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 29 - 30: More Lies and Deceptions, Plus a Baby-Making Contest

Jacob goes off toward Haran. On the way he sees some shepherds with their sheep waiting around a well. The well had a large rock on top to keep it safe. He stops by and makes small talk, and asks if they know his uncle Laban.

“Know him?” they answer. “Heck, that’s his daughter Rachel coming with his sheep right now!”

Jacob replies, “Wow… she’s pretty. Hey, so, like, why don’t you guys water your sheep and skedaddle, know what I mean?”

“No way, man. That rock is heavy. We wait for everyone to get here so we only have to move it once. Don’t tell us how to do our jobs.”

Rachel gets there and being the nice guy that he is, Jacob moves the rock and waters her sheep, then plants a big wet kiss on her lips and introduces himself as her cousin. Rachel runs home and tells her father, and Laban welcomes Jacob into his home.

After a while, Laban says, “Hey you’ve been working here a while. I should probably pay you. How much do you want?”

Jacob offers seven years labor for the hand of Rachel. Laban agrees.

Seven years goes by quickly and Laban holds a marriage feast for Jacob and Rachel. But in the evening, once it’s dark, Laban pushes his other daughter Leah into Jacob’s tent. Jacob wakes up in the morning and is shocked to see that he’s slept with the wrong daughter.

“LABAN! WHAT THE HECK?” he cries.

“Oh, yeah, about that,” Laban says. “Well, you know Leah’s the older daughter and it wouldn’t be proper for her younger sister to be married before she is. So I switched them. Hope you don’t mind. How about this – I’ll give you Rachel, too, but you owe me another seven years. Sound good?”

“Ugh, fine…”

So Jacob gets both sisters (plus their female slaves), but he loves Rachel more. But he doesn’t dislike Leah so much that he doesn’t sleep with her, and she has some sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Each time she thinks the birth of a child will make Jacob love her more, and each time she is disappointed.

Rachel gets jealous that she doesn’t have any children, and tells Jacob that if she doesn’t have a baby she will die! Jacob says he’s trying, but God’s in charge of the baby-making success rate. So Rachel gives him her female slave Bilhah for baby-making purposes. Jacob gets Bilhah pregnant twice with sons named Dan and Naphtali.

Now Leah sees that Rachel is catching up to her and gives Jacob her servant Zilpah for more babies. Zilpah has sons named Gad and Asher.

If you’ve lost track of the baby score, it’s Leah 6, Rachel 2.

One day Leah’s son Reuben finds some mandrakes and brings them home. Rachel asks if she can have some.

Leah replies, “Seriously? You stole my husband and now you’re taking my son’s mandrakes? What kind of scheming wench are you?”

“Fine… you can have Jacob tonight in exchange for some mandrakes.”

(Mandrakes are hallucinogens and are sometimes used in pagan fertility rituals.)

When Jacob comes home, Leah informs him that it’s her turn to sleep with him tonight since she bought him with mandrakes. And she gets pregnant again and has a son named Issachar. Then she has another son named Zebulun and a daughter, Dinah.

Rachel finally has a son of her own named Joseph.

Final tally: Leah 9 (well, 8, since one is a girl), Rachel 3. But Jacob still loves Rachel more.

As soon as Rachel has Joseph, Jacob asks Laban if he can go home. Laban says that Jacob is really a valuable member of the team and the reason he’s doing so well right now, so asks him to stay on for a while longer and offers Jacob a raise.

Jacob asks for all the speckled and spotted and black sheep and goats. Laban decides that’s fair and Jacob goes and splits up the flocks. He sends the spotted flock off with his sons to separate them from the white ones. He keeps watch over Laban’s white herd.

I get the cool looking ones, k?

Then he peels some sticks and puts them in front of the animals’ watering trough when the animals come to drink and mate. Somehow, looking at striped and spotted sticks while mating causes Laban’s white animals to have striped and spotted offspring. Jacob sends these animals off to his sons, since the agreement was that Jacob gets all the speckled animals.

He also makes sure that he only does this with the really nice strong animals. Any of the weaker or smaller animals, he lets them breed without sticks. Since they’re not looking at the magic striped sticks, those animals are just plain white.

Eventually, Jacob’s herd has a lot of strong speckled and spotted sheep and goats. And Laban’s herd is full of weak, puny all-white animals.

And Laban is not happy.