, the name doesn't stick, as Jacob prefers "Benjamin", which is the only name he's referred by ever again.

A while after this, an episode occurs in which Reuben sleeps with Bilhah, his fathers concubine. It's not really too clear whether this counts as incest, as Reuben's mother is Leah, and Bilhah is even the handmaid that was having children to be credited towards Rachel. The fact that it was Bilhah and not Zilpah is probably significant, and apparently the Talmud suggests that Reuben is trying to do a favor for his mother in making sure Rachel will not be able to even have any more children through her handmaid, since Jacob would not be likely to sleep with her after this. Another idea which seems a bit more likely to me (partially because it's a bit more Biblically based) is that Reuben, being the firstborn, is hoping to exert some sort of power grab. Jacob has, in many ways, become the king of a new nation called "Israel", and Reuben is theoretically in line for the "throne". In those times, when a king conquered another king, the conqueror would take the old king's concubines for himself. Whatever the nature of this very wrong action on Reuben's part, Jacob, as in the story of Dinah, is not recorded as having a reaction (at this point in time, but see Gen. 49:3-4). Jacob doesn't seem to have any more children from any of his wives or concubines after this time anyway.

Finally, after all this, Isaac dies, at the age of 180. I'm still not at all clear what is so absurd about these advanced ages. Granted, they seem unlikely, but I don't even see that a miracle is needed to make someone live a long time.

What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? (Gen 34)

The SAB has nothing to say about chapter 33, and I don't think I do either. It's a pretty straightforward and nice reunion story of Jacob and his brother Esau. Chapter 34, however, has a lot of scandal in it that a lot could be said about.

This chapter is the story of Dinah, Jacob's only mentioned daughter. A short time after moving back to the promised land, Dinah gets taken away by Shechem, a member of a local royal family, and he has sex with her. The story doesn't seem to make it particualrly clear whether or not it's consensual sex; he may have kidnapped and raped her, or it may have been something more like eloping. Given the fact that women weren't treated with too much respect in those days, and Dinah's brothers don't seem to be angry at her specifically, I'd venture to guess that it wasn't consensual sex. Also, the wording of verses three and four seem to me to indicate that his desire to have any sort of long-term relationship with her came after the sex.

The two families get together and try to work out the terms of whether and how the two should be married. Jacob seems to be trying his best to be quiet and calm about it, but his sons are pretty ticked off. They insist that Shechem and all of his people (the Hivites, I guess?) have to be circumcised in order to be acceptable. While indeed, as the SAB says, this may be a case of intolerance against gentiles, it may also be that they're setting demands on Shechem that they don't expect him to be able to fulfill, so that when he says "No," they can have an excuse to say, "See? He doesn't really love her! Let's kill him!" At least, the overall story seems to point to this as a strong possibility.

But they agree, and do it! It almost sounds like that very same afternoon, the whole city goes out to the gate and undergoes this rather uncomfortable procedure. Now if circumcision was what the sons of Israel really wanted, then this should have been a happy ending right here, pretty much. Instead, a couple days later, when all these men are lying around in pain, and perhaps drunk (I probably would be!), Simeon and Levi come and kill them all. They take all their possessions, livestock, and women, and go back home, taking their sister with them.

Now, this sounds like a terrible thing, and in fact, the Bible does very little to dissuade someone of that. Jacob rebukes them, and they seem to not care at all, because their sister's honor was damaged. I'm not sure why the SAB claims, "To the author of Genesis, rape is clearly a crime against the honor of men rather than against a woman." It may indeed be so that this is the case for Simeon and Levi, and for the author of Genesis, but frankly, I don't see that it's "clearly" the case. I could see this going either way.

In any case, a lot of people here have failed to make the right moral decision, and the Bible does not condone any of what happens in this chapter.

He had power over the angel, and prevailed (Gen 32)

More weirdness today in the life of Jacob; this guy just had some odd things happen to him, didn't he?

So when Jacob gets near home, he remembers that his brother wants him dead, and he starts to get nervous. He sends a few messengers ahead to tell his brother that he's coming back, and the messengers return with the news that Esau is riding out to meet Jacob with 400 men. Although the Bible doesn't say if Jacob said anything in response, I imagine if he did, it was something like, "Oh crap, I'm a dead man." He decides the thing to do is divide up everything he has (perhaps including his family) in to two equal groups, and if Esau starts attacking one of the groups, the other one is to run away quickly in hopes that they'd be spared.

