Genesis 50; Exodus 1-2

FINALLY I have finished the first part of the book Genesis and all of it's exciting begatting and characters with strange logic. I can now move on to the second book titled "Exodus the Second Book of Moses." I had one pesky chapter of genesis left so let's get that out of the way real quick.

Chapter 50 Genesis: 

Joseph buries Jacob where he said he was going to without any problems. The children of Jacob/Israel live happily ever after. Moving on.

I think that effort deserves a celebrational gif:

I am 50 chapters into this book and according to my kindle, 4% of the way finished. At this rate, I might finish this blog just before I die, if I stay healthy.

Chapter 1:

So the Jacob clan continue what the bible folk are good at, begatting. After many a year, there is a new king of Egypt who never knew Joseph who helped the king before him so he doesn't have any loyalty. He mostly just has hate and paranoia. He decides that those Hebrews do far too much begatting and could be a threat against the Egyptians someday. So to prevent them from becoming future enemies, he enslaves them to make pyramids and such. He also tells a couple of midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill any Hebrew baby boys. Girls don't count.

The midwives do not do this because they are not monsters. They lie to the Pharaoh and God rewards them with some houses. The Pharaoh is super pissed and order that all Egyptians should kill Hebrew boys by throwing them into the river.

This panda properly conveys how I feel about babies being thrown into rivers:

Chapter 2: 

There is a Hebrew boy named Moses born who is a descendent of Levi. His mother hides him in some bushes by the river and the Pharaoh's daughter finds him and takes pity. She sends for a Hebrew midwife to nurse him. An Egyptian midwife wouldn't do because Hebrew babies need Kosher nips. The Pharaoh's daughter takes Moses as her own son.

The book skips over Moses's growing up and teenage angst. Now he is a grown man and sees an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew. Moses diplomatically and passionately speaks to the Egyptian and convinces him violence and prejudice is wrong. JK he just murders him and hides the body. Fantastic role model. On the second day, Moses sees two Hebrews fighting. He asks them why they would fight when they are brethren. The Hebrews get sassy:

"Who made thee a prince and judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killdest the Egyptian?"

i.e. "Who made you the boss? Are you going to kill us like to did the Egyptian? Is that how you solve all your problems Moses?"

Moses realizes that word has spread about his murdering and decides to flee. He goes to Midian and sits by a well and meets 7 daughters of a priest. He helps them water their flock and his minor effort convinces their father that Moses should get one of his daughters as a wife. Is that the second or third time someone's gotten a wife by sitting around a well? It's pretty easy to land yourself a wife in this book. They're practically handing them out. Hold a door open? Bam wife. Buy a lady a drink? You could probably marry her and her sister.

And now you shall bare my children.

Back to Egypt. The children of Israel/Jacob cry about their plight and God hears them and suddenly remembers that covenant he made to protect the Hebrews. Must have gotten it smudged on his calendar.

Genesis Chapter 46-49

Chapter 46: 

Jacob takes his whole family to Egypt with God's blessing. There's a big list of everyone's names. Jacob reunites with Joseph and says that he can die now. I thought he might literally die on the spot because that seems like something that would happen in this book. Joseph tells his family that they must be cattle people now because Egyptians aren't into sheep people. Sheep people are no longer stylish.

Sheep are so last season.

Chapter 47:

Back to that famine thing. Apparently, the famine is so bad that people are feinting from hunger now. The cost of corn is going up and people can't afford to pay anymore. Joseph cuts them a deal that they can trade their livestock in for food. They can trade they're walking, living, breathing food, for corn. They are trading in what could be prime rib and frozen yogurt for...corn. People then run out of livestock to trade so they offer themselves and their land. They offer to sell themselves as servants to the Pharaoh. Joseph's such a nice guy that he takes them up on their offer to sell themselves into slavery. They buy up everyone's land in Egypt and give them seeds to grow food. He tells them that they get to keep 4/5ths of the crops but 1/5th goes to the Pharaoh. So...they just had those seeds laying around the whole time did they? Couldn't...plant them before in these last 7 years to stop the famine? This famine thing is a half-assed plot device.

Jacob/Israel knows he's dying. He calls his son over for his favorite thing, thigh caressing: 

"I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me"

 He tells Joseph that he doesn't want to be buried in Egypt. His body must be taken to where his own fathers are buried.

