PainKillers: Week #4
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Backdrop: Jacob
Backdrop: Jacob
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.
In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.
FEAR
DISTRESS
to be cramped … restricted … locked up
The story of Jacob in Genesis is rich in humanity.
JACOB: A TRICKSTER
The story of Jacob in Genesis is also a richly human story. His story is the single richest repository of humor in the Bible. Much of the humor stems from the fact that Jacob is an archetypal trickster. When he gets together with his uncle Laban, who belongs to the same type, the sparks fly in a battle of wits.
Trickster = someone who attempts to improve his/her situation by tricking another person.
In fact, Jacob is the primary trickster in the Bible.
A trickster is a person who attempts to improve his or her situation or simply to survive by tricking others.
Jacob is the prime trickster in the Bible. His trickery is first seen when he takes advantage of his brother’s hunger and buys his birthright for a bowl of soup (). Then he cooperates with his domineering mother to deceive the blind Isaac and steal the blessing intended for Esau (). Fleeing the wrath of his understandably angry brother, Jacob goes to Haran, the ancestral homeland, where he falls in love with Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, who proves a worthy opponent for him. In the incident of the substitute bride, Laban tricks Jacob into thinking he is marrying Rachel, only to find in the morning light that he has married Leah instead (). We are to see in this an element of justice for Jacob’s earlier exploiting a family member’s appetite for his own advantage. The duel between the two tricksters continues when they agree that Jacob is to receive the less common speckled or striped animals from the flock for his wages, only to have Laban send all such animals away. In retaliation, Jacob resorts to some quack animal husbandry in an effort to increase the offspring of speckled and striped animals (). The final trick he plays on his father-in-law is to steal away with his family and possessions while Laban is gone shearing sheep (). We need not suppress the latent humor in this story of tricksters who try to outwit each other and who richly deserve each other.
Jacob is the prime trickster in the Bible. His trickery is first seen when he takes advantage of his brother’s hunger and buys his birthright for a bowl of soup (). Then he cooperates with his domineering mother to deceive the blind Isaac and steal the blessing intended for Esau (). Fleeing the wrath of his understandably angry brother, Jacob goes to Haran, the ancestral homeland, where he falls in love with Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, who proves a worthy opponent for him. In the incident of the substitute bride, Laban tricks Jacob into thinking he is marrying Rachel, only to find in the morning light that he has married Leah instead (). We are to see in this an element of justice for Jacob’s earlier exploiting a family member’s appetite for his own advantage. The duel between the two tricksters continues when they agree that Jacob is to receive the less common speckled or striped animals from the flock for his wages, only to have Laban send all such animals away. In retaliation, Jacob resorts to some quack animal husbandry in an effort to increase the offspring of speckled and striped animals (). The final trick he plays on his father-in-law is to steal away with his family and possessions while Laban is gone shearing sheep (). We need not suppress the latent humor in this story of tricksters who try to outwit each other and who richly deserve each other.
A couple of examples of his trickery:
He takes advantage of Esau’s (brother) hunger & buys his birthright for a bowl of soup ().
Then he cooperates with Rachel, his domineering mother, to deceive the blind Isaac and steal the blessing intended for Esau ().
He cooperates w/ Rachel, his domineering mother, to deceive the blind Isaac & steal the blessing intended for Esau ().
Jacob meets his match:
Flees the wrath of Esau, to Haran, ... he falls in love w/ Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, who proves a worthy opponent for him.
Fleeing the wrath of his understandably angry brother, Jacob goes to Haran, the ancestral homeland, where he falls in love with Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, who proves a worthy opponent for him.
SUBSTITUTE BRIDE: Laban tricks Jacob into thinking he is marrying Rachel, … later fins out, in the morning, that he has married Leah instead ().
In the incident of the substitute bride, Laban tricks Jacob into thinking he is marrying Rachel, only to find in the morning light that he has married Leah instead ().
When he gets together with his uncle Laban, who belongs to the same type, the sparks fly in a battle of wits.
The duel between the two tricksters continues when they agree that Jacob is to receive the less common speckled or striped animals from the flock for his wages, only to have Laban send all such animals away. In retaliation, Jacob resorts to some quack animal husbandry in an effort to increase the offspring of speckled and striped animals (). The final trick he plays on his father-in-law is to steal away with his family and possessions while Laban is gone shearing sheep (). We need not suppress the latent humor in this story of tricksters who try to outwit each other and who richly deserve each other.
In retaliation, Jacob resorts to some quack animal husbandry in an effort to increase the offspring of speckled and striped animals (). The final trick he plays on his father-in-law is to steal away with his family and possessions while Laban is gone shearing sheep (). We need not suppress the latent humor in this story of tricksters who try to outwit each other and who richly deserve each other.
When he gets together with his uncle Laban, who belongs to the same type, the sparks fly in a battle of wits.
When he gets together with his uncle Laban, who belongs to the same type, the sparks fly in a battle of wits.
JACOB: WHAT’S IN A NAME
In the ancient world, names often indicated people’s identity & was something had either to live up to or live down.
Jacob received his name, which can be loosely translated “Grabby” (literally, “he grabs the heel”).
When Esau learns of how Jacob has stolen his blessing, he asks, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times” ( RSV).
The hero’s name also becomes the focus of the wrestling scene when the angel asks, “What is your name?” and then gives him a new name (“he who strives with God”) that redirects but does not obliterate Jacob’s essential identity as the one who strives and overcomes.
Results:
Jacob began to do what many of us do … CREATE DIVISION
He took the things that had value … assets … and he began to split them into two groups
Perhaps even more disturbing, he began to split the people into two groups.
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.
But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked.
Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”
Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down. Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.
Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?”
“To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said.
But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”
“No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it.
Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.”
But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”
Esau said, “Then let me leave some of my men with you.”
“But why do that?” Jacob asked. “Just let me find favor in the eyes of my lord.”
So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir. Jacob, however, went to Sukkoth, where he built a place for himself and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place is called Sukkoth.
After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city. For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.