Jan. 30, 2012 - Genesis 30

…she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children or I’ll die!”

Drama queen much?

“Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family.”

Oh right, this trick again. Also, it’s clear that this isn’t one happy family. We have Leah’s family, and Rachel’s family. Jacob just happens to be caught in the middle.

Anyways, through Rachel’s servant Bilhah we get:

5 – Dan – “God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son.”

6 – Naphtali – “I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.”

So far Leah has 4 sons, and Rachel’s servant has 2. Now I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that Leah is still “winning” despite Rachel’s claim that she has “won.” Somebody is acting like a whiny little brat…

When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her maidservant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Anything you can do, I can do better…

Through Leah’s servant Zilpah:

7 – Gad – “What good fortune!”

8 – Asher – “How happy I am! The women will call me happy!”

“Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?”

“Very well, he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”

“You must sleep with me, I have hired you…”

Hey look, Jacob is just a prostitute in his own house, with his wives buying and selling time with him between themselves. Ridiculous.

And of course, Leah has a couple more sons:

9 – Issachar – “God has rewarded me for giving my maidservant to my husband.”

10 – Zebulun – “God has presented me with a precious gift.”

And then finally Rachel has her first son:

11 – Joseph – “God has taken away my disgrace.”

“Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland.”

It’s been 14 years. I’ve put up with your schemes and I’ve worked hard for you. Now it’s time for me to leave, so I can actually start working for myself. I have no wealth to show for these years of work, just my family. I need to start working to provide something for them.

“I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you.”

Divination? Really? “My gods said your God is the one giving the blessings, so could you stick around with him for awhile?” This just seems like the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

“Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages.”

That same day [Laban] removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the streaked or spotted female goats…Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob…

Wait a minute, did Laban just steal all his ugly stuff so Jacob wouldn’t have anything to start? That’s sure what it sounds like to me. I mean, Laban gets all the speckled and spotted animals, gives them to his sons, and drives them three days away to be separated from the rest of the flock, which Jacob then continues to tend. Now maybe there’s some part of the deal that we don’t quite get in the passage here, and Jacob’s payment was only going to be newborn animals from this time onwards, or something like that. But whatever is going on, obviously Laban isn’t about to make it easy for Jacob, and isn’t going to give him freebie animals. In fact, he’s specifically keeping the already speckled animals separated so Jacob’s chances of getting such animals is as low as possible. It’s all about who can come out ahead between these guys, both trying to out-trick the other.

Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them…Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink.

Well Laban may have thought he was smart to separate out all the spotted animals, but Jacob has a plan! Make the animals see striped things, and they’ll have striped children! Of course! And while you’re sitting there laughing at how stupid he is, his plan just goes right ahead and works. And we continue to see God blessing this screwed-up, deceitful, superstitious mess of a guy, no matter how much stupid stuff he does. This blessing is so powerful that it just keeps on working regardless of how hard the family tries to screw everything up. They literally can’t avoid getting blessed.

So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.

And Jacob wins this round. 

Jan. 29, 2012 - Genesis 29

There he saw a well…

Same well where Rebekah was found? Possibly. Same area, at least.

“…it is not time for the flocks to be gathered. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture.”

Get out of here so I can talk to the pretty girl…

…he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.

Well, it’s probably a good bet to say that Jacob has heard the story about how his parents met. Or rather, how the messenger figured out that Rebekah was the woman he was after, to bring back to Isaac. Also, he would know that Laban’s family, and thus Rachel, would know the story as well. And with what we already know about Jacob’s sly and devious nature, it seems to me that not only is this an act of ‘oh, let me move this giant boulder for you’ showing off, but also a sneaky ploy to relate back to his parents experience. How did God reveal that Rebekah was the right woman? She came, and freely offered to water the messenger’s camels. What does Jacob do? Freely waters Rachel’s sheep(possibly even at the same well). If Rachel is paying attention, maybe she’ll see the hand of God at work, and fall hopeless in love with this perfect man that has been sent to her. And of course, moving a giant boulder surely can’t hurt his chances either, right?

…Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.”

So Jacob gets welcomed, and gets a chance to tell his story. About how he’s the best salesman ever, and got his brother to trade his birthright for a meal. About how he straight up duped his father, and stole the family blessing from under his brother’s nose. About how he came seeking a wife, and then…here he is. And Laban leans back in his chair, smirks a bit, and thinks about how much of his own slickness he sees in Jacob.