Then he prays to God to save him from his brother's wrath, and comes up with another plan. He sends out a number of servants in groups with large amounts of livestock of various types, and he tells each group that when they meet Esau's party, they are to tell him that the livestock is a gift. Hoping that having these gifts go before him will make him more safe, he's willing to finally send his family at the rear, but he himself hesitates alone on the far side of the river. And here's where the really weird stuff starts.

It says Jacob is alone, but then it says, in the very same sentence, that he wrestles with another man. They fight to a standstill, and the man somehow manages to dislocate Jacob's hip, but Jacob still won't give in. The guy essentially says, "Look, we've been fighting all night, and we're not getting anywhere. Why don't you just give up?" Jacob insists on being blessed by this guy before letting go.

The guy (who may be God; Jacob seems to think so) asks Jacob his name. Whether God or not, I don't think this person is really asking for info, he's using the question as a segue into giving Jacob the new name of "Israel". Jacob asks for the man's name, but he refuses to give it. Weird.

Now, I'm not really clear on why it's a big issue (maybe it's just a little one?) but the SAB points out quite rightly that despite what verse 28 says, Jacob actually is still called Jacob by many people after this incident, including God. The reason I don't think it's an issue is because sometimes people change their names, and yet are still called by their old names. My mother, for instance, is known by many people as Mrs. Gardner because that was the surname of my stepfather, and she was married to him for a little over ten years. People who meet her for the first time after knowing me sometimes assume she is Mrs. Brucker, however, she goes by her maiden name. When she went back to her maiden name, she said she didn't want to be known as Mrs. Gardner anymore, but since so many people knew her by that name, she is still called that by many people to this day, and doesn't bother to correct them as far as I know. Jacob's name may have been changed, but it's not unreasonable to call him Jacob still, and not only do people call him that, but in the future, the nation of Israel would occasionally be called "Jacob" as well. Okay, yes, the verse actually says, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob," but I'm just not clear on why this should disturb my confidence in the Bible.

Is this guy God, though? While Jacob says so according to the KJV and pretty much all the other translations I'm familiar with, there remains some ambiguity in this strange tale. The word translated "God" in these verses is elohim, a strange Hebrew word that, while often translated as "God", is actually plural in form. I may have mentioned it before, but here I think it's worth delving deeper into it. The KJV usually translates this word as "God", but also sometimes uses "god" or "goddess" if the context warrants it, a few times "judge", and once, "angels". Basically it's a word that expresses the concept of a powerful being. It may be possible that Jacob is wrestling with an angel, a prophet, or even some sort of demonic being. I think Jews tend to favor the idea that it's an angel, but I'm not at all certain about that. Many Christians do view this as being God, usually particularly an appearance of a pre-incarnate Christ. One might rightly wonder if indeed this is God, how is Jacob able to wrestle him to a standstill? It's a mystery to me.

Whatever the true nature of this confrontation, there is almost certainly a level at which this is all having symbolic significance. Jacob has spent his whole life, from before birth even, wrestling with his brother, his father, his father-in law, his wives, and even the occasional inanimate object, and now, he is wrestling with his fear and his faith in God. In the end, he is triumphant, and crosses the river to accept his fate and place his future in the hand of God.

When he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go (Gen 31)

Did I ever make a commitment to do this blog each and every weekday? I can't remember, but I seem to recall thinking so at least in my mind. I certainly don't have to post constantly, but if I can't at least get out a couple a week, I'm likely to lose what little readership I have, not to mention being lax in the duty I set before myself to use this as a daily Bible study of sorts. In any case, after a very busy week, I'm dropping in today to do at least a short one. While chapter 31 isn't short itself, the SAB has little to say about it. It's another strange story in the saga that is Jacob's life, but nothing contradictory or supernaturally bizarre other than a retouching on items from the last few chapters.

Anyway, in this chapter, we see Jacob noticing that Laban's not as happy with having Jacob around as he used to be, so Jacob decides it's time to leave his father-in-law before something bad happens. Also, he apparently has a dream in which God confirms it's time to go, so he grabs all his stuff and all his family (the nature of which I discussed much previously), and takes off back home to Canaan.

For some reason that is never fully explained (especially since Laban seems to be a believer in the God of the Bible) Laban has some idols in the house that Rachel steals. Maybe she wants to take them away to worship them, maybe she thinks she's serving God by sort of purifying her father's house, maybe the things were worth some money, but we never really get told. There may be something symbolic in the fact that later Rachel hides them under her seat and keeps her saddlebags from being searched by claiming to be unclean due to her period. I couldn't say whether this is Rachel intentionally being ironic, or the author of the story being ironic, but the Bible is fond of mixing sexual and spiritual metaphors, and, well... These were things that God didn't want men to touch for his own reasons. There may also be a bit of comedy in the fact that Laban's "gods" are rendered powerless by a woman sitting on them.

