First off, I'll try to keep this entry short. I apologize for the length of the last one, but I had A LOT to talk about.
We begin today at the death of Sarah at the ripe old impossible age of 127. Pshyeah, right. Should I even waste a sentence by mentioning (again) that God limited human lifespan to 120 years? Sadly, that's the only thing in chapter 23 worth mentioning. After the attempted child sacrifice in chapter 22, the Bible gets boring fast. Sarah dies, and Abraham buys a family burial plot from the Hittites. So let's scoot on over to chapter 24, where Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for Isaac.
Chapter 24
This chapter isn't incredibly interesting either. Abraham tasks one of his slaves to find a wife for Isaac. But he makes him swear not to find him a wife from among the Canaanite people. To make the oath, Abraham says, "Put your hand under my thigh…" This is a euphemism for "grab my nuts". No, seriously. The similarity between the words "testicle" and "testify" is not a coincidence! It was pretty common when making oaths to swear while holding the man's testicles you were swearing to.
Abraham made him go back to his father's house and find a wife. Whut? Yeah…go find a close relative for my son to marry. Obviously, they had a much looser definition of incest at this time. So he brings back Rebekah, Isaac's first cousin once removed. Par for the course back in the day.
The servant saw her getting water at the well and she was, "…very fair to look upon, a virgin, who no man had known." Of course she's gorgeous. What is the author of this story gonna say? "she was OK looking…you know, just kinda 'office hot'. Not really anything special to look at." You'll never see that. All the Bible's heroes had hot wives. And yeah, she's a virgin, of course. And you can tell that right away. Ummm, is that good? Any time you can TELL a person is a virgin just by LOOKING at them…usually not a good thing.
Chapter 25
1-20
Abraham apparently senses this his time is coming to an end, so he goes on a fucking rampage – literally! He goes out with a bang by re-marrying and having a crapload more kids. In 25.6, it mentions that he also had concubines. Whut? I remember distinctly when I first read the Bible that this was the point where I finally looked this word up. Needless to say, my jaw dropped when I learned what a concubine was. "And God is ok with men having multiple wives and concubines? God is awesome." Actually, if you want to know my real thoughts replace that second sentence with, "So why don't people do that now?"
Some more begats concerning Ishmael's offspring.
21-28
Of course Rebekah was barren…it's always the woman's fault. And when God finally lets these barren women conceive (were they truly barren, in the first place?) they always have sons. No surprises here.
So now that Isaac is about to have a proper family, let me pause to say that we are about to read about the dumbest family in the Bible (so far).
Rebekah is pregnant with twins and they're fighting in the womb. God tells her that the two kids will be the ancestors of two separate nations. He says that, "the elder shall serve the younger." So Esau's hairy ass was born, with Jacob hanging onto his heel. Ok, that proclamation from God sounds suspicious, doesn't it? Sounds like the curse on Ham and the story of the kids born from the incest between Lot and his daughters. Yeah, they threw this shit in to explain and justify Israel's pwnage of the Edomites, who are (supposedly) descended from Esau.
"See? It says right here that you people descended from Esau shall serve the descendants of Jacob. See! God said it!"
"What do you mean, 'you people'?"
Hilarity ensues.
Isaac loved Esau, because Esau was a hunter and Isaac loved game. But Rebekah loved Jacob. Uh oh. This spells trouble.
29-34
So one day, Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the fields hungry as all get out. Esau was like, "Hey bro, gimme some eats man; I'm hungrier than a hostage!"
"Oh? Alright…if you give me your birthright."
"Uhhhhhhhhhh, well since I'm about to starve to death, what good would a birthright do me anyway?"
What what what?!? You've got to be kidding me. I almost don't wanna go over the idiocy that is this story, but I must. Ok, so you can't just feed your brother…you have to make him give you something? Esau…if your brother is trying to get something out of you for just sharing his food with you, why didn't you just get some food from somewhere else? The birthright traditionally consists of a leadership role in the family, and double the inheritance. That's not something you give away for a bowl of freakin' stew. Esau obviously rode the short bus, and Jacob is an asshole. God is apparently OK with all of this.