Chapter 48: 

Jacob blesses Joseph's two sons. His vision isn't great and he puts his favorable blessing hand on the younger son Ephraim. Joseph is a little annoyed, thinking his father is having a senile moment and tries to switch his father's hands. 

"Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head." 

Jacob informs his son that this is not a senile thing. The younger son, Ephraim, is going to be better and have awesome seed. I think this is probably because Jacob still has some issues about being the less favored younger brother who had to steal his blessing. He's passing his daddy issues down onto his son. 

Then Jacob says: "Behold, I die." I hope I get to say that when I die. 

Chapter 49: 

Ok I guess Jacob STILL isn't actually dead. He calls all his sons together to insult them a bunch. Reuben is unstable and "shalt not excel" because he slept with his father's prostitute. Thought he'd just forget about that eh Reuben? Simeon and Levi are "instruments of cruelty" because they slaughtered a bunch of people for their raped sister. 

Yolo.

Jacob then proceeds to bless his other less shitty sons. He compares Judah to a lion and says that his future offspring will be royalty and have money and wine and stuff. Even though Judah did some messed up stuff such as suggest that his younger brother Joseph be sold into slavery and screwing around with his daughter in law, he redeemed himself by risking himself a couple of chapters ago. I am not going to review how he did this because I can't make it sound funny, just go back and read the blog. Zebulun gets the sea or ships or something. Isaachar gets called a "strong ass" but in a nice way. He's going to have burdens. Probably slavery burdens. Dan will be a serpent and does anyone else think Jacob's blessings are starting to sound like zodiac horoscopes? I don't think this whole blessing will thing would be legally binding today. 

Anyway, Dan's a snake that's going to bite horse heels which probably isn't a good thing. Gad will have a troop overcome him but...he's going to be ok in the end. Asher will have royally fat bread. Naphtali is a deer let loose. Joseph is a fruitful bough? By a well? I wish I could make this make more sense. Just...so many damn metaphors in this. I need pictures. Diagrams. Something. 

Jacob continues with the fruitful bough metaphor. Joseph is a fruitful bough. His brothers are archers with shitty aim. Joseph is special and will be blessed with breasts and wombs. 

Benjamin, the cute youngest brother that Joseph was so fond of will be a ravenous wolf. He will devour pray and just be generally awesome and horrifying. It's always the cute ones. 

Jacob reminds them that they better make sure he gets buried in the right place. 

The End. 

Fuck metaphors.  

Genesis Chapter 42-45

Chapter 42:

The famine's still going on and it's so bad that it spreads past Egypt where Joseph's horrible brothers live. Jacob/Israel sends his sons out to go get corn. Everyone in the world is stuck eating corn for 7 years. I just need to emphasize this. All the brothers except for the youngest go out to Egypt to retrieve the only food left and meet up with the brother they sold into slavery. Joseph hides his face and proceeds to mindfuck with his brothers over the course of the next couple of chapters as he well should.

He claims that he thinks that his brothers are a bunch of spies and has them locked up. Good start. He asks them about their family, if they have another brother and if their father is alive. They tell him yes to both questions. Joseph then tells them that the only way he can trust that they're not spies is if they send the youngest brother back to him. He will let them all go except for Simeon who has to stay tied up in Egypt as collateral. The brothers think that this is retribution for what they did to their brother. They are very intuitive.

He sends them off with tons of corn and sneaks the money they were going to use to pay for the corn back in their bags. This serves to make the brothers super paranoid. They explain what happened to their father and insist that they need to take Benjamin, the youngest back to Egypt so they don't get in trouble. Reuben promises that he'll bring Benjamin back to Jacob and even offers to kill two of his own sons, Jacob's grandsons, if he fails. Yes, because after losing 4 sons, the thing that would cheer Jacob up is to kill off some grandkids. Reuben is an idiot but at least his sandwiches are nice.

Chapter 43:

Jacob has still refused to send Benjamin after all this time. I guess he didn't really like Simeon all that much to begin with. Eventually they run out of food and Alzheimer Jacob's all:

"Hey go get more food."

And his sons are all:

"Hey remember when we were called spies and locked up and how one of your sons is still locked up? Remember when that happened?"

They insist again that they need to take the youngest Benjamin to Egypt if they want more food...and also if they want to free that other brother or whatever. Eventually Jacob agrees and sends Judah with Benjamin along with the original money, more money, and treats for the mysterious man who locked them up. Here's where I get confused. They say there's a famine and all there is to eat is corn one minute and the next, Jacob's family has honey and almonds to send. Almonds beat out corn every time. Why haven't they been eating almonds?