“Tell me what your wages should be.”

Hey look, Laban’s offering to pay him, that’s so considerate. And yet, instead of looking to help Jacob start a life of his own, what he’s actually doing is just turning him into another hired hand. Get some cheap labor out of the old family.

“I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Since Jacob really doesn’t have anything of value, he offers his service to earn the lovely lady. Of course, this means that after seven years, he still won’t have anything of his own, except a wife. Not exactly the best way to start building wealth, but hey, get the woman first, right?

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife.”

When morning came, there was Leah!

Oops. And here we learn a valuable lesson. On your wedding night, take a minute or two to actually look at your partner, maybe even try to talk with them for a couple seconds or something, just to make sure you know who they are. Because if you’ve got some sneaky relatives, you never know what kind of shenanigans they might try to pull on you…Anyways, Jacob gets a taste of his own medicine and realizes what it feels like to be on the other side of a trickeration scheme.

“Why have you deceived me?”

“It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.”

Where you come from, you may be able to steal your older brother’s birthright, blessing, and whatever else, but that’s not how we do things here. The eldest comes first. Deal with it. You just got duped with your own scam in reverse. Isaac was blind, and his sons got switched, Jacob was…something, and the girls got switched.

“Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.”

Can’t turn back now, so just go ahead and finish Leah’s ‘honeymoon’ week, and then you can have Rachel also. If you stay and work for seven more years, of course. Now, he doesn’t have to wait those seven years, but gets Rachel after that week. He just can’t leave until he finishes the extra work.

Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah.

Aww, poor Leah, right? Pretty much every time I’ve heard this story taught, everybody feels sorry for poor Leah with the weak eyes, that nobody wanted. And while that’s all well and good, and she certainly must have faced some serious rejection issues, I simply don’t see her as helpless and innocent in all this. I mean, come on. While Laban might have been the one with the idea to switch the daughters, or even the one who really carried it out, Leah went right along with it. She played her part, and managed to trick Jacob through an entire night, and get him to accept her when she was obviously of a different statue than her sister. She had her own share of trickery and deceit in all this. And as we’re about to see, she’s not just going to sit by and let Jacob get taken away, but stand up to her sister and fight to earn her place in the family.

When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb…

And so it begins. Time to build a family. So let’s start a list of sons, with their corresponding quotes concerning their birth.

1 – Reuben – “It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”

2 – Simeon – “Because the LORD heard that I am not loved.”

3 – Levi – “Now at last my husband will become attached to me…”

4 – Judah – “This time I will praise the LORD.”

For the first three, Leah’s focus is all about winning the affections of Jacob. And then for the fourth son, she stops and simply give praise to God. As it happens, this fourth son, Judah, is the son through whom the blessing will continue. Coincidence? Hmmmm. Interesting, at least.

Jan. 28, 2012 - Genesis 28

So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him…

Although Jacob has just stolen the blessing, and Isaac was furious about his deception, Jacob is still his son. And if this family knows anything, it’s about how much they screw up, and how God keeps forgiving them and blessing them anyways. Welcome to the family Jacob. Blow it, get blessed anyways.

May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live…

It’s official, Jacob gets THE family blessing. Isaac realizes that despite his plans, God meant what he said when he declared that Jacob would continue the family, and it would be through him that they would take possession of the land. Eventually.

Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebarioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Apparently he just now figures out how much trouble his marriages brought to the family. Maybe his parents never voiced their displeasure strongly enough, or maybe he just wasn’t listening, or simply ignored them. However, he certainly knew it was wrong in general, and that he wasn’t keeping his house focused on God, even if he didn’t realize the scope.

Anyways, to fix it he just marries a cousin as well. That fixes everything, right?

“I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

God appears, repeats Abraham’s blessing to Jacob, and promises that it is now his. And that Jacob will not be forgotten, but watched over.

“…and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

Official promise to tithe. To give back some of these promised blessings.

Jan. 27, 2012 - Genesis 27

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau…

Even though Esau has married poorly, and God has already said that the blessing will be given to Jacob, Isaac is going to bless his firstborn anyways.

What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him…

I would appear to be tricking him. Ha! Yeah, it probably would appear that way, since that’s exactly what would be happening.

Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it…I blessed him – and indeed he will be blessed!”