Laban in any case is upset that Jacob tried to sneak away as though he were kidnapping his daughters, and in coming after Jacob, seems to hint that he wants to have harsh words with him, but doesn't feel he can since God told him not to in a dream. Of course, he still wants his household gods back, but can't seem to find them. Jacob, knowing nothing about it, probably feels he's being wrongfully accused.

Laban and Jacob make a covenant, so that they can depart on good terms, as neither of them fully trusts the other. They make a pile of stones to commemorate the event, which they each call "witness pile" in their own language. Yes, it's okay to make an oath, but I personally won't make an oath that I'll have new post tomorrow although I'll try.

Am not I better to thee than ten sons? (Gen 30)

So, the baby wars are on.

Leah's got four children, and Rachel has none, and Rachel's apparently flipping out about it. The SAB notes, "Rachel considers herself worthless if she cannot produce children for her husband." While it's unfortunate, I think it's clear that it's a cultural thing, perhaps particularly in the ancient Middle East, that a woman did indeed consider a great deal of her self- worth to be measured by the number of offspring she could produce for her husband, especially male offspring. In any case, she starts getting angry at Jacob because she doesn't have any children, and Jacob's technically true but perhaps more than a little insensitive response is, "Hey, it's not like it's my fault, is it?" (But then again, maybe it is his fault?)

So Rachel comes up with the same solution Sarah did; she offers her handmaiden Bilhah to her husband. As Rachel notes, culturally the child would be considered to be hers for however these sorts of things work. This makes me wonder sometimes why Sarah got so bent out of shape over the same arrangement, especially since it was her own idea. Rachel seems to have no problem with it.

So Rachel gets two sons out of this deal, but this just leads Leah to get jealous again, so she offers up her handmaid Zilpah, who proceeds to also have two sons. While the SAB says that daughters never seem to come out of these unions, there is of course a daughter born in verse 21. Perhaps the intention of this claim is that no daughters come of these surrogate mothering arrangements. Maybe, maybe not. I wonder at times whether there may have been daughters that simply are not mentioned. Call it sexist if you will (and I might not argue), but the Bible rarely mentions daughters unless they're important to the plot, and Dinah is central to a story that comes up a few chapters from now.

Back to the action, Reuben, Leah's oldest, finds some mandrakes and gives them to his mother. Mandrakes are herbs that apparently have been considered by some to be either an aphrodisiac or they magically make you fertile, I can't remember which it is, maybe both. Now neither of these women is having children right now, so they both want to get their hands on these things, but Leah has them. So Rachel makes a bargain and says that Leah gets to sleep with Jacob if she gives her the mandrakes. But so much for the power of mandrakes, because it's Leah who ends up having another son, two of them, actually, and the only mentioned daughter. Finally after all this, Rachel gives birth to Joseph herself.

Now Jacob decides enough time has passed, and he tells his uncle/father-in-law that he wants to go back home. Laban, however, seems somewhat unwilling to let him go, saying that he knows God is blessing him for the sake of Jacob. The SAB notes that the phrase used in verse 27 probably is referring to divination of some sort on Laban's part, and I think that's probably correct. The Hebrew word behind the phrase is almost never translated the same way twice in the KJV, and most other choices by the translators reflect a concept of discerning by a spiritual method. He could be speaking figuratively as many modern Christians do (although they may not mean to be speaking figuratively) when they say, "God was telling me..." when something goes their way. Whatever the case may be, I'm not sure what the problem is here.

Jacob apparently cuts a deal and says that he will stay a while longer, but he wants to have a share among the flocks. He says he will take the sheep and cattle and goats that have certain characteristics, and leave the rest. This sounds fine to Laban, so he grants it. Then, another one of the stranger parts of the Bible: Jacob proceeds to perform some weird trick with the sheep where he shows them certain colors when they come to drink water, and they conceive and have offspring that are the desired color Jacob wants. Why this works, I have no idea. It certainly isn't the case that an animal's colors will be determined by the colors its parents were looking at when they were conceived. Genetics just doesn't work that way. The only thing I can imagine is that somehow these colored poplar rods have an aphrodisiac effect on the livestock, and when Jacob sees the right ones together that will produce the offspring he wants...? Who knows? I've never heard of anyone explaining what this is supposed to mean, other than the possibility that Jacob has a stupid idea that God, since He wanted to bless Jacob, makes work through a miracle. If that were really the case, though, I think the Bible would tell, as most miracles are clearly indicated within the text.

