Sunday, February 27, 2011

Women of the Word, Feb.23


Genesis 33-35

The End of the Jacob Saga


In chapter 33, Jacob and Esau are reconciled, although Jacob, not taking any chances when he sees his brother coming toward him with four hundred men, divides his retinue so that the slave women and their children are at the front and Rachel and Joseph (his favorites) are last. Jacob then presses gifts on Esau, who reluctantly takes them which makes him beholden to his younger brother. Esau then offers to accompany Jacob to his homeland at Sier, but Jacob demurs and instead sets out for Succoth, where he builds houses for his families and shelters for his animals. The Jewish festival of Succoth (“Booths”) is a harvest festival arising from this memory.

Chapter 34, the rape of Dinah, is a later insertion during the Babylonian exile to explain the prominence of some of Israel’s tribes over others. Dinah, Leah’s daughter, goes out to “visit women of the country” (e.g., she mingled with Canaanites), and was attacked by Shechem, the son of Hamor, the local prince. However, Shechem falls in love with Dinah and asks his father to get permission from her brothers to marry her. The brothers agree to this on the condition that all the men of Hamor’s village become circumcised. Then, two days later while the men are still in pain from this operation, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s blood brothers, enter the village and slaughter every man, including Shechem and Hamor, and kidnap Dinah. The rest of the brothers then plunder the village. Jacob, as usual, is more concerned with how this would affect him. “You have brought trouble on me; you have made my name stink among the people of the country, the Canaanites and the Perizzites.”
It is thought that this story was written during the preeminence of the tribe of Judah (who was the 4th born) to explain why Simeon and Levi (older brothers) had lost favor as unworthy to lead Israel.

Chapter 35 is written by the Priestly writer and contains an alternate story of the placing of Jacob’s altar at Bethel (cf. chapter 28). Here God instructs Jacob to go to Bethel and build an altar; however, first Jacob has his household rid themselves of all foreign gods (including, presumably, the ones Rachel swiped from her father [cf. chapter 31:35]) and earrings, which he buried under an oak tree. Then Jacob and his families are protected by God as they move through Canaan toward Bethel (the “inhabitants were panic-stricken and dared not pursue the sons of Jacob”). After Jacob builds his altar, God blesses him and changes his name to Israel. He also, in verses 11-12, gives a more complete form of the promise than the one recounted by the J writer in chapter 28. The statement in verse 14, “God left him,” is significant, since it starts the concept of a universal God, not a deity confined to a particular place.

After they leave Bethel, Rachel, after a hard labor, gives birth to Benjamin. She dies in childbirth and is buried by the side of the road outside of Bethlehem in a place that is still to this day known as the Pillar of Rachel’s Grave. Verse 22 is an insertion about Reuben, the first-born, lying with his father’s concubine, Bilhah. Again, this is a later explanation as to why the three older brothers lose out on the good-guy inheritance race to little brother Judah.

After a recounting of the genealogy of Jacob’s sons, the chapter ends with Isaac’s death at age 180. Esau and Jacob together bury him in the patriarchal tomb of Machpelah.

Submitted by Karilyn Jaap

1 comment:

  1. Thank you to all the Women of the Word for these beautiful entries! I have learned so much reading the blog every week! Keep up the great work Barbara!
    Bettina Schuller

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