Jacob returns home to Israel, but he’s scared of Esau, so on his way back he sends big flocks and herds ahead of him as gifts so if Esau’s still angry, he might be bribed into at least letting Jacob live. Before the big meeting he actually divides his camp into two so if one is attacked the other can escape.
This has got to be so frustrating to God! For more than a hundred years now He has been telling and showing the descendants of Abraham that He is watching over them. He constantly increases their wealth and their animals and families and any time anyone looks at them wrong God just straight murders them for it. Each generation though, whenever any danger or uncertainty rears it’s head, they panic and start lying and screwing people over to try to save their own skins. Abraham caused a drought in Egypt, Isaac would have done the exact same thing to Abimelech, an old family friend, if he’d been able to pull off the con. Jacob is the worst of them all, he steals his brother’s birthright, and his blessing from their father, then runs off to Mesopotamia and basically robs his father in law. Now he’s finally back, scraping and bowing and practically begging his brother for forgiveness and, even after Esau hugs him tearfully and tells him everything is cool between them and he’s happy to see him, Jacob tells him that he’ll follow right behind him back to Esau’s lands, then ditches him and sets up camp somewhere else.
What. A. Dick.
Of course, by the time that last part happens he’s not actually Jacob anymore, but Israel. He sends a sweaty night wrestling with some stranger who dislocates his hip and then finds out that it’s actually God. God renames him Israel, which means wrestling with God, because Jacob wrestles with God and with people. I don’t understand why God says he wrestles with either Himself or with people, we haven’t seen any examples of that so far in Jacob’s story except the match that just happened. Maybe when God says he wrestles with people, it’s kind of an idiom for Jacob lying to people and manipulating them. He never really wrestled with God at all though; according to his account of things, he did exactly what God told him every step of the way. Maybe it’s not a metaphor at all and Jacob just liked wrestling.
In any case, God reiterates the same prophecy we’ve been hearing, all the land, numerous descendants. Then the meeting with Esau happens and Jacob runs off to live in Shechem.
In Shechem, Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, catches the eye of the local ruler’s kid who tries to win her as his wife. The text says he defiled her, but he seems to pretty sincerely want to marry her also, so I think it’s possible it may have been a bit of a cultural miscommunication. Anyway, Jacob tells the Shechemites that Shechem, their very creatively named ruler, can’t have Dinah unless all the Shechemite men get circumcised. Afterwards, while all the men are still in pain, a couple of Jacob’s sons go into the city and murder every single Shechemite man. That seems like kind of a ridiculous reaction and, as usual, underhanded, but Dinah’s brothers were a little hot-headed I guess.
Jacob worries that his sons murdering a city full of innocent men will make trouble for him in Canaan politically.
No comments:
Post a Comment