You win this round, SAB... ; )

I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters (Gen 29)

This is probably one of the strangest love stories in the Bible, if not ever, anywhere.

Jacob comes to the land of his uncle Laban. Note that he is repeatedly referred to as his "mother's brother", but the description of the familial relation is referred to fluidly in general. At least one time Laban calls Jacob his "brother". I think I resolved the specific relationship between Laban and Jacob in yesterday's post, and discussed previously that "brother" often figuratively means "relative" or "close friend" and "father" and "son" are respectively used to mean "ancestor" and "descendant".

Shortly after Jacob gets there, he sees his cousin Rachel, who is apparently really hot, and it's love at first sight. So he helps her water her father's sheep, gives her a kiss, and then meets his uncle. His uncle is excited to meet him (apparently, it seems, because he sees an opportunity to milk this kid for cheap labor) and offers him an ongoing job helping with the livestock. Jacob asks to be paid by marrying Laban's daughter.

Now, Laban has two daughters, Leah and Rachel. While Rachel is supposedly pretty hot, the best the Bible can say about Leah is that she is "tender eyed". (Actually, it's not really clear whether this is a compliment or not.) Jacob wants Rachel, and agrees to work seven years to earn her hand. Laban tricks Jacob and after he works for seven years, he gives him Leah instead. I guess Jacob is too drunk on his wedding night to notice or something, since he doesn't even notice until morning. Jacob ends up having to serve another seven years to pay for Rachel, whom he loves enough to do so.

The SAB has a lot of notes on this story as to its general goofiness and bizarre quality, but once again, it's not clear what the actual objection is. Yes, Laban is being dishonest. Yes, this is something that from our modern standards (and even to some extent the standards of the day) is pretty twisted and shocking on both a business and sexual level. Yes, while polygamy is wrong, Jacob ends up with two (or four if you count Zilpah and Bilhah) wives. All of this leads to a number of problems that begin at the tail end of this chapter. This in no way means that the Bible is setting up this situation as an example that anyone is meant to follow, so I'm not sure the point of the objections, if indeed they are objections. Perhaps, as someone told me (maybe it was Steve Wells himself) the point here is that there are stories far less salacious that Christians would be horrified to find that their children were reading. I don't think this story is appropriate for children.

Yet, in the midst of this, children do come! The baby wars between Rachel and Leah start here, when God causes Leah to have children, and Rachel to be barren. Leah has four sons and names them: Reuben = "behold a son"; Simeon = "heard"; Levi = "joined to"; Judah = "praised". Apparently, Leah is hoping that having children will make her more loved by her husband, but it's never made clear whether this actually works.

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (Gen 27)

Ah, I have a wireless connection and a lull in the meeting that may not last, I'll pop in here for a moment to deal with a chapter I am surprised to see having so few SAB notes. There does seem to be an affinity for pointing out the personal foibles of Biblical characters in the SAB, and this is a prime example for many of that sort of thing, although not all Bible readers see this story the same way.

Short synopsis: Isaac gets old, decides he's going to bless Esau, Rebekah tells Jacob and encourages him to trick his father into giving the blessing to him instead.

Jacob, one may note, never objects because it might be wrong to deceive his father, but only because he's not quite convinced he can pull it off. Either Jacob has no conscience about the matter, or perhaps he might think he's doing the right thing. Note that back in chapter 25, both before and after Jacob is born, there is indication that Jacob is destined to get the best of his brother. I'm not sure whether that so much makes it right for him to trick his father, nor whether it had to be that way for God's plan to work out, but there it is. Furthermore, I have heard it said that aside from the morality of Jacob's deception, Isaac was doing the wrong thing to base his decision of which son to bless based on his own preference rather than God's. Add to that the fact that Isaac obviously knows something is up in verse 22, and is hesitant. (Also in verse 35, he figures it out awfully quickly.) Perhaps Isaac knows what's right, and what's God's will, but... I don't know, this is an odd story, and I almost wish the SAB had more to say so I could respond more directly.

Both Jacob and Esau seem to believe they are the rightful owners of this blessing. Jacob's response to hearing it would go to his brother is to work to set things right. Esau's response is to plot to kill Jacob. This, along with the story at the end of chapter 25 shows the difference in the character of these brothers. Jacob may be tricky, but he isn't a violent or vengeful man. Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that Esau turns out so bad, but he is what he is in the end.

So, in a similar turn of events to his father, Jacob goes away to his cousins' land to find a wife, and out of the reach of his brother.