So they all head out and meet up with Joseph again but they still don't know it's Joseph. Joseph has a weird emotional moment when he sees his younger brother Benjamin:

"And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother"

I care a lot about my little brother too but I can't say that my bowels have ever yearned for him. I guess I just don't love enough.

Joseph comes off as really generous. He frees Simeon and they all have dinner together but not with the Egyptians because Egyptians don't eat with Hebrews; that would be an abomination.

They give the money and snacks to Joseph and all is well. When the brothers are sleeping, Joseph has their bags packed with the money again along with food and a silver cup put in Benjamin's bag.

Chapter 44:

Once they head out, Joseph sends his steward after them to accuse them of stealing. See? Mindfucking. He has them brought back and says that the one who has the silver cup in his bag must stay and be his servant. Perhaps this is because Benjamin and Joseph share the same mother unlike the other brothers and he feels a special connection or perhaps this is because Joseph's bowels yearn for Benjamin.

Judah goes on and on about how giving him Benjamin would just kill their father. Benjamin is the only son Jacob has left from the wife he actually wanted to marry in the first place, the other son is gone. This moves Joseph to reveal himself.

Chapter 45: 

Joseph finally reveals who he is to his brothers. He tells them that he's totally over the slavery thing. That actually they didn't do this to him, God did. God had a plan for him to save everyone from the famine. Joseph is the most optimistic guy ever. It makes me a little sick. Joseph sends his brothers to get his father so that he can see him again. He tells them that they can come and live with him in Egypt and he will take care of them during the famine. Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin return to Jacob who is super thrilled that Joseph is alive. Here's how I imagine the conversation:

"Hey dad! Good news! Your favorite son's alive!"

"OMG this is great news."

"Yeah! And he's practically the king of Egypt!"

"How did he get to Egypt? Wasn't he supposed to be killed by an animal or something?"

"Ummmm....."

Genesis Chapter 39-41

Chapter 39: 

Now we're back to the adventures of Joseph, the brother sold to slavery in Egypt. He's a good and prosperous little slave and his master makes him the top slave of the house.  Joseph brings good luck with him just like his father Jacob did. They've got that God luck. The master's wife is pretty into Joseph and takes to sexually harassing him. Joseph explains to her his reservations:

"Hey, do you want me to die? Is that what you want? Your vagina is not worth dying for."

Actually he was more noble about it and said the master gave him everything a master could give aside from his wife (or freedom) and taking advantage would not be very cool.

The wife doesn't particularly care. One day, all the men are gone from the house except for Joseph. She grabs onto his "garment" aggressively. Here's a reenactment.

Joseph panics and runs from her, leaving his "garment" behind in her hand. I'm going to assume garment means pants. The bored housewife decides to call rape just for funsies. When all the men return, she tells them that Joseph tried to seduce her until she screamed and he ran away. She's got his pants as proof after all. She lays on a guilt trip pretty thick for her husband:

"The Hebrew servant, which though hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me" i.e. This is your fault for hiring a Hebrew.

The husband is none too pleased and sends Joseph to prison but Joseph carries his God luck to prison too. God makes the guy in charge there like Joseph, so Joseph is rewarded with the responsibility of looking after the other prisoners and being held responsible for their actions. I fail to see how this is a reward.

Chapter 40: 

The Pharaoh of Egypt gets pissed off at his butler and baker for some reason and sends them to jail with Joseph. Both the men have strange dreams and Joseph offers to interpret for them because that's something he does. The butler has a dream that he comes across a vine with three branches budding with grapes. He takes the grapes and serves them in a cup to the Pharaoh. Joseph has good news. The butler is going to be restored to his position in three days and get the privilege of serving another man. Oh joy. Joseph asks the butler to tell the pharaoh about him and how he was wrongly put in prison.

Now onto the baker's dream. He dreams that he carries three white baskets on his head filled with meat pastries for the pharaoh but the birds eat them form the baskets first. So that means he's going to be restored in three days in serve the pharaoh again right? Joseph's got some bad news and doesn't bother to break it easily.

"Yeah so in three days the pharaoh's going to hang you and birds will eat your flesh."

The people in this book could really benefit from some sensitivity training.

The dream prophecies come to pass but the butler forgets all about telling the pharaoh about Joseph. I bet the baker would have remembered.

