Biblical Couples and their Soap Opera Lives: Jacob and Rachel Genesis Neil Dunnavant

Transcription

1 Biblical Couples and their Soap Opera Lives: Jacob and Rachel Genesis Neil Dunnavant First Presbyterian Church Greensboro, North Carolina July 6, 2014 After the very interesting and colorful story of Abraham and Sarah I covered a few weeks ago, we now enter into another wild saga involving Abraham s grandson Jacob. We will be looking at chapters twenty-five through thirty-six of Genesis. Abraham and Sarah have, at a very old age Abraham is ninety-nine and Sarah is ninety a son Isaac, which means in Hebrew he laughs. When Isaac is forty he marries Rebekah and Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins. The children struggled together within her causing her great pain, and she asked the Lord Almighty what this meant. And the Lord said, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger. (Genesis 25:23) When the time to give birth was at hand, the first came out red, all his body hairy, so they named him Esau a play on a word that means red and hairy. Then his brother came out with his hand gripping Esau s heel, so they named him Jacob which means, He takes by the heel or He supplants he takes the place of another by force or treachery. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of wild meat, but Rebekah loved Jacob. (25:27-28) So already we see trouble coming. Parents choosing favorites. A younger brother destined to humiliate and take advantage of an older brother. And of course the conflict between the outdoorsman and the homebody which to the ancients symbolized the great division that still exists today between animal herders and farmers, nomads and tillers of the soil. Just last spring on a tour of Morocco, Kate and I saw nomadic Berber people moving with their flocks across a plain at the base of the Atlas Mountains. Some walking and some riding donkeys little children bundled tight to the donkeys like sacks of potatoes. Except for the use of plastic bags, these people looked to me as though they could have been from biblical times. Moving to greener pastures for their sheep and goats, they must pass through the lands of farmers, and

2 2 sometimes there are conflicts. Each (farmer and herder) believes his way of life is the best, and there is often enmity between the two. Jacob, the homebody, the mama s boy, cooks lentil stew by the tents. Esau comes in from the hunt tired and hungry. Give me some of that red stuff. I m famished. Jacob says, First, sell me your birthright. The birthright is the right of the oldest son to get a double share of the inheritance. Esau says, I m so hungry I m about to die. What good is my inheritance if I starve to death? Jacob said, Swear to me first. And Esau swore and sold his double inheritance for a bowl of soup. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, My son, and Esau answered, Here I am. Isaac said, See I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your quiver and your bow and go out to the wilderness and hunt game for me. Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die. (27:1-4) Rebekah, Isaac s wife and Esau and Jacob s mother, overhears this and cooks up a scheme to trick Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing. A death bed blessing was very important and powerful in Bible times. Like a death bed curse, a blessing was believed to release a power that made the blessing come true. So Rebekah tells Jacob to go quickly and kill a goat from the flock and bring it to her so she can cook it in the way her husband likes it. The food ready, she puts the clothes of Esau on Jacob so he will smell right and puts goat skins on his hands and neck so that if Isaac who is blind happens to touch Jacob, he will feel right because Esau is a hairy man and Jacob a man of smooth skin. Jacob enters his father s tent carrying the meat. Isaac is immediately suspicious. How did you find the wild animal so quickly my son? Jacob lies, Because the Lord your God granted me success. (27:20) Then Isaac says, Come near that I may feel you. He feels the goat hair placed on his hands. He says, The voice is Jacob s voice but the hands are the hands of Esau. (27:22) Then Isaac asked Jacob to reach down and kiss him so he could smell him and he smelled the clothes of Esau that Jacob was wearing. The deception now complete, Isaac blesses Jacob. May God give you the den of heaven and the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers and may your mother s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you. (27:28-29)

3 3 Soon after Jacob s blessing Esau returns from hunting, prepares the food, and enters the tent of his father. Let my father sit up and eat of his son s game, so that you may bless me. (27:31) Isaac realizes he has been deceived and trembles violently. Esau cries out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry. Isaac says, Your brother came deceitfully and he has taken away your blessing. (27:35) Esau says, His name Jacob fits him to a tee for he has stolen from me twice first my birthright and now my blessing. (27:36) Jacob to supplant to take the place of another by trickery. Then Esau says what is one of the saddest and emotionally charged replies in the Bible, Father, have you not reserved a blessing for me? Have you only one blessing: Bless me, me also, father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Father, have you only one blessing? But Isaac had no other blessing for poor Esau and instead gives him a sort of curse Away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be... By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck. (27:39-40) And Esau hated Jacob and said, After my father has died and the time of mourning is over, I will kill my brother Jacob. (Genesis 27:41) But Rebekah heard Esau s threat and tells Jacob, Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Now therefore obey my voice and flee to Haran and live with my brother Laban until your brother s anger against you turns away. (27:42-44) Rebekah tells her husband Isaac that Jacob should go to Haran (in modern day southeastern Turkey) to get a wife of their own people for she is weary of the Hittite women and feels her life will be of no worth were Jacob to marry a Hittite. (So much for multi-cultural openness.) So Jacob sets out for Haran and on the way he has his famous dream of the ladder reaching to heaven and angels of God ascending and descending on it. And it was called Bethel the house of God, which is why there are so many churches with the name Bethel, the house of God. Jacob comes to a well where herders are watering their sheep and he finds among them his own kinsmen and Laban s daughter Rachel. And Jacob is thus united with his mother s family there in Haran, the family of Rebekah s brother Laban. And Laban said, Because you are my kinsman, I must pay you for the work you are doing tending my flocks. (29:15) Laban had two daughters. The oldest was Leah which means languor or weariness. The New Revised Standard Version says Leah s eyes were beautiful, but other translations say her eyes were weak, or dull, or bleary. Rachel the younger was graceful and beautiful.

