Reading: Genesis 29-31, Psalm 9

The Hebrew name יעקב (Jacob) is a bit of a play on words. It looks a lot like two Hebrew words, one the noun meaning the heel of the foot, and the other a verb meaning one who comes from behind and takes. Jacob and Esau’s birth narrative back in chapter 25 explains the origin of his name. I’m of the opinion that a little too much gets made of Biblical names, but in this case the story clearly paints a picture of a man who earns his name. We’ve already seen Jacob take advantage of his brother and outright swindle his father. Now, due to his actions and his brother’s rage, he must flee the promised land and heads to live with his uncle Laban.

And here Jacob meets his match in deviousness and manipulation. The story shows us Jacob arriving at his uncle’s home as a near beggar, but falling in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. Under normal circumstances (see the Rebekah narrative) for Jacob to marry Rachel would not just be acceptable but culturally correct- this would keep Jacob’s inheritance and Rachel “in the family.” But something interesting happens here: Laban and Jacob work out a deal where he will work for Laban for seven years for no other pay than marrying Rachel. If this salary negotiation seems odd to you, do take the time to read again Abraham’s sales negotiation with the Hittites in chapter 23. After that, having seen that negotiations were very different than we would do them, understand that this is still very strange, and it’s not going to get any less so. It may be that Jacob’s desperate circumstances led him and Laban to enter into this agreement. In any event, it doesn’t work out terribly well, as Laban pulls a last minute switch and marries his elder daughter Leah off to Jacob instead. There are valid questions about how Jacob managed to not know who he was marrying, but the outcome is that he works for Laban for another seven years to get the woman he really wanted to marry.

The story is painting Jacob as quite the mess. But in the meantime, despite the attempts by Laban to con Jacob out of his due payment in both wives and livestock, Jacob becomes wealthy. God causes Jacob and Laban to be prosperous. They are constantly engaged in resource squabbling, God is engaged in giving both of them more. Jacob is the chosen broken instrument, and his conduct leaves us no doubt that, for the third generation in a row, this cannot be our hero.

The narrative then switches to the competitive relationship between Rachel and Leah as wives of Jacob. The two women, used tactically by their father, display a manipulative streak of their own. Leah is granted children by God because Jacob much prefers the company of Rachel. Rachel responds by duplicating the action of Jacob’s grandmother Sarah and gives Jacob another woman to have children with. This works, until Leah decides to play the same game and gives Jacob yet another woman. The last act in this little drama involves the sisters trading mandrake fruits for the privilege of spending the night with their husband.

Let’s step back to the design for marriage for a second. Genesis chapter 2. God designs man and woman as partners in their work and as a reflection of his own divine image.

Jacob has taken four women as wives, shown preferential to one of them, and shown no inclination to partner with anyone. Jacob’s two wives (of four) are trading fruit for the possibility of having children. Humans, we have a problem

Once again, God has chosen to use the family of Abraham to carry out his blessing on all the families of the Earth. He is engaged in his great work, to make all things new, but these people still have all the problems of the rest of the humans. Laban and Jacob are reflections of each other. In the following narrative, Rachel will steal her father’s household gods and bring idolatry into the household.

Rachel finally has a son, Joseph, who will loom very large in the rest of the story in Genesis. And God decides it is time for Jacob to leave. He has spent many years now with Laban, and was already a little too much like him. God tells Jacob to head home, and he does. There is a drawn out drama in which Laban, under the guise of concern for his daughters, pursues Jacob, ending with the two of them putting up a boundary marker and making a kind of peace treaty.

The story of Jacob isn’t really any better than the stories of Abraham and Isaac. One begins to wonder if this story will get any better. All the humans in the family of Abraham are behaving just like the people around them. But the story does move forward, and God is about to dramatically tell Jacob the great message he told his grandfather: You are not who you think you are.