Exodus 16 - 18: You'll Eat It and You'll Like It

So they walk. And they walk more.

They start to run low on food, and again, the people turn to Moses and said, "You brought us out here to die! This is all your fault!"

Moses asks God what to do and he tells him, "Alright I'll make bread come down from the sky. Everyone needs to go and get a day's worth every morning. And on the sixth day, get enough for two days."

Moses tells this to the people and adds, "Guys, I'm not really in charge here. God is. So if you're complaining against me, your really complaining against him. So watch your mouth, ok?"

That evening God sends a ton of quail and they have a lovely quail roast for dinner.

In the morning, when the dew evaporates, there's powdery white stuff on the ground. It looks like coriander, but tastes like honey wafers. But still, it's white stuff on the ground and not what people would usually think of as food.

The people look at it suspiciously. "What the heck is this?"

"Oh, that's manna," says Moses. "Eat up. But don't leave any of it on the ground."

The people took some of it but left some on the ground, and as the day wore on it grew worms and stank.

"Folks," Moses says, "You really, really need to follow directions here. You're starting to piss me off."

On the sixth day he reminds them to gather what they need for the seventh day, and prepare it so that they won't have to do anything on the seventh day. "This seventh day is a Sabbath," says Moses. "No working. None. Really important."

Regardless, on the seventh day the people went out to look for the food. And God yelled at Moses, "Your people are really horrible at listening. I told you to tell them to not work today!"

"I know! I know! I'm trying, I swear."

Aaron put some manna in a jar and put it on the altar as a souvenir and reminder of their journey. The people ate manna for 40 years. It's like God's People Chow.

So they walk. And they walk some more.

They run out of water and the people start to complain again. "You brought us out here to die! This is all your fault!"

"I told you to quit complaining!" says Moses. "But let me check."

"God," he says, "They're ready to stone me. I need water, now."

"See that big rock over there? Go whack it with your staff and water will come out of it."

Moses whacks the rock and everyone gets a drink. Problem solved.

While they were there, Amalek (a band of wandering nomads, possibly one of Esau's grandsons) attacks them. Moses gives orders, "Get some people to fight. Aaron, Hur, and I going to go stand on that hill over there with my magic God stick."

Sadly, there is no Guinness Record for holding your arms up

The Israelis fight while Moses watches. Moses raises his stick and Israel starts winning. He lowers his stick and the Amalekites start winning. He does this for a while. At first it's kind of fun but then his arms get tired. So Moses sits down on a rock and Aaron and Hur hold his arms up for him until they win the battle.

God says, "Write this story down and we'll blot out the memory of Amalek forever."

"Wait, how is writing if down going to blot out the memory of Amalek? Wouldn't that work better if we didn't write it down? Besides, my arms are tired."

"Stop asking questions!"

Moses builds an altar and says, "The Lord will have war with Amalek forever and ever, throughout our generations!" (Which isn't exactly blotting out anyone's memory either.)

At some point that isn't entirely clear, Moses's wife Zipporah took their two sons and went back to her father, Jethro. But Jethro hears all about Moses's successes getting the people out of Egypt and he and Zipporah and the boys travel out to meet him. They spend some time catching up and sacrifice some burnt offerings and eat manna.

In the morning Moses sat to deal out judgements to the people. Jethro says, "That's a big job for one person. Why are you doing this all alone?"

"God told me to," says Moses. "People have a conflict or a question and they come to me and ask what God wants and I help them sort it out."

"That's ridiculous!" says Jethro. "You should find some trustworthy men, teach them the statutes and God's word, and then let them be representatives. They can decide all the silly trivial stuff and you just handle the big important things."

"That's a GREAT idea!" says Moses. So he sets up a system of representatives to lighten the burden of all the judging. Jethro stays for a while and then goes home.

Genesis Chapters 34 - 36: Strange Justice and Jacob's Final Son Is Born

Jacob's daughter Dinah (the one he had with Leah in the baby war a few chapters ago), goes to visit the women of the town. Shecham, the prince of the town, sees her walking along, grabs her, and rapes her. But it's absolutely ok because he loves her and talks to her kindly. Shecham asks his father Hamor to get this woman for his wife.