Chapter 41: 

The pharaoh has bad dreams about fish and corn. Seven fat fish are eaten by seven thin fish and seven rich ears of corn are...eaten somehow by seven thin ears of corn. The evil corn must have looked like this:

The pharaoh is very upset about all this and sends for wise men and dream interpreters around the world but no one can figure it out. The butler finally has a lightbulb moment and remembers Joseph. They bring the dream master in. Joseph rarely has good news. The dreams mean that there will be seven prosperous years for Egypt followed by a seven year famine. He recommends that they store up as much corn as possible over the years to prepare.

The pharaoh is pleased by the idea so much that he makes Joseph the new leader of Egypt. Joseph gets promotions very quickly. The pharaoh still gets to be the pharaoh but Joseph gets to do all the fun responsibility stuff a leader's supposed to do. The pharaoh gets Joseph a wife because that's how bible promotions work.

The famine comes along as promised and everyone gets to eat corn for seven years which is the most tragic thing in the book so far.

Genesis Chapter 37-38

Chapter 37:

Israel, the prophet formally known as Jacob has a favorite son, Joseph. He loves Joseph, the baby of the family, so much he gives him a fabulous multi-colored jacket.

Naturally Joseph's brothers are jealous of this special treatment and Joseph's sweet jacket. Joseph goes ahead and makes things worse for himself by having prophetic dreams. He dreams that he will rule over all his brethren. He then blabs and brags about it to everyone. The prophet formally known as Jacob is also concerned about these dreams. He decides that the best course of action when his favorite child is hated by all his brothers is to send him out by himself to check if his brethren are cool with him ruling them.

Joseph's brothers see him from a distance and start scheming. They debate whether to kill their brother. The concubine loving Reuben comes up with a cleaner solution, that they merely leave Joseph in a pit to die rather than actually kill him themselves. So they throw Joseph in a pit and do brunch. As they're brunching, traders heading to Egypt stop by and Judah suggests "hey, why don't we make money from our brother instead? Let's sell him as a slave." Sibling rivalry is really extreme in this book. So they sell their brother into slavery for 20 pieces of silver, then bloody up his gorgeous jacket with goat bits. They show the evidence to Jacob/Israel who is very sad and gullible. The traders sell Joseph to higher up political Egyptians that are apart of the Pharaoh's court.

Chapter 38:

Weird kinky confusing stuff happens in this chapter. Judah (the brother who suggested selling Joseph as a slave) goes to hang out with an Adullamite named Hirah and sees a nice girl named Shuah:

"And he took her, and he went in unto her."

They do that a few times until they have 3 sons: Er, Onan, and Shellah. I'm unclear whether it was consensual or if there was marriage. I think she's just a baby mama. When the sons grow up a bit, Judah goes on down to the biblical wife store and gets his son Er a wife named Tamar. Apparently Lord God didn't particularly like Er and decides to slay him. Because reasons. Judah insists that his second son Onan then marry Tamar to keep the family line. Onan knows that when Tamar has a baby, it will be his brother's and not his and for some reason...doesn't want to mix up the seed?:

"when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled IT on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother." 

So Onan uh...pulled out? God decides to kill him too because God's not a fan of pulling out. Tamar's not having the greatest luck with men. Judah tells Tamar to just hang on and stay a widow until his youngest son Shellah's old enough to marry her. Later on, Judah's wife dies and "Judah was comforted" because Judah is a dick. Judah celebrates his new found bachelorhood by going to a new town with his buddy Hirah. Tamar the widow wife decides to meet up with him. She changes out of her widow's clothes into a veil that a prostitute would wear to...seduce him. It would be nice if someone explained this character's motivations to me. I don't understand most of these people. They just seem to do things. Things just happen. This book is chaos. Is this a nihilist book? Anyway, Tamar goes and hangs out in the road until her father-in-law shows up.

Joseph propositions her with his majorly smooth skills:

"let me come in unto thee"

i.e. "Can I put it in?"

Judah doesn't know he's trying to buy the sexy services of his daughter in law. This book is just like one long Jerry Springer episode. He offers her a goat as payment. I know this is the time of bartering but I find the idea of trying to buy sex with a goat vastly amusing and I hope that one of you someday try to offer a prostitute a goat for his/her services for my sake.

Tamar says that she's going to need some collateral until that goat's delivered on her doorstep. She asks that he give her his staff (teehee), his signet, and his bracelets. He agrees and they do some conceiving. Judah sends the goat to be delivered with his pal Hirah and expects to get his stuff back. The girl cannot be found so Judah goes on a door to door harlot search. Everyone assures him that this is a family friendly environment and therefore harlot free. He eventually finds out that Tamar is the lady in the veil and he insists that she be burned. Men are swell. Tamar's a tricky lady herself and tells everyone that she has his baby in her belly and she has his collateral items to prove it.