Obviously Isaac isn’t exactly thrilled about being deceived, but there’s no taking it back. This blessing is a pretty big deal, and it doesn’t come with do-overs.

“Bless me – me too, my father!”

“Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

While Esau will get his own sortof-blessing, that’s all he’s going to get. Similar to Ishmael, he simply isn’t the chosen one, and will only get a ‘secondhand’ blessing. Which, of course, isn’t exactly terrible in itself. Blessings of any kind are cool.

“Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!”

Well, while the birthright sale was certainly a devious scheme by Jacob, it wasn’t exactly deception. Esau was completely aware of the terms, and freely agreed to them. Now that he’s had time to think it over, he realizes he got cheated, but he’s trying to retroactively shift the blame onto Jacob when it was really his own fault. Of course, the blessing deal is a different matter, and the straight-up deception is pretty obvious.

Esau held a grudge against Jacob…

“Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you.”

Well somebody has anger issues. Maybe Esau is tired of all this running away from fighting. Maybe he wanted to punch somebody the first time they tried to start a fight over the whole well-digging business, and he’s been holding back all that anger. Or maybe this one thing is just too much. He knows what that blessing means, and that it was supposed to be his. His father was going to give it to him. And then that little wimp Jacob stole it from right underneath him.

Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women.”

Ta-da! An excuse for Jacob to leave. Not to mention the keeping pure of his line.

Jan. 26, 2012 - Genesis 26

…and Isaac went to Abimelech…

Hey look, Abimelech again. Now, it’s probably a different Abimelech than the one Abraham dealt with, but it could possibly be the same guy, just some hundred odd years older or so.

When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister…”

Really? Not exactly the most creative thing I’ve heard, if I do say so myself. Well, at least he was sort of paying attention to Abraham’s bedtime stories, right? That, or it’s a genetic issue the family suffers with.  Whatever. So, how will things turn out this time?

“Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”

“Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.”

Oh, right. Exactly the same. Why would you do this? I thought you were going to kill me.

This is Isaac, who Abraham almost sacrificed, but then was stopped by God. Isaac saw God save his life, he knows the promise that rests on him, and God has just finished directly speaking to him. And yet, he still doesn’t trust God to protect him, and thinks he needs to come up with some deception to keep himself safe.

Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him.

And he’s still getting blessed, despite his best efforts to screw things up.

“Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.”

Because of his lies, he isn’t trusted anymore, and thus his wealth isn’t that of a friend, but a possible enemy. You don’t want rich neighbors that you can’t trust.

Isaac reopened the wells…

Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well…

Then they dug another well…

He moved on from there and dug another well…

People try to pick a fight? Leave. What if you put in a lot of work/energy/time into digging a well? Leave anyways. Dig another one. More fighting? Leave.

Isaac built an altar there…and there his servants dug a well.

Need to find God’s people? Follow the altars. These guys specifically set aside the time to search and listen for God. They work hard at it. They build things. When was the last time you physically exhausted yourself in your search to know God better? Or put effort into it at all? If you really wanted to hear from God, how far would you go?

Meanwhile, Abimelech had come to him from Gerar…

I know we chased you off and everything, but I was just thinking maybe we should nail down a treaty so that God of yours doesn’t kill us. Because, it’s pretty obvious that he’s actually affecting your life and doing stuff for you.

When Esau was forty years old, he married…They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

Esau intermarries with the Hittites, outsiders, and contaminates his family line. Shame shame.

Jan. 25, 2012 - Genesis 25

Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.

Well, apparently he’s gotten over the worry that he can’t have any more children because of how old he is, and this wife provides him with quite a few more sons.

Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away…

Concubines? Where did they come from? Possibly referring to Keturah, and/or other women. Earlier, while he was married to Sarah, he took Hagar as his concubine. While the term is technically different from a wife, a concubine was essentially treated the same. This status could result from being a servant, or not having a dowry provided, or many other reasons. However, a child from a concubine was considered a rightful heir, and would have an inheritance as normal. These sons aren’t going to receive any of Isaac’s blessing, though, and Abraham has them all sent away. He doesn’t just repeat his past and send them into the desert as he did with Hagar and Ishmael, but at least sends them to a certain area, with gifts.

His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him…

Ishmael is going to be blessed, and so while he’s not as ‘high’ in the blessing line as Isaac, he still is above the other sons that were sent away, and is important enough to take part in helping bury his father.

After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac…

And the blessing is passed. The “blessed him in every way” blessing. Yay.

