Genesis 31-34; Jacob is still a douchebag.

Alright, this one will be a quickie. I'm gonna gloss over some very interesting biblical scholarship as we try to get to some more of the really interesting stuff in the remainder of Genesis. I would like to do a little extra discussion of how the God character is shaping up by this point at a later date. I may just wait until Exodus when God finally tells them his name. This is a very important event, and a little exposition about the history of the god of Israel will be in order.

So Jacob and Laban have been acting like bad roommates, tricking each other back and forth. Let's see what eventually happens with these two lovebirds, then finally get around to some more killing.

Chapter 31

1-18

So Laban's sons notice that Jacob has become wealthy at the expense of their father. Jacob hears this, and oh would you just look at the time? Conveniently, God now tells Jacob to return to the land of his ancestors. Perfect timing, huh? So he packs up and gets ready to just sneak out without telling his uncle.

19-51

Before leaving, Rachel steals her father's household gods. What? Yeah. Stole all the gods. According to the annotations, "[These] may have been figures representing ancestral deities. Possession of them ensured leadership of the family and legitimated property claims." So note two things here. #1 The ancestors of the Israelites, again, were not monotheistic. And God didn't seem to care too much. #2 Rachel is also a douchebag.

Eventually Laban found out that Jacob had high-tailed it, and with some of his kinsmen, took off after Jacob. He eventually caught Jacob, and was like, "WTF, man?" For some reason, he complained about Jacob absconding with his daughters, but weren't they Jacob's wives now? In the context of the times, Jacob owned them at this point. Whatevs. So he asked, "…why did you steal my gods?" Jacob claimed that he secretly left because he was afraid that Laban would take his daughters back by force. Pshyeah, right. Jacob then made the promise to summarily execute anyone who was caught with Laban's stolen gods. Rachel hadn't told Jacob that she harvested them from her dad's house. Whoops!

So Laban went looking around, then finally came to Rachel's tent. She had taken the household gods, put them in the camel's saddle, and was sitting on it. She apologized that she could not rise in his presence because she was on the rag. She knew that no man would come near her while she was menstruating. Wow. Brilliant. So she got away with it. Let's note here that God is perfectly OK with petty theft.

So after pleading his case and what not, Laban proposes they make a pact not to fuck with each other. They piled up some rocks in a heap and make a pillar. They basically make this a Mason-Dixon line between them. To paraphrase the agreement they made, I shall use the words of Lil' Jon: "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit."

Chapter 32

1-21

So now comes the point where Jacob is gonna hafta pass near the lands of his brother, Esau. Understandably, he's scared as hell. He completely screwed his brother over, after all. He sends some messengers to tell Esau that he's coming with all his flocks and slaves. They come back with some interesting news. Esau is coming to meet him…with 400 men. At this point Jacob shits himself. He comes up with a plan to split all his people into two companies. Then he begs God to not let his brother kill him. Then he comes up with another plan to send several waves of livestock each attended by a different servant, to appease Esau. Full panic mode here.

22-32

That night he sent his wives, maids, and his children and all his possessions across the river and when he was alone on the other side...a man wrestled with him until daybreak! Huh? Yeah. Just like that. No exposition, no explanation. I wouldn't know what to think if some guy just started wrestling with me out of nowhere. I'd assume he was trying to KILL ME. In which case, bring it. Apparently, Jacob is so strong this guy can't take him. So he dislocates Jacob's hip. Owwwww!!

Then he says, "Hey, let me get a move on because the sun's coming up."

Jacob says, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." Yes. THAT'S what Jacob said. Not, "Hey, why the fuck did you just wrestle with me all night?!" not "You just tried to kill me, you asshole!" …but "Not until you bless me." Which is exactly what I would say after wrestling with an unknown assailant for hours on end. The only way to think about this story without your head exploding is to assume that at some point during the contest, Jacob realized he was wrestling with a divine being.

God asks his name (what, he didn't already know?), and after he says, "Jacob," God renames him. His name is now Israel because he has fought with God and with humans and has prevailed. Curiously, this name change doesn't take fully. When Abram's name is changed, the text refers to him by his new name for the rest of the Bible. Jacob is still mostly called Jacob after this. But obviously, Jacob is the direct patriarch of the 12 tribes of Israel, so it's all symbolic and what not.

So note that if God is about to smite you, all you have to do is call Jacob to work God over. That'll straighten him out.

Chapter 33

Jacob finally comes face to face with Esau. He keeps his family all split up and behind him, so that they may have a chance to escape. To Jacob's surprise, Esau embraced him and they wept together. For the whole conversation he refers to Esau as, "my lord." What a suck up. Tricked him out of his birthright, and stole his deathbed blessing that basically give him lordship over Esau, but he defers to Esau here. Douchebag. And a disingenuous douchebag at that.

Esau accepts a gift of livestock after refusing several times, and proposes that they walk together to his lands. But Jacob says that he's got a bunch of slow ass children and nursing flocks with him. "You go right ahead to Seir and I'll catch up with you!"

Jacob didn't go to Seir. Douche.

Of course, he was probably wise. Esau might have been biding his time to kill him. Jacob instead went to the city of Shechem, where our final story for today will unfold.

Chapter 34

When the prince of the city-state, Shechem, saw Jacob's daughter Rachel, he took her and raped her. So we finally meet someone who's a bigger douche than the heroes of the Bible. And get this; he then pleads with his father, Hamor, to procure the girl as his wife. So Hamor goes to Jacob to ask if Dinah can be Shechem's wife. Jacob and her brothers were enraged, understandably.

Hamor proposes that they set as high a marriage price as they like and his whole clan can live in their land. It is implied that he intended to impoverish the Israelites by assimilation. So Jacob and his sons were like, "Sure… if you'll agree to be circumcised as the custom of our people demands before we can give you our daughter."

So Hamor agreed, and promptly had all the males circumcised. So Simeon and Levi, Dinah's older full brothers attacked while all the men were still in pain and killed every man in the city. Jacob's other sons came afterwards and plundered the entire city. Jacob frets that they have now screwed him over in the land of Canaan. Their reply was, "Should our sister be treated like a whore?"

Ok, I get it. If any of you out there had a loved one who was raped, you would be ready to kill someone. We have codified laws to deal with such behavior today, but at this time and place, rule of law was comparatively nonexistent. I just would have expected God to mete out justice in such a way that the other men in the city who had nothing to do with Shechem's actions didn't have to be killed, too. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so. Because it gets worse.

That's gonna do it for now. Next time we have a couple of extremely boring chapters to skip before we get to Joseph and his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat! The next 2 or 3 entries will finish up Genesis as it sets the stage for the all-important story of the Exodus. We got some really heavy subject matter to cover there, but don't ignore these last chapters of Genesis!