The Book That God Wrote, Genesis Part 2

Apparently they do let kids read this, along with little crucifixes for them to choke on (apologies to my super spy girlfriend for picking on the Catholics, they just had the best looking Children's Bible, should tell you something). Enough chatter, on with the show, whatever happened to that crazy kid that was almost murdered by his own father? (Intro here, part one here)

Isaac, Like Father Like Son:

Isaac, unsurprisingly, is about as crazy as his old man, but before we get to that, Isaac is actually given a wife. His pop Abraham, on his death bed no less, sends one of his servants off to find a wife for his son with a bit of an ultimatum. She can't be a fuckin Canaanite, Abe hates those assholes (they mightve been the ones who kidnapped Lot or something, I can't really remember). Also if the servant can't do this then he'll be sent away, I think. I was a bit confused, I couldn't tell if being sent away (i.e. not being a servant anymore) was a bad thing or a good thing, it seemed to be marked as punishment for failing, but I'd think it would be a nice reward for succeeding myself. Further, if you still don't believe Abraham was completely nuts, as a way of making the servant give his word, Abe tells him to "put your hand under my thigh." What the what? Not over his heart and hope to die. No, he's gotta stick his hand under Abraham's crazy thigh, guess that's what they did back then. Did this "under the thigh" have a happy ending? What kind of servant was this exactly? Anyway, this servant takes off and finds a little town around a well (wells are super important, because they're basically all bombing around a desert, from what I understand). And he prays to God, "God, let a woman come out and if she offers to water me and all my camels then she's the one to marry Isaac, ok God? If you agree then do nothing ... awesome!"

So Rebekah comes out and sees this servant and all his camels, and probably sees that he's all parched looking and says, "Hi, let me water you, and all your camels." So the servant rejoices and decides to stay for dinner, where he tells Rebekah's dad and brothers all about his little deal with God and what happened, and these geniuses fall for it. "Oh if it's the will of God, then we'll send our daughter off to be married by a complete stranger who's the son of some crazy psychopath, sure." That servant certainly was sneaky, I don't think he even really made that prayer myself, I think he just picked the first woman he saw and made up the rest about the prayer to trick her parents; work smart, not hard, right? And shit, if it works then his job is done already. So off they go: servant, Rebekah, and camels (why did he bring a fleet of camels with him? I don't know) to meet Isaac, who's super excited by the way. Which of course he is, he just got a wife without lifting a finger as a present from his dad, who mustve felt bad about the whole almost stabbing him in the face thing.

Now we get to the "like father like son" stuff. Isaac wanders around with his wife collecting stuff (I guess that's people did for fun back then), and settles in Gerar. Now Isaac does the same shit Abraham does, he tells everyone in earshot that Rebekah is his sister, so that he wont be killed over her. Ugh, this is tiring, can you guess what happens next? Well the king of Gerar, who tried to steal Sarah earlier (or at least a former king did anyway), is a bit suspicious I guess, and spies Isaac and Rebekah being all lovey dovey (way to go geniuses, you just blew your cover), so he call's Isaac in to bash him, you know the drill.
"What the hell liar, I saw you making out with her, that's not your sister (at least I really really hope not)."
"Yeah, but if people knew she was my wife then I'd be killed (which is why I made out with her in public)."
So, the king, seemingly as sick of this bullshit as I am, tells Isaac, "Fine, I'm adding it to the city laws, 'No one is allowed to kill Isaac for his wife Rebekah.' There, better?" And here I'm a little confused, shouldn't killing anyone be against the law? What kind of city is it where you have to be on a "Do not kill" list in order to be safe? Maybe Abraham was onto something, I'm sure it was a great day when the concept of "everyone" was incorporated into laws.

Another thing Isaac and Rebekah stole from Abraham and Sarah was that Rebekah was infertile, but they prayed and did a little dance and Rebekah had twins. This is where the fun really begins, her two sons make up my favorite story so far. But before we get into that, is God just showing off here?
"Your offspring will number the stars."
"But my wife is infertile?"
"Tada! Open says me!"
"Oh hooray! Thank you God!"
Or, are the men of the Bible impatient? In Isaac's case I think it may be the latter. A final thing Isaac has in common with his old man? He's a pretty shitty parent, as is Rebekah. You'll see.