Chapter 26
Here, Isaac's story parallels his father's in several respects. Of interest here is the dumbest king in the Bible: Abimelech. Remember him? Well a famine drove Isaac to Gerar, ruled by King Abimelech of the Philistines (btw, the Philistines didn't even come this area for another 800 years…whatevs). God makes the same tired promises to Isaac at the beginning of this chapter that he had made to Abraham like umpteen times already. Even the editors of the NOAB got tired of commenting on it. Gonna give you this land, blah blah blah, your descendents will inherit these lands, blah blah blah, numerous offspring, blah blah blah, all nations of the earth will gain blessing for themselves through you, yada yada yada.
While in Gerar, when the men of the place asked about his wife he said, "She is my sister". Really? We're back to this tired excuse? Obviously somebody is about to get fucked over, and Isaac is about to get rich. That's what happened each time Abraham told this lie…except it wasn't a lie in his case. At some point after they had been living there awhile, King Abimelech saw Isaac fondling his wife. Yeah. He fell for it again. Abimelech also rode the short bus. You'd think all these foreigners coming through with their 'sisters' might raise an eyebrow.
The king was like, "WTF, Isaac? You said she was your sister!"
"Well, I thought I might get whacked because my wife is so desirable." (As if Abimelech even had to ask. Wait I forgot how dumb this guy is.)
The rest of the chapter is useless…Isaac gets rich just like Abe did.
Except for the last verse, which has NO continuity with the previous verses. It just comes out of left field mentioning Esau's two wives (more polygamy), and how they made Isaac and Rebekah's lives a living hell.
Chapter 27
Our final story of the day is the most bewildering. Well not really, but it would be if you had to convince yourself that the story was true. In a nutshell…Isaac is now old and blind. He asks Esau to go hunt some game and fix it the way he likes it. Esau says, "sure thing, Dad," and head out to do just that. Rebekah was listening and told Jacob to go get a couple of kids from the flock and prepare it for Isaac so that HE can get Isaac's blessing instead of Esau. Jacob is a little worried because Esau is one hairy bastard, and Isaac might want to touch him. She was all like, "Don't worry about it…I got this!" So she prepared the meal, dressed Jacob in Esau's clothes, and put the animals' skins on Jacob's skin to fool Isaac. This badly thought out, badly executed ruse actually freakin' WORKS.
Jacob goes in with the food, and Isaac asks how he did it so fast. "Because the Lord your God granted me success." A LIE. God is apparently OK with this, by the way. Talk about bearing false witness. Isaac smells a rat, so he asks his son to come near so that he can touch him. The goat skin fools him. "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Really, Isaac? I'm sorry, but I think I can tell the difference between hairy human hands and goat hair. Why the hell would Esau all of a sudden SOUND like Jacob? Whatevs. So he blesses Jacob.
This story is very similar to mythologies of other cultures. It is common for culture heroes to succeed and (particularly) to rise to prominence through underhanded tactics. Today, when people resort to underhanded tactics, we call it cheating. It's why Martha Stewart had to go to jail. Underhanded tactics are not acceptable means to overcome the odds, no matter how famous, popular, or deified you are. So ok…Jacob and Rebekah weren't really being all that bad in the context of the society they lived in. But shouldn't God provide some moral instruction to the patriarch of his chosen people? God is still an asshole because he lets Jacob and Rebekah be assholes.
Poor Esau. Shat on for no particular reason, really. He cries over his lost blessing. Deathbed blessings were VERY important to ancient cultures. They believed that they irrevocably released power that determined the destinies of those they were bestowed upon, so just imagine how Esau felt. He rightfully felt that he had been shafted. Esau mumbles to himself about killing Jacob. So Rebekah tells Jacob to go hide out with her brother until Esau has cooled down.
Ok, I have one other problem with this story other than the shysty behavior of Jacob and his mom. Let's look at 27.29
"Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be Lord over your brothers,
and may your mother's sons bow down to you."
Why is that part of the "blessing"? Why is it necessary to grant someone lordship over his own brothers? Why would you wish for any of your children to be subjugated by any of your other children? Rom 9.13 actually tells us that God hated Esau in the womb. WTF? What a capricious bully. Once again, I can say with confidence that God is a dick. By the way parents, have you chosen which of your children to hate? Have you chosen which you will give your deathbed blessing to rule over your other children?
Well that's it for now. We'll pick up where Jacob and Esau go their separate ways. I'm gonna have a little dinner, drink a little wine, and take a little nap. Until next time…lechaim!
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