Jacob hears about it, but since his sons are out with the sheep, he decides to wait until they come back. Hamor knocks on the door and explains that his son is smitten and wants to marry Dinah, so proposes that they join their families and lands and property.

Jacob and his sons talk a bit and say that this is ok, but only if all their men get circumcised.

"DONE!" says Shecham. "Pass me a knife." Everyone in town gets circumcised.

Three days later, while the whole town is still nursing their hurting boy parts, Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi go to town and kill all the males, including Shecham and Hamor. They grab Dinah and leave town. The rest of Jacob's sons go in and plunder all the loot, livestock and take the women and children.

Now I understand that they raped your sister and that's not cool. But that seems like a really dirty trick. Jacob isn't happy about this either, since now they've probably pissed off people from the neighboring towns.

So God tells Jacob to go to Bethel (aka Luz) and build an altar. Jacob tells his entire family and crew to get rid of all the foreign gods that they're hauling around. "Seriously guys, God's been helping me all through this and now we've gone and made everyone mad, so show some respect please." He collects all the idols and everyone's earrings as well and hides them under a tree.

As they leave, God strikes fear into the hearts of the neighboring towns people, so no one attacks them and they make a clean getaway.

They get to Bethal and Jacob builds the altar at the place where God had revealed himself to him when he first fled from his brother. God appears to him again and blesses him and says, "By the way, since you didn't seem to hear me the first time I told you, your name isn't Jacob any more. It's Israel. Must be you forgot because I hurt your hip like that. Sorry."

He goes on, "You'll be the father of nations. Just like I told Abraham and Isaac, all this land will be yours and your children's." And God went back up to heaven and Jacob sets up a pillar as a marker of this spot.

On their way out of Bethel, Rachel goes into labor with the last son. She has a son and names him Ben-oni and then she dies. Jacob calls him Benjamin, since Ben-oni isn't the greatest name he's ever heard. They bury Rachel and set up another pillar as a marker.

As an aside, Jacob's son Reuben has a little fling with one of Jacob's concubines and his father hears about it.

Jacob now has 12 sons. Remember them. They're important.

In order:

Reuben

Simeon

Levi

Judah

Dan

Naphtali

Gad

Asher

Issachar

Zebulon

Joseph

Benjamin

Want a mnemonic for the order?  

Repentant Sinners Love Jesus. Do Not Give Animals In Zoos Jelly Beans.

Jacob finally comes home and his father Isaac is STILL ALIVE! Wasn't he on his deathbed over 20 years ago when Jacob dressed up like Esau and stole his blessing? Anyhow, Isaac dies and Jacob and Esau bury him.

Next is a list of Esau's descendents. It goes on and on and no one's name jumps out at me as someone I should recognize so we'll skim it for now.

And God's told Jacob twice now that his name is Israel.  Why are we still calling him Jacob?

Genesis Chapters 31 - 33: Jacob Goes Home

Jacob has now been working for Laban for 20 years and he decides he's had it up to his eyeballs. He's also noticing that Laban has caught on to his little trick with the speckled sheep and goats. So he pulls his wives aside and says, "Ladies, your dad's getting a leeeeeetle annoyed with me, so we need to get the heck out of Dodge. It's not MY fault that God made my spotted sheep so completely incredible, so I don't really know why he has his linens all in a twist, but that's the way it is. So grab your stuff, because we're leaving."

Family road trip!

They pack up the camels to go while Laban is out of town sheering his inferior white sheep. They take off, with all the speckled sheep and Jacob's accumulated wealth. Without anyone else's knowledge, Rachel also swipes Laban's household gods and slips them into a saddlebag.

Three days later Laban returns and sees that Jacob and his daughters are gone. Not only that, his idols are missing! He gives chase and as he draws near, God warns him in a dream to not to ask Jacob any leading questions.

Laban catches up and says, "Jacob! C'mon man, why'd you leave? If you would have just told me we'd have had a sweet going away party! The way you left, you made this look like you're kidnapping my daughters and running off with my property. I could rightfully have your head for stealing my daughters and my household gods, but you're pretty lucky that your God told me not to. So just hand over the stuff and no one gets hurt."