Jacob and Esau:

Jacob and Esau are twins who have a very tumultuous relationship. Shit they even begin fighting in the womb, there's so much action and explosions going on in there that Rebekah seems to fear for her life. And seems she had every reason to. Esau jumps out first and is all red and harry like a garment (half sasquatch perhaps?), and Jacob comes barreling out immediately afterwards clinging on to Esau's heel for dear life. Seems they had a race to see who could get out first, and thus be heir to Isaac's stuff, and Jacob being the sore loser spends most of his early life fucking Esau over. But I don't see this as their fault necessarily, my translation says as clear as day that Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob, which in my interpretation means they were both shitty parents. See Esau was this strong hairy wilderness man that would tear ass through the desert hunting things, and apparently Isaac liked wild game so he was all about his oldest son. Jacob was more of a meek little bookish type who spent his days bumming around the campsite, he was also a devious little snake.

One day Jacob's sitting under a tent making some food and Esau comes trundling in starving to death after some long epic (and I'm assuming failed) hunt. So, Esau asks his brother for some food, who wouldn't? This is family right? And what does this little shit say? "Sure, if you give me your birthright." Wow dick, I wouldn't do that to my starving enemy, let alone my fucking brother, and Esau, completely taken aback is like "Man I'm starving, I'll die without some food." And Jacob is still like, "Birthright bitch!" So, Esau says, "Fine, what's a birthright if I'm 6 feet under, give me the food." Thus Jacob feeds his brother some bread and lintel soup, and in my book it better be the best fucking lintel soup ever made. Now a few things, I can't really tell if Esau is exaggerating here, if he's really dying then Jacob is a real douche whore. If not, well then Esau isn't all that smart. In either case Jacob seems completely unprovoked, other than not being favored by his father, which just makes him a jealous ass. Also, knowing what types of people they are, Esau couldve easily beaten Jacob up, tied him down, and given him noogies until he returned his birthright (or hell, done this before eating if he actually wasn't dying, or even if he was, Jacob was puny afterall). It's interesting to me that he actually doesn't do that, this is when I start rooting for Esau. Maybe it's because he's hairy, or the oldest brother, or that he's completely screwed here for no reason, but I feel a sort of affinity for the guy.

If this wasn't enough for Esau to claim vendetta, then just wait, Jacob turns around and screws him again. Isaac's on his death bed and he wants to bestow a blessing on Esau before he dies. So he tells Esau to run out and kill his favorite animal and cook it in the way he likes and then he'll bless him. Thus Esau takes off into the wilderness thinking that having lost his birthright he'll at least be blessed by his old man, that's something. Rebekah overhears all this and takes her favorite son aside and tells him to try and steal the blessing for himself. Jacob tries to refuse at first, but his crazy mother is dead set on her plan, I guess she's bitter for being married into the craziest family in the nation against her will. So they kill an animal and fix it just like Isaac loves, and then shear a sheep and basically make an Esau costume up for Jacob. Jacob then bombs into Isaac's tent and pretends to be his brother, and he doesn't even do a good job because his dad's all like "Esau, you sound like Jacob what's going on?" and Jacob says, "No dad, see how harry I am?" and holds out his sheepy Esau costumed arm for his father. Good enough for Isaac I guess because he blesses Jacob, thinking it's his favored son. Yeah, awesome plan, except they didn't even think about what would happen when Esau got home, guess they hoped Isaac would be dead by then. So, a little later Esau comes in Isaac's tent and does the same exact song and dance. As you can imagine Isaac goes from confusion to complete rage, "That little asshole stole your blessing! I knew he sounded like Jacob." And of course Esau is pissed, having now been cheated out of both his birthright and his blessing. This is when he claims vendetta (bout time if you ask me), Jacob will pay, and die a slow agonizing death, and I can't fucking wait, this is getting good.

Jacob Have I Loved:

Now Rebekah, who doesn't plan things very far apparently, takes Jacob aside and tells him to get the fuck outta dodge. "Esau's going to kill your ass, we shouldve seen it coming I guess, whoops, bye." Thus Jacob leaves and starts wandering around the wilderness (the biblical pastime), sleeps on rocks, and has dreams of ladders and such. Eventually he wanders onto a field where shepherds are watching flocks around a crazy looking well, he's in the middle of asking these shepherds about it when he sees Rachel approaching. And let me tell you folks, this is love at first sight, or what passes for it in ancient biblical times anyway. Now craziness must just run in this family because what does Jacob do when he sees Rachel? A woman he hasn't even met yet? Yeah, he kisses her and then starts crying, no kidding, only crazy people do that right? Instead of giving him a smack and running off, Rachel invites this crazy bastard home. Wow, a match made in heaven (we'll see later that she can be just as randomly cruel as Jacob, so it truly is).

