So if you'll remember from the other day, Jacob stole his twin Esau's birthright, which means he gets all the firstborn son stuff. Not cool, Jacob. In the second half of Genesis, their father Isaac (son of Abraham, let's keep this patriarchy line straight) does THE SAME THING HIS DAD DID and when he's in a foreign country with his wife, he's like "Oh, that's my sister," and the king's like "Oh, your sister's pretty attractive" and then he sees "Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah" and is like "Wtf why did you say she was your sister??" I don't get why this is a repeated story in Genesis, but it seems really important to them. Maybe it was really, really funny back then -- I don't know what senses of humor were like 3000 years ago.
So then it's time for Jacob to for-real steal Esau's inheritance, and it's messed up because Isaac's like "I'm dying. Esau, go hunt something and then make me awesome food with it and I'll give you my blessing" (which is like...a thing in the culture that is important). So Esau goes out to hunt, but their MUTUAL MOTHER Rebekah overhears this, says to Jacob, "Hey, go get two goats from the herd and I'll make some goat stew for your dad, and you can steal your brother's inheritance."
WTF REBEKAH.
Then Jacob says "Oh, but Esau's really hairy and I'm not and what if Dad grabs my hand" and she's like "Cover yourself in goatskins PROBLEM SOLVED" and this works.
So Esau comes back and is like "HEY GUYS, I'm back" and Isaac the Dad is real upset and says "Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing" and Esau says "He took my birthright and now he's taken my blessing!", so....I guess those're two different things.
Esau RIGHTFULLY wants to kill Jacob, because Jacob is an asshole, so Rebekah sends Jacob to her brother Laban by saying to Isaac in a totally understated way "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living."
Jacob falls in love with his cousin Rachel, who at least isn't his sister, and his uncle says "You can marry her if you work for me for seven years." And Jacob says ok. Then Laban gives him Leah, daughter with weak eyes (teller of the story, this is not nice) and Jacob sleeps with her and then realizes THE NEXT MORNING it's not Rachel, which TBH makes me think he maybe doesn't deserve Rachel. But then Laban's like "Ok, work for me for seven more years and you can marry Rachel." So he does.
God feels bad for Leah, so she gets to have four sons and Rachel gets none and this has never been more appropriate:
Then Leah has two more sons and a daughter, and finally Rachel has a son and his name is Joseph and OF COURSE HE'S THE FAVORITE patriarchs you are not being cool at all; Leah gave you a bunch of kids, sir, and you suck. Also, read Genesis 30:14-16, because it's my new favorite thing in the Bible; it involves bartering love plants for sex.
Jacob continues to be tricksy, and Rachel steals her father's household gods for some reason (she wants them? that's probably why — Rachel sucks) and won't get up when he wants to search her tent because she says she has her period. Ahahahaha. Then Jacob finds out Esau's coming and he sends him a bunch of goats as a peace offering; LITERALLY wrestles with God (sure); and then Esau's really nice to him even though Jacob totally doesn't deserve it because Jacob is terrible and we should all throw oranges at him.
So. The next part extra-sucks, and look, I don't know the desert situation in that area at the time, but I guess there were a lot of rulers or kings or something, and Jacob and his wives and sons and daughter and many sheep were wandering around, and I guess the daughter (Dinah) was like "I'll go visit with the women around here; that sounds totally safe" and so she's wandering around chatting, and then the local ruler's son sees her, "violates" her, and then is like "Oh hey, Jacob, I wanna marry her, so it's totally okay that I did this thing." And his dad the local ruler tries to calm everybody down, 'cause oh shit and so forth.