This is the account of Abraham’s son Ishmael…and they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.

Ishmael has 12 sons, which form 12 tribes, and give us a preview of what will happen later through Isaac. And while he is blessed and fathers a nation as promised, his sons don’t live in harmony, and we know that the real blessing lies in wait for Isaac’s descendants.

This is the account of Abraham’s son Isaac…Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren.

This line is special, and God wants it to be clear that these sons aren’t going to just happen, but are directly provided by himself.

So she went to inquire of the LORD. The LORD said to her “…the older will serve the younger.”

As Rebekah asks why her twins seem to be fighting, God clearly gives the instruction that they will both be great nations, but that the younger will be the greater.

So Esau despised his birthright.

After some time out hunting, Esau comes back hungry, and trades something of lasting value for immediate gain. He doesn’t recognize the value of his birthright, and sells it for so cheap that it is as if he considered it altogether useless. Now, this birthright was essentially a larger portion of his father’s inheritance, and with all the wealth of the family, it should have been obvious exactly how much this was worth. Esau doesn’t take the time to think about it, though, and gives up a great fortune for a simple meal.

Jan. 24, 2012 - Genesis 24

Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way.

Blessed in every way? Yes please. This sounds like a pretty amazing way to sum up someone’s life. I mean, that would be a good way to be remembered, right?

“I want you to swear…that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country…”

Abraham knows that while this land is ultimately promised to his descendants, it doesn’t mean that they will inherit it by simply intermarrying with the current residents. One day his people will have to drive out the others, and take possession of God’s promise. In the meantime, his line must remain pure, so Isaac must be married to someone from his own country, from his relatives. However, Isaac is not to leave this land, and if the servant can’t get a wife to come back with him, he won’t be help responsible, but simply released from this oath.

“O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today…”

You know, I have a suspicion that this is possibly one of the most often-used prayers ever. Countless students place all their faith in this prayer on test days. I regularly use it as I begin my search for a parking spot. O LORD, give me success. It’s a plain, simple request. And yet, it hints at the most mind-blowing truth of all: that the God of the universe might just care enough about your life to personally step in and give you a little help.

Before he had finished praying…

And God does care. He is listening. And when a teacher is lenient with the grading and gives you points you don’t really deserve, or a car pulls out of a spot right in front of you, or the perfect woman comes walking up with a jar on her shoulder, maybe it was just a coincidence. Or maybe it wasn’t.

Without saying a word, the man watched her closely…

So, obviously Rebekah is busy running back and forth getting water for the camels, and they can’t exactly have an in-depth conversation, but still, surely it’s a little awkward for him to just be standing there watching. Of course, he probably had some other servants with him, since later we see that the family offers water for “him and his men to wash their feet,” so they could have been socializing with Rebekah during this time. This would then allow him to be watching how she interacted with them, to make sure she was the right one. After she has drawn the water, he then gives her some gold jewelry and asks about her family, which he is pleased to discover is that of a close relative.

Then the man bowed down and worshipped the LORD…

He asked for a pretty specific thing to happen to find the right woman, and it happened exactly as he asked, with a close relative. Pretty much, his mission is going perfectly so far.

As soon as he had seen the nose ring, and the bracelets…he went out to the man and found him standing by the camels near the spring. “Come, you who are blessed by the LORD…”

So we see that Laban notices the jewelry immediately, and takes it upon himself to go welcome this guest. He greets him with the name of the LORD, so he is not completely oblivious to this name. However, later on we know he had many other gods in his household, so it is likely that he didn’t actually worship the LORD. In fact, it’s possible that he heard Rebekah mention this name as she was relating the story, and then used it simply to make this guest feel more welcome. As the savvy businessman he was, he recognized the value of the jewelry first given, and was certainly interested to learn more about this traveler, as wealthy friends are always good.

“This is from the LORD; we can say nothing to you one way or the other.”

Whatever the beliefs of this household, they are amazed at the exactness of the story, and yield to the obvious workings of the LORD in keeping the family together.

“Do not detain me, now that the LORD has granted success to my journey.”

He’s excited to share the good news, and doesn’t want to keep his master waiting any longer than he has to. The quicker he can leave, the quicker he can get back.

So she became his wife, and he loved her…

And just like that we have the next main characters lined up, as Abraham’s part in the story is almost over, and it’s time for Isaac to play his part in passing down God’s blessing.