When Jacob gets to Rachel's house and meets her father, Laban, the two of them make an agreement. Jacob will work for Laban for seven years, and as payment he will get Rachel as his wife. Now that's fucking devotion. He waits seven years, seeing the love of his life every single day without being able to touch her. Now I know what you're thinking, there's no way he didn't sneak in her tent for a few practice rounds right? Well apparently not as we'll see. Jacob's seven years are completed and he goes to Laban, "Hey, time's up, I want to sleep with Rachel now!" I'm not kidding, he actually says this (Genesis 29:21), that's not something you ever say to the father of your fiancee/girlfriend/wife/any woman, as we're about to learn. This must have rubbed Laban the wrong way (duh), because he agrees but is somehow able to trick Jacob into marrying Rachel's older sister Leah instead, I guess it happened at night? Seriously, Jacob wakes up the next morning and is like "What the fuck? You're not Rachel!" How exactly do you sleep with someone and not know who it is? Er, don't answer that, you know what I mean. I guess Jacob was so pent up with seven years of sexual frustration that he couldve fucked a sofa cusion and thought it was Rachel. Anyway, Jacob's pretty pissed, and what does Laban say? "Well it's not our tradition to marry the younger daughter first, so in a week you can have Rachel too, provided you work another seven years for me." Man, that's gotta suck, I bet Jacob was a virgin too, saving himself for the love of his life only to wake up to that other girl with "weak" eyes as the Bible puts it. Still, he deserves it if you ask me, it's called karma bitch, you shouldn't have screwed over your brother for no reason.

So, the next week Jacob marries Rachel and all is good, except he starts to see the main problem with having two wives. They're horrible and catty to each other, and they're sisters, so it's not like you can have threesomes. That would be just ... wrong. So he's forever getting:
"Why did you sleep with Rachel last night instead of me?"
"Jacob! Leah's pregnant again and I haven't had a single child! You don't love me do you?"
"I've had more children than that frigid bitch Rachel, why do you love her more than me?"
And on and on, it's enough to drive a man insane, except Jacob already was, so maybe he liked it. Actually, it is kinda sad, Leah tries so hard to please Jacob, every kid she has she thinks, "He has to love me now, right?" No, apparently not, I feel sorry for Leah, she kinda got the shaft mainly because her dad wanted to screw Jacob over.

Finally, after seven years of putting up with squabbling wives, Laban asks Jacob what payment he'd accept to stay working for him even longer. Jacob says, "Man just let me look after all the sheep and goats and stuff, and let all the speckled and spotted ones be mine." It sounds to me like the only time he has a moments peace is when he's alone out in the fields looking over animals. Laban agrees, and I guess he's still pissed about before, and takes every spotted animal in his flocks and gives them to his sons, so Jacob has nothing. But remember, Jacob isn't one to be out tricked, he screwed over his own brother twice, God knows his dickish father in law isn't safe. Jacob has some batshit sounding plan that turns sheep and goats spotted ... yeah don't ask, I reread this part a few times and I can't for the life of me understand what he did. I like to think he just snuck out at night and painted polka dots on all the newborn animals, he is crazy afterall. Anyway, after some  time Laban suddenly has nothing, all his flocks are spotted and owned by Jacob, and this being Laban's livelihood, well it's about to get nasty. Thus Jacob does what he's always done when shit gets tough after a successful con job, he gets the hell out of town.

So it came to pass that Jacob loaded up his animals, his wives, his kids and decided to head back home, hoping that Esau wasn't still as mad as Laban was about to be. Before they left, Rachel stole all of Laban's house gods. Why? I don't know, maybe she was as pissed over Laban's bullshit as I was by then. Laban gets home and finds everyone gone along with his house gods, and so he takes off after the ingrates. Jacob sure has a way with people huh? The day before Laban catches up with Jacob, God visits him in a dream and says "When you meet Jacob, don't you say anything bad to him. Also you better not say anything good either." So you're telling me not to say anything? Why not just say so? Ugh God, you're so confusing sometimes. Anyway, Laban doesn't really listen to this warning (how could he?) and when he catches up with Jacob he's like:
"Wtf man? Why did you sneak off like that without letting me say goodbye to my kids and grandkids?"
"Because I guess I thought you'd kill me, besides I only took what was fairly mine."
"Bullshit, you stole my house gods!"
"No I didn't, and to prove it, search freely through everyone's stuff, if you find your house gods bring the thief before me and all our witnesses, and we'll punish them."
Jacob doesn't realize that the love of his life is the dirty little thief hindering his escape. Rachel, whose motivation is still unclear to me, throws the house gods in a bag and sits on it in her tent. When her father comes snooping around her tent she tells him, "Sorry I can't get up dad, I'm on my period." Now, knowing how people felt about menstruating women in biblical times, I'm surprised Laban didn't run screaming from the tent (actually, I'm sure many modern men would do the same). No, he searched the tent, but it explains why he didn't make her get up so he could check the bag. So she gets away with stealing from her father by faking a period, or I guess she was faking it, I don't really know. Laban then apologizes to Jacob, says goodbye to his kids and grandkids and heads back home. Jacob now sets his sights for his own home.