Her eleven brothers are obviously PISSED, and they concoct this weirdass scheme where alllll the guys in the area have to get circumcised before the ruler's son can marry their sister. They say fine, so all the guys did it, then, while every dude was incapacitated, because ow, two of the sons took swords and stabbed eeeeevery guy. Then they took all their stuff. Then Jacob was pissed, because everyone was gonna attack them. Then Rachel dies (which I DO NOT MOURN) and we get to Joseph, who I have to do another post about because he's chapters 37-50 of Genesis, which is a lot for one guy, and he's got a fancy coat, so. He's got that going on.
 |
| they wouldn't even get the Oprah bee gif, guys |
So then it's time for Jacob to for-real steal Esau's inheritance, and it's messed up because Isaac's like "I'm dying. Esau, go hunt something and then make me awesome food with it and I'll give you my blessing" (which is like...a thing in the culture that is important). So Esau goes out to hunt, but their MUTUAL MOTHER Rebekah overhears this, says to Jacob, "Hey, go get two goats from the herd and I'll make some goat stew for your dad, and you can steal your brother's inheritance."
WTF REBEKAH.
 |
| I and this lady judge you 3000 years in the future |
Then Jacob says "Oh, but Esau's really hairy and I'm not and what if Dad grabs my hand" and she's like "Cover yourself in goatskins PROBLEM SOLVED" and this works.
So Esau comes back and is like "HEY GUYS, I'm back" and Isaac the Dad is real upset and says "Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing" and Esau says "He took my birthright and now he's taken my blessing!", so....I guess those're two different things.
Esau RIGHTFULLY wants to kill Jacob, because Jacob is an asshole, so Rebekah sends Jacob to her brother Laban by saying to Isaac in a totally understated way "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living."
Jacob falls in love with his cousin Rachel, who at least isn't his sister, and his uncle says "You can marry her if you work for me for seven years." And Jacob says ok. Then Laban gives him Leah, daughter with weak eyes (teller of the story, this is not nice) and Jacob sleeps with her and then realizes THE NEXT MORNING it's not Rachel, which TBH makes me think he maybe doesn't deserve Rachel. But then Laban's like "Ok, work for me for seven more years and you can marry Rachel." So he does.
God feels bad for Leah, so she gets to have four sons and Rachel gets none and this has never been more appropriate:
Then Leah has two more sons and a daughter, and finally Rachel has a son and his name is Joseph and OF COURSE HE'S THE FAVORITE patriarchs you are not being cool at all; Leah gave you a bunch of kids, sir, and you suck. Also, read Genesis 30:14-16, because it's my new favorite thing in the Bible; it involves bartering love plants for sex.
Jacob continues to be tricksy, and Rachel steals her father's household gods for some reason (she wants them? that's probably why — Rachel sucks) and won't get up when he wants to search her tent because she says she has her period. Ahahahaha. Then Jacob finds out Esau's coming and he sends him a bunch of goats as a peace offering; LITERALLY wrestles with God (sure); and then Esau's really nice to him even though Jacob totally doesn't deserve it because Jacob is terrible and we should all throw oranges at him.
So. The next part extra-sucks, and look, I don't know the desert situation in that area at the time, but I guess there were a lot of rulers or kings or something, and Jacob and his wives and sons and daughter and many sheep were wandering around, and I guess the daughter (Dinah) was like "I'll go visit with the women around here; that sounds totally safe" and so she's wandering around chatting, and then the local ruler's son sees her, "violates" her, and then is like "Oh hey, Jacob, I wanna marry her, so it's totally okay that I did this thing." And his dad the local ruler tries to calm everybody down, 'cause oh shit and so forth.
Her eleven brothers are obviously PISSED, and they concoct this weirdass scheme where alllll the guys in the area have to get circumcised before the ruler's son can marry their sister. They say fine, so all the guys did it, then, while every dude was incapacitated, because ow, two of the sons took swords and stabbed eeeeevery guy. Then they took all their stuff. Then Jacob was pissed, because everyone was gonna attack them. Then Rachel dies (which I DO NOT MOURN) and we get to Joseph, who I have to do another post about because he's chapters 37-50 of Genesis, which is a lot for one guy, and he's got a fancy coat, so. He's got that going on.
Comments
Post a Comment