"Yeah," Jacob replies, "I guess that was kind of silly of me, but really I just wanted to be able to keep your daughters and I was worried that you'd make them stay. But I can tell you for sure that I most certainly did NOT take your idols. If you can find the person that took them, you're absolutely welcome to kill them."

Laban goes through all the tents and doesn't find the idols anywhere. He searches the camels and comes to the one that Rachel is sitting on with the idols hiding under the saddle. He tells her to get off the camel so he can look.

"Dad," she says. "I have my period. I can't get off the camel right now. But you can look around me if you like."

This is universally embarrassing to men, especially your own father. You can be sure he didn't look too closely.

"Yeah, I don't see them anywhere. Huh. Wonder where I left them..."

Jacob totally loses it and yells at Laban. "See? I told you so! And here you are chasing me half way across the holy land accusing me of taking your stupid gods after I've busted my ass for you for twenty years. I took good care of your animals the whole time, even though you switched daughters on me, changed my wages and screwed me over at every turn. I only profited from this whole thing because God loves me, not because you've done anything to help me. That's why God told you to not lop off my head last night. So take your stupid scrawny white sheep and go home."

"Ok ok! Geez, calm down," says Laban. "Let make a pact right here. We'll build a big pile of rocks and call it Jegar-sahadutha."

"Sure," says Jacob, "but Jegar-sahadutha is a stupid name. I want to call it Galeed."

"Fine. Galeed."

They eat dinner at the pile o' rocks and agree that one side is Jacob's and the other side is Laban's and no one can cross this line to do the other person harm.

The next morning, Jacob and his wives continue home. He's a little worried that Esau might still be really mad about that whole inheritance and stolen blessing thing, so he sends some messengers ahead to go find Esau and tell him that he's on his way home and has lots of stuff.

The messengers return and say that Esau is coming to meet him. And he has 400 men with him. And strangely... no other details. Was he happy to hear that Jacob's coming home? Did he look angry? 400 men with weapons or a large catering crew? Nope. No details. Just that he's on his way with either a large angry mob or a party revelers and well-wishers.

He divides up his people and goods into two camps, figuring if one gets attacked at least the other will get away, and prays that he doesn't get killed.

To appease his potentially angry brother and his army, he makes a gift of hundreds of sheep and goats and camels and cows and donkeys. He sends them ahead in little groups with instructions to say that the animals are for Esau from Jacob and that Jacob will be on his way shortly.

He takes his wives and children and sends them across a stream in a different direction, leaving him alone. Suddenly a man appears and begins wrestling with him. The wrestle all night long and when the man realizes he isn't winning, he touches Jacob's hip socket, dislocates his leg, and asks to be let go.

"No way," says Jacob. "Not unless you bless me. And maybe fix my leg because that hurts like crazy."

"Ok," says the hip-dislocating man. "What's your name?"

"Jacob."

"Alright. Your name isn't Jacob anymore. It's Israel."

"Thanks. And what's your name?"

"None of your bee's wax," says the man, and blesses him.

It seems that Jacob at this point realizes that this is not just some ordinary man, but God. And he limps back to camp on his hurt leg only to see Esau and his 400 men approaching.

He gathers his family and approaches his brother, bowing repeatedly.

Esau runs up and gives him a great big hug and they have a good cry (Jacob probably from relief since he thought he was going to get killed). Esau looks behind Jacob and says, "So introduce me to the family!" Jacob introduces everyone.

"And, brother, what's with all the animals I met on the way? Really? You can't give me all those!"

"No, no, Esau. They're yours."

"Jacob I have plenty of animals, really. Keep them."

"Esau, please. I truly insist. It's the least I can do." And Esau gives in and accepts the animals, and offers to lead Jacob and his camps to his home. But Jacob says that they're all really tired.

"You go on ahead and we'll follow you slowly to Seir."

"Ok," says Esau, "but let me leave you some of my men to help you out."

"Nah, I got people of my own."

Esau goes to Seir, expecting his brother to follow him. But Jacob decides to go to Succoth instead and builds a house and stables for his animals, then travels to Caanan and the city of Shechem.

So what could have been a really nice story of brotherly reconciliation turns into an awkward reunion and another parting of ways.

