God tells Jacob to go home.
Shows up out of nowhere and tells him to go back to Bethel, put away any
other gods, clean up, and go home. Jacob’s been away for a long time. In fact,
he hasn’t been home since he stole Esau’s birthright and ran away. I don’t know
about you, but I don’t think I’d be too keen on going home after that…
ever. But the ever dutiful Jacob does as
he’s told. When he gets there, he gets a new name: Israel. He also gets the promises
his father and grandfather got. You remember. Land abounding, offspring kings
of nations. I believe it a little more now that he’s also called Israel,
though.
As soon as all of that happens, they leave again, even
though the deal was to settle in Bethel, and Rachel was the most pregnant. So
pregnant, that she went into labor on the journey to their next destination
(Ephrath). She bore a son whom she named
Ben-oni (lit. “Son of my sorrow”), and died. Jacob instead calls him Benjamin
(lit. “Son of the South”), taking away the tragic element of his name and
making it geographically based. They bury Rachel in the small town they were in
and mark the site with a pillar. Some podunk little town called Bethlehem that
no one has ever heard of…
Eventually Jacob/Israel (because this time the name change
is more of an add-on than a real replacement) catch up with Isaac who promptly
dies at 180 years old. Good timing. The bible doesn’t go into it at all, but
Jacob and Esau bury their father together, hatchet apparently buried too. Esau
is theoretically totally cool now. I mean, his little brother only stole his
birthright, ran away, and didn’t come back for like, a whole lifetime, but we’re
apparently just letting bygones be bygones. Props Esau for finding your inner
peace. Care to share with the class how you did it? No? I’m sure it could help
out. Or maybe you’re still bitter and that’s why you don’t want to talk about
it. Or at all.
Chapter 36 (yep! Two whole chapters today!) is just a
listing of Esau’s descendants which will eventually get added into that
handy-dandy biblical family tree. Mostly the important thing here is that
Jacob/Israel’s sons are (wait-for-it) Israelites. Esau’s spawn are Canaanites
because his wives were Canaanites. But yeah… genealogy is the entirety of
Chapter 36.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
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