Judah kindly leaves Tamar to be a single mother and never sees her again. Tamar has twins. The birth is kind of horror movie creepy. One kid starts to come out, reaching out with one hand, and the midwife puts a scarlet thread around his wrist then the kid decides he's not ready just yet and draws his hand back. The other one comes on out and Tamar names him "Pharez." The noncommittal baby with the scarlet thread finally comes out and she names him Zarah. I was curious if babies reaching their hand out during birth was a thing. I used google images. If you feel like ruining your day a little bit, you can do the same.

Genesis Chapter 34-36

Hello Bible Blog readers. I missed something last time and a reader commented. The part I misunderstood is when Rebekah steals her fathers' expensive idols and hides them in her tent. She hides them under some camel furniture and sits on it. She says:

"Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women IS upon me."

I didn't really know what this meant. I thought maybe "the custom of women" meant that women weren't supposed to stand up in the presence of men in tents or something. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me but actually "the custom of women" means their "lady time." Rebekah was pretending to be on her "lady time." Men are squeamish about "lady time." Tampax wasn't a thing yet so if she stood up, things would get gross.

Now that that's all cleared up, onward.

Chapter 34:

Dinah, Jacob's only daughter goes on a stroll to get to know the other young girls in their new home. She meets the son of a prince, Shechem, who is very taken with her. I thought maybe this moment would lead to long flowing romance novel hair, jumping off of horses and running to embrace each other much like Isaac's romance. Instead, we get rape. Schechem rapes Dinah. Schechem is not a very nice prince's son. I'm going to go ahead and picture him like this:

Schechem and his father Hamor the prince, go out to meet with Jacob and his sons to say "sorry." Just kidding, they suggest that Jacob's family marry Dinah off to her rapist and in addition that they marry all their daughters to the Hamor clan and the Hamor clan will marry their daughters off to the Jacob clan. If you recall, the Jacob family isn't into marrying foreign. They like to keep it in the family. Also, shockingly, they're not fond of the idea of marrying Dinah off to her rapist. I do not mean this sarcastically. I do find it shocking. Finally, girl rape matters.

Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi are devious bastards much like their father. They have their sister's back. I'm going to picture them this way:

They explain that they couldn't possibly marry Dinah off to an uncircumcised man. Rapist? sure, but not a foreskin wearer; they're not barbarians. In fact, if the Hamor family wants to have a marriage agreement with the Jacob family, their entire clan will have to remove their fleshy anteaters. The prince and his son are happy with this agreement and run off to tell their clansmen the good news. I'm sure the clansmen are equally thrilled with the proposal. Once the clan all gets circumcised, they're fairly sore and weak, that's when the brothers make their move:

"Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males."

Was this an excessive method of protecting their sister? Sure. But will a man ever rape Dinah again? Probably not, because they're all dead now. A man won't so much as make eye contact with Dinah again.

Jacob is displeased and tells them that they will have to move again before vengeance is taken. The brothers sound pretty remorseful about slaughtering an entire clan of people:

"And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?"

i.e. "Yeah, we'd do it again."

Chapter 35:

God tells them to return to Bethel. Nobody bothers them on the trip because Simeon and Levi are terrifying. On the way some people die. First Rebekah's nurse and later Rebekah during childbirth. It's ok though, because she has a baby boy and he survives. It would have been a real tragedy if she gave her life for a baby girl. God reminds Jacob to stop calling himself Jacob, his new nickname is Israel and he has to stick with it. And then this little tidbit is thrown in:

"And it came to pass, when Israel (Jacob) dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve." 

1. Two wives not enough Jacob? Two wives and their maids not enough? Had to get a concubine too? It's a good thing super gonorrhea wasn't around then.
2. There is no follow up. Jacob heard his son Reuben getting it on with his concubine and...that's it. I thought maybe the sentence "Now the sons of Jacob were twelve" implied that Jacob killed Reuben off but I went back and did the counting, same number of kids as before. J&J have terrible transition skills.

Anyway, Jacob visits his dad Isaac who dies at 180. Esau and Jacob bury him.

Chapter 36: 

Esau married foreign chicks. Those chicks had babies. And those babies have babies. And so forth.