Genesis Chapters 27 - 28: Jacob and Rebekah's Deception of Esau and Isaac

Isaac grows old and blind and thinks his time is growing short. So he calls his favorite son Esau over and asks him to go hunting and make him a home cooked meal. In exchange for this, he will bless him.

Rebekah overhears this. As soon as Esau is out the door, she calls Jacob over and whispers to him, "Hey... your dad told Esau to get him some dinner and he'll get a blessing. But I think you should get that blessing. So go get a couple of goats and I'll make him some dinner. You bring it in to him and he'll bless you because he can't see at all anymore anyway."

Jacob says, "But mom, Esau is hairy and I'm not. If he reaches out and touches me, he'll know we scammed him and then he'll curse me instead of blessing me."

"Not problem, Jacob. I have a plan. Go get goats."

"Oh, Esau... It's ewe."

Rebekah cooks up the goats. She dresses Jacob in Esau's clothes, and takes the hairy goat hide and puts it on the back of Jacob's hands and on his neck. She puts the tray of food in his hands and pushes him into his father's room.

"Hey dad."

"Who's there?"

"It's... Esau... I brought you some food, just like you asked."

"Esau? You just left! How'd you find food so quickly?"

"Um. Yeah. God knew you wanted food so there was game like right outside the camp."

"You expect me to believe that? Come here so I can touch you."

Jacob moves close enough for Isaac to touch him.

"You sound like Jacob, but you're hairy as a goat, just like Esau. And you smell like Esau, too. And goat..."

Isaac blesses Jacob and eats the home cooked meal that Rebekah made.

As soon as the blessing is done, Esau comes home. Esau cooks the game that he caught, and brings it in to his father.

"Hey dad, here's your dinner!"

"WHAT? I just ate! Who are you?"

"Uh, it's Esau. Don't you remember? You said you wanted dinner."

"Ahhh! Someone else came in here and fed me and I blessed him! CRAP! I gave that blessing to someone else!"

Esau cries out, "NOOOOOO!!! That was mine! Bless me anyway!"

Isaac says, "I only had one blessing! Sorry! I gave it to Jacob!"

"ARGH! He cheated me again! Ok, maybe the stew thing was my fault for being overly dramatic and saying I would die of hunger when really I could have waited until dinner time, but this just takes the cake." Esau starts to cry, "You don't have a blessing for me at all?"

Isaac tells him that he's his brother's servant but when he grows restless he'll break the yoke from his neck.

Esau is furious and vows to kill Jacob. Rebekah catches wind of this and warns Jacob and sends him back to live with her brother in Haran until Esau cools off a bit. Then she goes in to Isaac and says she hates her life because of the Hittite women and that her life will be totally worthless if Jacob marries one of them.

Hittite women? Esau's wives? They weren't even involved. Surprisingly, there's not a lot written about them, especially since Rebekah's rant about them seems to comes totally out of the blue. One site says it's a warning about not marrying ungodly nonbelievers.  But Rebekah was the one that set up this whole scam, tricking Isaac to bless her favorite kid Jacob instead of his favorite kid Esau. How is that godly? It's a stretch to blame this on the stress that comes from living with Esau and his ungodly Hittite wives. But sending Jacob back to Haran will ensure that he picks a nice wife from their own people.

Esau sees that Isaac and Rebekah told Jacob not to marry foreigners, so Esau marries a third woman, one of Ishmael's daughters. The poor guy just tries to make his parents happy but can't seem to do anything right in the eyes of his mother.

On the way to Haran, Jacob has a dream. In this dream, angels are walking up and down a ladder that stretches to heaven. God is standing on the top of this ladder and reaffirms to Jacob that he and his descendants will inherit the land he is in. He says he will be with him wherever he goes and says he will not leave him until he has done what he promised.

Jacob wakes up and say, "I didn't know God was in this place!" (So much for him being the godly one.) He sets up the rock he'd been using as a pillow and promises that if God will be with him and provide for him and see him safely back home, then he will accept the Lord as his God. Again... Jacob was supposed to be the godly one, but here he is, making a deal that he'll accept the lord as his god only if he gets him home safely. And then he'll give him 10% of everything.

