Genesis Chapter 26 and 27

Chapter 26: 

Isaac and his family have to escape a famine like you do and runs into God for some good old fashioned covenant making like you do. God repeats the promise he made to Abraham about all the nations and babies and whatnot this family's going to produce down the line and Isaac says "cool."

Isaac goes to Abilemech's territory and like father like son that sunavabitch tells people that Rebekah is his sister. And Abilemech's all:

Isaac's excuse is that he doesn't want to die for his wife. Rebekah, like Isaac's mother Sarah, is super fine. Too fine for men not to have their way with her. These men will kill Isaac for such a chance. So the only way to make sure that they won't kill Isaac, is to tell these men that Rebekah isn't taken, just a sister, so you know, have at it. Isaac's more comfortable with his wife, the mother of his children, being raped by strangers because he can't risk dying for his wife. He's probably got altars to build. What swell guys in this story. Super romantic.

And Abimelech's all: "What is this though hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us." 

Let us take a moment to ruminate over the phrase "one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife." 

"Might lightly have lien?" Lightly? A light rape? Like someone falls into her on accident a couple of times? Which would have been just fine if she wasn't Isaac's wife? I mean...these are the good guys right? These are the protagonists? So like...what the hell were the Sodom and Gomorrah people up to if this behavior is just fine? I guess they must not have been into "lightly liens."

Anyway there's this whole thing with wells. Isaac's daddy Abraham built wells and Abimelech's servants filled those wells with dirts...because reasons. So Isaac and his people bravely go on an epic journey to re-dig the wells.
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Chapter 27:

Isaac gets old and blind. He tells his oldest jock son Esau/Thor to go get him venison as his last meal and he'll bless him. He's only got one blessing to give...because reasons. Rebekah overhears this conversation and does some scheming. She calls her mommaboy Jacob/Loki over and tells him to bring some of his flock's meat to his father and pretend to be his brother in order to obtain the one blessing Isaac has to give.

Jacob/Loki has some concerns about pretending to be his brother. Exact quote right here: "Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man." 

In more ways than one. Amiright?

Rebekah solves this problem by putting animal fur on her son's hands and dressing him in Esau's clothes. Jacob successfully gets the blessing from his dying father. Isaac is a little confused that Esau sounds like Jacob but decides that if he smells and feels like Esau, that's good enough. Blessings are like super powers in The Holy Bible. It sounds like Jacob's brother and his descendants will have to serve him and if anyone curses him, they're screwed.

Later Esau/Thor shows up with his venison. He goes to his confused father and figures out what Jacob/Loki has done. He begs his father to bless him as well.

Isaac: "Nope. I gave all the good ones to your brother already. You're his servant now btw."

Esau/Thor: "You sure? Sure there's not anything else? Like a time share you maybe forgot about?"

Isaac: "Okay okay. You're going to have a fat house and the dew of heaven but you're still your brother's servant until 'though shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.' "

I'm going to assume separating one's yoke from one's neck is a bad thing. So Esau/Thor's going to kill his brother. Rebekah overhears this because she's a nosy little lady and she relays the information to her mommaboy. She tells him to run off to relatives in Haran. This is probably the best chapter cliffhanger so far.

Genesis Chapter 23-5

Genesis Chapter 23: 

Sarah the foxy entrapping wife dies at 127 years old and was foxy to her last dying breath. Abraham talks to the people of Heth about where he can bury her. They say anywhere because he's special and blessed and whatnot. Abraham decides he'd like to bury her in Ephron's field and Ephron lets him for 300 shekels. There isn't any arguing or entrapping or attempted son killing or plaguing. Things just happen without anyone invoking the wrath of God.

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Genesis Chapter 24: 

Abraham decides it's time for his son to marry because at this time this is something parents can do. He sends a servant to find his son a wife because people don't do their own wooing in this book, they get other people to do it. It's a lot like this website I saw where rich busy men can't be bothered to actually communicate with women so they get modern day servants to ghostwrite as the men to message women online for them. I'm sure this leads to healthy stable relationships in the future.

For some reason when Abraham talks to people he requires that they touch his thigh:

"Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh"

and

"And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter."

The servant has some doubts about finding a girl willing to go all the way to Isaac; it's not that young women have a problem marrying strangers, it's the travel time. Abraham says not to worry because angels will take care of it. Angels always take care of it. The servant finally agrees after pinky promising with Abraham's thigh and ventures out to find a low maintenance virgin. The servant finds said virgin pretty easily by a body of water, she's very accommodating and trusting.

She takes him back to her family who immediately believe the servant that God wants their daughter to go off with this strange man to marry another strange man. Their one stipulation was for their daughter, Rebekah, to stay another 10 days with them to say their goodbyes. The servant says absolutely not because God's on a tight schedule. The family relents but it all works out because they get paid with jewels and sheep probably. The girl doesn't argue or have problem with any of this at all which tells you this was written by men. Clearly James and Jesus have never interacted with a teenage girl in their whole life.

Luckily Rebekah seems to like Isaac. When she sees him, she jumps off her horse very dramatically and presumably the wind whips her long locks of hair around while Isaac takes her in his arms and immediately to his tent where he gets to "know" her. Best funeral present ever.
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Chapter 25: 

Abraham takes another wife named Keturah because he's not going to let incredibly old age stop him from producing as many children as there are stars. Theres more begatting and I'm not giving you a circus story this time.