Genesis Chapter 31-33

Hello kind people who read my blog. As promised I am blogging 2X this week because you deserve it. I mean this positively. I am not punishing you. If you want to follow the blog you can press the "join this site" button near the top left, bellow the summary or you can like it on facebook.

Onward.

Chapter 31:

We start off with Laban being a little miffed that all the new farm animals being born aren't perfectly white, which means they belong to Jacob. In fact, just about all of them will belong to Jacob. Though it turns out Jacob's speckled stick psychology trick didn't have anything to do with it, it was that sweet God blessing insurance.

God: "You are blessed so I took care of it."

Jacob: "So my speckled sticks didn't work?"

God: "I'm concerned with your grasp of science Jacob."

Jacob knows he's going to have some in-law issues now and gathers his ladies to share his side of the story. "I'm just going to say it. Your father's being kind of a dick." The women agree. They're not pleased with the loss of money and are down to run away with Jacob. Jacob only takes the cattle, sheep, and goats that are his when they run off but the little sister Rachel has other ideas. She steals her fathers "gods" i.e. fancy schmancy idols made of expensive things.

Laban is displeased and sets out to chase the family down. Even though he has a dream where God threatens him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob, "better keep that conversation neutral" he still accuses Jacob's family of theft. Jacob is deeply offended; he only steals identities, not objects. Laban and his men search everyone's tent for the stolen idols but save Rachel's tent for last. She's super sneaky. She hides the images in "camel furniture" and sits on top of it. When Laban and his men enter the tent, they search everywhere but the camel furniture because she won't move:

"Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women IS upon me."

i.e. Oh sorry I can't move. Guess your patriarchy's keeping me down.

When the search is finished, Jacob has a hissy fit. He goes on for awhile about how he served Laban for 20 years, never stole anything, served his daughters, his cattle, etc. even though Laban tricked him and changed his wages 10 times, points out that Laban probably would have screwed him over more if it weren't for the God blessing.

Laban's response "These are MY daughters and their children are MY children, and these cattle are MY cattle. So you know what THAT means? Means you're my family and it'd be a shame to lose you guys. Want to make a covenant?"

Jacob grabs one of his comfy rock friends invites everyone to set up a rock friend of their own. This separates Laban's land from Jacob's land. They solve their problems like bad roommates.

Chapter 32:

Jacob goes back to his family's land. He sends a message out to Esau to let him know he's back. Esau sends a message back that he will meet Jacob with 400 men. This concerns Jacob since Esau has a lot to be angry for and might murder Jacob and all his people. Jacob splits his people into two so that way only one half dies. You're cool with that right Jacob's slaves? Oh right it doesn't matter if you're cool with that.

Jacob sends a gift to Esau of just a whole bunch of animals as a peace offering. I also get people food when I think they might be mad at me. Jacob then sends his family away for safety. Then...something I don't really understand happens. Jacob meets a stranger and wrestles with him...all night? Then there's some...thigh action?

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh."

...so that happens.

Maybe I just have a dirty mind. Maybe it doesn't go down like I'm picturing it at all. Let's google image that:

Totally platonic. 

 When the sun rises the stranger comes to his senses and is all "stop touching me." And Jacob's all "no silly not 'til you bless me." Jacob is very aggressive when it comes to negotiating with higher powers. The stranger asks Jacob what his name is. When Jacob tells his name, the stranger's all "No, no you're Israel now." This is the type of person who immediately forces nicknames on people. He gives him this name because it means prince. "You're such a prince let's wrestle some more." Jacob asks his name but we don't find out because reasons. Jacob name's the wrestling place "Peniel" which uh sounds a lot like...uh. I'm just going to say it. Penis. It sounds like penis. Jacob wants to commemorate his thigh touching wrestling experience by naming a place a name that sounds like penis. There. Said it. As Jacob moves along, the sun rises and stops at his thigh, specifically the hollow of Jacob's thigh. SYMBOLISM. Probably.

Chapter 33: 

As the sun rises, Jacob sees Esau and his 400 men approaching. He bows to his brother 7 times. Esau runs and gives his brother a big old bear hug. They kiss and weep. Esau's excited to meet Jacob's family like the big goofy uncle you'd picture Thor to be. Then Esau's all "what's with all the animals you sent me?" Jacob: "Because I was a royal prick." Esau: "Don't even worry about it. Take your walking food back." Jacob: "No you keep it." Esau: "No. No. I insist." This goes on.