Genesis Chapters 23 - 26: Isaac's New Family and Some Bad Decisions Regarding Stew

Abraham grows old and tells his oldest servant to come and put his hand under his thigh and swear that he will go to his homeland and find Isaac a suitable wife. The servant doesn't have a name,but it's mentioned back in Chapter 15 that his name is Eliezer. So we'll call him Eli.

There are several explanations of "putting your hand under my thigh." It's a Patriarchal Oath. However... it may not actually involve the thigh. It seems that a circumcised penis is important enough to swear an oath by.

He tells Eli to go back to Mesopotamia, where Abraham's brother Nahor lives, and find Isaac a wife. The servant worries that he might not be able to convince a woman to follow him all the way back to Caanan and Abraham tells him that if he absolutely can't find a girl to follow him that he can bring Isaac back to her.

That's a lot of camels

Eli takes ten camels and some nice things that girls like as gifts, and he makes the camels lie down by the well. He prays and comes up with a plan. He decides that he will ask the girls who come to the well for a drink. If any of them gives him a drink AND offers his camels a drink, well, that's the girl for Isaac.

A woman named Rebekah comes to the well and the servant thinks she's really pretty, so he asks for a drink. She lets Eli drink and then she gives the camels water. He's flabbergasted and gives her some jewelry and asks who she is and if he could stay the night with her family.

She says that she Nahor's granddaughter. (So I think that makes her a second cousin to Isaac.) And she says of course he and his herd of smelly camels are welcome to spend the night.

Eli is welcomed and his camels cared for. They offer him dinner, but he insists that he tell them why he is there first.

He tells them that he is there at the behest of Abraham, who is now very rich and powerful. He tells how he was sent to find Isaac a wife and how he knew Rebekah was the one because she gave the camels water without him even asking.

Rebekah's brother and father say, "WOW! That's amazing! She's all yours!"

He gives her even more jewelry, and gives her mom some jewelry too, and they eat. After dinner, Eli gets up to go, but Rebekah's brother and mom ask if she can stay a few more days and then go back. Eli says they really ought to be on their way, and amazingly, they decide to ask Rebekah what SHE wants to do. She says that they can leave immediately. They bless her and she packs up her stuff and she and Eli return to Abraham and Isaac. Isaac thinks she's lovely and marries her.

Abraham takes another wife and has a bunch of children with her. He also has some children by some concubines, though he sends those children east. Abraham dies at 175 years old, and Ishmael comes home for the funeral. He and Isaac bury their father with Sarah in the cave that Abraham bought. Ishmael by the way has twelve sons.

Rebekah has no children for a long while, so Isaac prays for some kids. When she is 60, God gives her twins, but tells her that one will be stronger than the other and that the older will serve the younger.

The oldest, Esau, is born first, covered in red hair. Jacob follows him out hanging on to Esau's heel.

Esau becomes a skilled hunter and is their father's favorite. Jacob is a quiet man and is their mother's favorite.

What's this soup worth to you?

One day Jacob was home cooking some lentil stew. Esau comes in from hunting and says, "Ohhhhh red stew! Smells great! I am so hungry I'm about ready to pass out. Let me have some."

Jacob says, "Sure you can have some stew. In exchange for your birthright."

"Seriously? I'm your brother, about to DIE right here in front of you from starvation and you're bribing me with freaking stew?  Eh...whatever.  If I'm about to die, you'll get my birthright anyway won't you?  HA! Ok. It's yours. Give me some."

A drought and famine comes into the land and Isaac travels to Gerar, the land of Abimelach, the king that Abraham had dealt with back in Caanan.

And, surprise, surprise, Isaac tells Rebekah to pretend to be his sister. No one stole Rebekah, but the king looked out a window one day and saw Isaac and Rebekah laughing and from that he knew that they were not brother and sister. (My version says they were laughing. Other versions say "caressing" or "sporting".)

"Isaac," the king asks, "Again with the 'she's my sister' trick? What the heck is wrong with you people? Your father did the same thing. One of us could have slept with your wife and gotten us all in trouble!" And he tells Isaac to go away.

Isaac moves a little way off. There's some more quarreling over wells and Isaac moves farther away until they stop bothering him.

The king comes to visit and to let him know that he doesn't want any trouble since he know Isaac has God on his side.

Meanwhile, Esau marries two Hittite women which ticks Isaac and Rebekah off to no end.