Abraham also has concubines because he is basically Hugh Hefner. He gives his bastard children gifts and sends them away from his one precious legitimate son Isaac.

Abraham lives to be 175 and was probably begatting and/or altar building down to his dying breath. His sons Isaac and Ishmael bury him with Sarah. After Abraham dies, God blesses Isaac because he likes to play mind games with brothers. There's some more begatting from Ishmael's side but nothing more interesting than that which is a shame because I really thought he would have more Robin Hood like adventures.

Isaac's special water serving wife Rebekah is barren. Some men like long legs or big breasts, but the Abraham family seems to have a thing for defective ovaries. Isaac gets in touch with God and God just fixes it without putting him through all the crap he did to Abraham to have a kid. Rebekah has twins which God says will be two nations. One will be stronger and the older will have to serve the younger. It's all very ominous.

The slightly older twin is Esau who comes out red "like an hairy garment." I do not pretend to understand this analogy. Jacob comes second holding onto Esau's heel. As they grow up, Esau is essentially the golden boy jock loved by his father while Jacob the mama's boy is the sensitive artsy one, making pottage. Think Thor and Loki.

One day Esau comes from the field and is faint and apparently dying? Sooo why was Esau on the verge of dying? What kind of family is this? Do their parents just...not feed them? It sounds pretty urgent. Esau asks his little brother to help him out and feed him some delicious red pottage. I guess that's...food? Jacob's kind of a dick and won't feed his dying brother unless:

"Sell me this day thy birthright."

See what I was talking about?

Why can't brothers just get along in this book? Is that the theme? I'm sensing that's the theme. Anyway Esau sells his birthright for pottage. I'm not really sure what selling your birthrate entails but it doesn't sound pleasant. The chapter ends with Esau despising his birthright.

Genesis Chapter 21 and 22

Chapter 21: 

God keeps his promise and helps give the 90-year-old Sarah fertility treatments until she gives birth to Isaac. Abraham keeps his promise and circumcises Isaac once he is 8 days old. Sarah gets really paranoid about Abraham's other son Ishmael "mocking" her new perfect family. She's kind of had it out for the slave girl Hagar, who she suggested conceive with her husband in the first place, because Sarah does not know what the hell she wants. She demands that Abraham send his own son and Hagar away. Two words: high maintenance. Catelyn Stark was a way better wife.

Abraham understandably has some qualms about sending his firstborn away. God tells Abraham not to worry and just give into Sarah's demands because that seems like the easier option. "You know how she gets." God will look out for Ishmael and make sure he gets a nation. God gives away nations like Oprah gives away cars.

Modern day God.

 Abraham sends Hagar and his firstborn off with a bottle of water and some bread off into the wilderness. If this were a fairy tale, Sarah would be an evil stepmother and Abraham would be the pushover father. Hagar's water bottle runs out and she figures they're doomed. She stashes little Ishmael under a shrub because she does not want to see him die a slow dehydrated death and why couldn't Sarah get turned into a pillar of salt?

God hears the cries of Hagar and Ishmael and sends down an angel:

"Hey Hagar? Hey. Open your eyes. There's a well like right in front of your face."

And with that, their lives are saved and Ishmael grows up in the wilderness and learns to be a kickass archer like Robin Hood. Ishmael also finds himself a wife and by that, I mean his mother does in a vague, questionable way that only the bible would throw in casually:

"and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt."

I'm going to pretend that "took him a wife" involved consent and personal choice for everyone involved.

Abimelech the last guy Abraham and Sarah attempted to entrap, allowed the possibly semi incestuous couple to live on his land anyway because he's just that kind of guy. Abimelech goes to Abraham and asks that he always deals fairly with himself and his future descendants. Abraham says "Sure, but what about your servants who took away the well I built? Abimelech replies: "Well, I literally just heard about this from you 2 seconds ago so how was I supposed to do anything about it if you don't communicate with me?" Abraham is terrible with communication. Abi agrees to fix the issue and the two make a covenant with animal parts because that's what you do. Abraham grows some stuff on the land in God's name and things are good.

Chapter 22: 

I'm just going to say it. In this chapter, God is kind of a dick. There it is. "Hey Abraham you know that only son you love so much? (*cough* Ishmael *cough*) That son that I promised you'd have so long as you served me for years? That son we all made such a big deal about? I need you to go ahead and kill him for me. Just cause."

And Abraham doesn't question God's wishes this time. He at least bargained with him a little bit with the Sodom and Gomorrah thing. He questioned God killing off the innocent along with the sinners. Not this time though. He just loads his son up on an ass and gets to doing some morning filicide. He tells Isaac that he needs to go worship God and make an offering.

 Isaac: "Hey uh, where's the lamb?"

Abraham: "God will provide the lamb."

Clever answer Abraham. God did provide "the lamb" didn't he? You people are sick. Here's another lego reenactment because these things exist:

by Brendan Powell Smith. all rights reserved "The Brick Testament" 
http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html

Just as Abraham gets ready to knife his son up on the altar, God sends an angel.

"Woah, woah, hey just kidding. Didn't think you were actually going to do that. God knows you're loyal and fear him and stuff now."

God sounds a bit like a mafia leader. Gots to kill to show your loyalty. God makes a bunch more promises about the awesome plentiful seed Abraham is going to have now because he was willing to kill his son for him and I'm sure Abraham will get many "World's Greatest Dad" mugs to come, from the children he didn't try to murder.