First, Jacob sends a messenger to Esau to tell him "Hey man, you know that whole screwing you over stuff? I'm really sorry about that. If you would welcome me I will bow to you as your servant." So in a few days the servant comes back and Jacob asks, "So will Esau welcome me at his home?" And the messenger says, "Umm, no, he's coming to meet you ... with 400 people." Oh yes! This is getting good. Esau's been busy too it seems: amassing an entire army just waiting for his punk ass brother to return so he can give him the business. I can imagine the content grin on Esau's face when he found out who this messenger was, "Oh no, I'll go meet him ... with my fucking army! Vendetta!" Jacob is going down, and I cannot fucking wait, I've been rooting for Esau since way back, and now I'm going to see him roll out with an army for a brilliant check mate, his last laugh. Man, the Bible rocks.

So Jacob shits himself, who wouldnt, and starts splitting up his people. He sends his wives away and when he comes back ... well let me just quote what my translation says: "So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled him till daybreak (Gen 32:24)." What the? Ok, I know Jacob wrestles an angel at some point (any good U2 fan knows that), but man, don't hit me mid sentence with that shit. At least give me some context or something. So ok, Jacob wrestles this dude and when the sun comes up the dude gets impatient and cripples Jacob's leg, but Jacob can't be stopped and finally the man screams,
"Uncle! Uncle! It's sunup man, let me go!"
"No, not unless you bless me."
So the man blesses Jacob, and calls him "Israel" because he bested man and God, yep turns out he just fought all night with an angel. Oh, that's hardcore (I mean ignoring that some angel just wanders around picking fights with mortals), I thought Jacob was done for, but he just bested a fucking angel, he's crippled now, but still. Jacob might just have a shot, 400 dudes or no.

The time is now, Jacob cowboys up and decides to meet his brother head on but still sends gifts of cattle ahead of him, trying to find a peaceful solution to the very end I suppose. Finally, he sees Esau and his army approaching, I imagine this "Braveheart" looking scene: Jacob with a few servants on one side, Esau and 400 men cresting a hill, all hairy with battle axes and screaming. Esau takes off towards Jacob. Yes! Here it comes, and when they meet Esau ... he ... embraces Jacob and they fall down into a weeping mess.

What?!? No! What a crappy ending! I wanted blood. Esau deserved revenge, he deserved to carve his birthright and his blessing out of Jacob's dead body. Jacob just beat up an angel, I wanted to see him test his might on an entire army before screwing Esau over one final permanent time. This entire story was leading up to this ultimate confrontation and then they make up? Is the Bible finally starting to promote morals? God, I hope so.

After cooling down some I've actually come to terms with this ending, and I actually think it's quite good. Two brothers with shitty parents, parents that turned them against each other, come to terms despite it. They both made a life for themselves, and were both successful apart from their parents and their dumb birthrights and blessings. I can see them sitting around the dinner table drinking wine and laughing at how awful their childhood was.
"God can you believe dad and his ONE blessing? Christ why couldn't he have given two?"
"Right? And what was mom thinking with her stupid sheep costume idea?"
"You know I can't believe the way dad treated you. I would've stolen my birthright too."
"Funny thing is I didn't even want it, I just hated that old bastard so much y'know?"
"Yeah ... I know."
How many siblings have gone through this very thing I wonder? So despite the twist ending, I love this story. The Bible certainly has many tricks up its sleeve.

Expect to see part 3 of Genesis soon, where we meet Jacob's sons, one of which seems to be the first in Abraham's line with any real sense and (can it be?) morals. Morals? Really? It's about damn time.