Behold, twins were in her womb (Gen 25)

Ah, Genesis 25, the chapter that most clearly demonstrates the non-linear style of storytelling that's used throughout the Bible, and especially in the book of Genesis. (Not to mention a bit of very interesting storytelling in its own right.) In fact, I was reading the commentary in Robert Alter's translation of Genesis, and he notes at the end of chapter 24 that some scholars believe that Abraham may have died before Isaac was married, and that the actual death of Abraham may have occurred while Eliezer was off looking for Isaac's bride.

Anyway, Abraham takes another "wife" after Sarah dies, named Keturah. I put "wife" in quotes because, as the SAB points out, it's not really quite clear whether she's truly considered a wife. A verse from 1Chronicles is quoted, but really, you only need to scan down to verse six, where one can easily assume (as I do) that the term "concubines" refers to Keturah and Hagar. So it might be worth asking what Keturah's status is to some people, although personally I'd suspect that the line separating "wife" and "concubine" is not exactly well-defined. A simple answer might be to point out that, as in many languages, the Hebrew word for "wife" and "woman" is the same. In verse one here, as well as back in 16:3 with Hagar, this could have been translated simply as "woman" and made sense, but perhaps the KJV translators (along with most others) didn't like the idea of Abraham having sex with a woman who was not his proper wife. A more complicated answer might be to consider that the writers of the parts of the Bible that mention this woman might have particular points to make at different times, and so used terms that would accentuate their points. Although Keturah was indeed a "wife" by any normal standard, when we drop down a few verses and the author decides to call her a "concubine", he's trying to make a clear distinction between Sarah and the other two women in Abraham's life. Particularly the relation they have to the promises of God and the land of Canaan.

So Abraham has at least six more children after Sarah is gone, and each of them is sent away from the place where Abraham lives, so that they won't be in the way of Isaac growing up and being prosperous. While I covered most of the objections to this story back in chapter 13, I might as well hit on them just lightly again. Abraham is able to have more children easily because the infertility problem was Sarah's. As far as I'm aware, in fact, while women have menopause, men never stop being fertile, although they certainly may have other problems that would impede them from conceiving. In a sense, there is a viewpoint theologically that nobody has any children ever without God's help, but that's an extreme viewpoint. These other children may not be considered legitimate children if indeed Keturah was a "concubine", I'm not sure. However the point I said back in chapter 13 was that every time Isaac is referred to as Abraham's "only" son, it refers to a time frame before he has any children with Keturah, so the existence of these children has no bearing on the question of how many children Abraham had. Oh, and furthermore on the subject of time frame, I don't know anyone who considers it polygamy to marry another wife after your first wife dies.

Abraham dies at 175, an impressive age, but certainly not impossible. Ishmael comes back from wherever he's living to help Isaac bury their father, so apparently they're getting along okay, perhaps in a large part due to them not having to live together. A short synopsis is given of Ishmael's life and children, who become a powerful nation in their own right as Israel will in the future. Ishmael also lives to an impressive age.

Rebekah turns out to be barren, which the SAB labels as absurd, but doesn't explain why. Perhaps it's the fact that she seems to be in a long line of infertile wives? I don't know what the SAB's getting at, but as I think I said before (and I don't remember where it was if I did) I think that God is putting some odd control on the biological clocks of the matriarchs to make the timing just right for the period the nation of Israel spends in Egypt. Who knows? Maybe infertility was just a problem in that time and place?

Rebekah does eventually get pregnant though, and actually, her infertility is an odd footnote, because it's just for one verse of the story, and we don't know how long in time it was. She only gives birth once, though, and it's twins. More interesting names here; the older one is Esau or "hairy", while Jacob is "heel grasper". Imagine your child being born and you notice that she has a funny nose, so you say to your spouse, "Hey Honey, let's name her 'Schnozia', don't you think?"

Obviously not identical twins, Esau is a big burly hairy man who loves hunting, while Jacob is a bit of a momma's boy (literally) who likes to hang out at home and cook. Their parents play favorites, and apparently, so does God. Despite the note on the SAB, the Bible does not in any place that I am aware of say that Rebekah hated Esau, she just liked Jacob better. In part, it may have been the prophecy she was given about them. Throughout the story of these boys' lives, Isaac keeps trying to make Esau the better one, but God and their mother keep trying to manipulate things to put Jacob in front, because despite not being as manly as his father might like him to be, Jacob is the more morally upright of the two (which says a lot, since he's no angel). We get the first hint of it in the end of the chapter when he sells his birthright for a bowl of stew. Not exactly the shining example.