4 4 Jacob said he would work seven years for the right to marry Rachel. And here we have one of the most tender verses in the Bible: So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. (29:20) The seven years passed and a wedding feast took place. But in the evening Laban brought to Jacob s tent not Rachel but his oldest daughter Leah. And Jacob slept with her without realizing it was not Rachel. And then we have what some consider another great sad verse of the Bible but others see the humor: When morning came, behold it was Leah! (29:25) And Jacob was furious and asked Laban, What the heck? And Laban explains that he must first marry off his oldest daughter but not to worry. After an obligatory seven-day honeymoon with Leah he will then give Jacob Rachel as well, but he will have to work an additional seven years. So after a week Jacob married Rachel and had a honeymoon with her and the Bible sadly says, And he loved Rachel more than Leah and when the Lord says that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. (29:30-31) So begins another soap opera seemingly written and directed by the Lord Almighty himself. Leah bears Jacob sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. And then she ceased bearing. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister, and she said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die. (30:1) Jacob is angry and tells her he is not God, who has withheld from her the fruit of the womb. So Rachel does what Sarah does with Abraham he gives Jacob his maid Bilhah so that she can have children by proxy. Like with Abraham and Hagar, this idea works and Bilhah bears Jacob two sons Dan and Naphtali. Then Leah gets jealous because she is having no more children and gives Jacob her maid Zilpah and Jacob has with Zilpah sons Gad and Asher. Reuben Leah s oldest son and Jacob s first born child finds an aphrodisiac conceptioninducing plant in the field called mandrakes. Rachel pleads with Leah for some of Reuben s mandrakes but Leah will not share without getting something in return. In return Rachel agrees that Leah can have a conjugal visit with Jacob that night. (There are, it turns out, compelling reasons why polygamy is not a good idea.) This ancient Love Potion Number 9 seems to really work. Leah gets pregnant again and has Issachar and Zebulun and a daughter named Dinah. Rachel finally had her own son and named him Joseph, the famous Joseph with his coat of many colors, the same Joseph who went down to Egypt and became a high official in Pharaoh s court. We will be here too long if I tell the whole Jacob story through chapter thirty-six, for we are only now to chapter thirty. There are some wonderful highly entertaining stories I am skipping and a few not at all suitable to share with young children. But there is one final story I want to tell.

5 5 Jacob is finally ready to return to Canaan. Like his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac, Jacob has become a very wealthy man. He has in abundance oxen, donkeys, flocks of goats and sheep, male and female slaves. A good part of Jacob s wealth came from cheating a con job on the level of Bernie Madoff and you can read about that in chapter thirty. But if he is to return home, he must face his brother Esau. Does his brother still wish to kill him? Twenty years have passed. Has time healed this wound? As he heads south from Turkey through Syria into Canaan, he sends messengers looking for Esau. The messengers are instructed to tell Esau that his brother Jacob is coming and bearing gifts for Esau. Oxen, donkeys, flocks, slaves. The messengers return to Jacob, We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him. (32:6) Maybe I have watched too many Westerns, but this scene, so artfully portrayed with so few words, He is coming to meet you and four hundred men are with him! always reminds me of a band of desperados riding horses toward some town, intent on looting and plundering, rough tough men no match for the shopkeepers and bankers and saloon keeper and sheriff. Or I see Comanche warriors in full regalia riding tall and proud toward a wagon train of softer men, women, and children. Jacob somewhat pathetically and unmanly calls to God, Deliver me please from the hand of my brother, for I am afraid of him. He may come and kill us all, the mothers with their children. (32:11) The night before the great showdown Jacob wrestles with God at the Jabbok, at a place call Peniel the face of God. The Lord puts his hip out of joint and he limps off, limping as he makes his way toward Esau. This scene also reminds me of a Western. Jacob sees Esau and bows to the ground seven times until he is near his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. (33:4) Esau is the perfect gentleman. All is forgiven. All has been forgiven a long time ago. He wants to meet Jacob s family. He refuses the gifts of oxen, donkeys, flocks, and slaves. He says, I have enough, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself. (33:9) So in the end it is the hairy red hunter, the macho man, the man s man, who ends up the class act. The twice shafted man tricked out of his birthright and blessing by his own conniving rascal and scoundrel of a brother who had every reason to stay bitter and angry who rises above it all and shows us how to live. I like Esau. I wish the Bible told us more about him. He is heroic. An athletic, powerful, strong, muscular man shafted by his brother a man who could have crushed Jacob with one hand tied

6 6 behind his back, and yet he runs to greet him and hugs him and mentions not Jacob s sins of the past. Jacob is not likeable. He is the jerk, the con man, the creep, who ends up the golden boy. God changes his name from Jacob the shafter the trickster to Israel, the one who is triumphant with God. I think God should have chosen Esau to be Israel, not Jacob. Esau, the shafter s brother is the one who triumphs with God in my book. Life goes on. Truth is stranger than fiction. The story continues. Originally I was going to do David and Bathsheba next, but now I see I must finish Genesis. So on July twentieth we will finish this great book, the first book of the Good Book, and we will start with chapter thirty-seven, with Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel. The soap opera theme will continue with the wife of Potiphar, an Egyptian high official, who tries to seduce Joseph. See you on the twentieth to be continued...