1. Sorry for the lack of bible blogging last week. I was sick and incapable of doing much more than napping and eating.
2. I will make up for this by posting 2X this week. Today and Thursday (Fridayish for my Korea bound friends).
3. I am bad with technology but have recently figured out how to add a follow button. It was strenuous. So if you'd like to follow the blog (you should) press the blue "Join this site" button to the left side below the blog summary...near the top of the page. Ok now to the bible.
Chapter 28:
Jacob's not allowed to marry foreign chicks. Part of Isaac's blessing was for him to go off and marry his cousin. So he goes off to do that. Back to ADD Esau who gets side tracked from murdering his thieving brother with thoughts of marriage. Esau unfortunately missed out on the privilege of marrying a cousin. He is faced with the burden of marrying foreign chicks instead. So he goes and does that.
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| Poor poor Esau. |
Jacob then has a trippy dream sequence where he sees a ladder to heaven. Cue the Led Zeppelin soundtrack. Jacob sees angels doing angely things. One of the angels assures Jacob that he's going to have outstanding seed so long as he continues with his family's tradition of serving God. Sperm and the removal of foreskin is very important to these people. The assurance of robust seed is important at a time when all the women who aren't slaves are barren. After Jacob wakes up, he names the area he saw the ladder in "Bethel" which means House of God. There you go. You learned something.
Jacob isn't as fully satisfied with the God pact as Abraham or Isaac once were. He's wily. He wants God to sweeten the deal. He agrees to not only worship God, but he'll even throw in 10% of his earnings if God throws in some food and clothes. God accepts said deal. This is during a time when negotiating your worship of God in exchange for material goods was acceptable.
Chapter 29:
Jacob continues on his cousin marrying quest when he comes across some sheep surrounding a well. The poor sheep can't get any water because there's a rock blocking the well mouth. Jacob gets all heroic and tells the sheep they are his brethren (maybe there were people around but I prefer to think he was talking to the sheep). He tells the sheep not to worry and removes the big rock all by himself. Robust God blessed sperm gives you super strength.
Jacob meets a pastoral hottie named Rachel who is luckily(?) his cousin. The outcome is very different from Arrested Development; he is in fact encouraged to follow through with this attraction. Jacob makes a deal with Rachel's father, his uncle Laban, that he will work for 7 years in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage. Laban's a little shifty and after the 7 years, gives Jacob his older daughter Leah instead. Jacob is very displeased but in all fairness, maybe Jacob should have bothered to look at his new wife's face before consummating the marriage.
They strike up another deal. Jacob offers another 7 years of service for Rachel to be his second, simultaneous wife. Laban agrees but is so generous that he lets Jacob go ahead and take Rachel as his wife while serving the 7 years, because ovaries have an expiration date.
Jacob of course gives Rachel more attention in the marriage triangle. God takes pity on Leah so decides to make Rachel barren and gives Leah a super uterus. Leah has a bagillion sons.
Chapter 30:
Rachel gets jealous of Leah's super uterus. God changes his mind about Rachel and "harkened to her, and opened her womb." God does a lot of womb opening in these chapters, yet doesn't have to pay any child support. Rachel and Leah have their own baby making olympics that even includes their handmaids. Luckily, Jacob has an unlimited supply of super sperm and what must be the stamina of a wild stallion. Just about all the babies are boys; this family's going to be a real sausage fest.
When every woman involved in this orgy of a marriage has enough kids to start their own basketball team, Jacob decides it's time to move away from Laban; he asks for his wages and his freedom. Laban wants to continue to reap the benefits of secondhand God blessing from Jacob. Jacob points out that Laban has a lot more than before Jacob came but now it's time for Jacob to move on and provide for his own enormous nuclear family.
Laban asks what Jacob wants as payment. As mentioned before Jacob is wily so he comes up with a wily arrangement. He suggests that he gets all the spotted and speckled cattle and goats and brown sheep. Laban tries to be tricky once again and removes all the spotted and speckled from the flocks and hides them with his sons. But Jacob has a trick up his sleeve.
"And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink."
So uh...looking at speckled sticks makes animals conceive speckled babies? I guess? It's uh it's psychology.
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