Deceit (Genesis 27 - 29)

Jacob, Esau & Rebekah  (Genesis 27-29)

Deceit & Treachery

These chapters start with telling the story of Jacob deceiving his father and taking the blessing from Esau. The Bible gives play by play of the deceit-laced conversations between Jacob and his mother; and between Jacob and Issac. As a result of these conversations, Jacob had to flee to his uncle's house because Rebekah heard that Esau might try and kill him. Once Jacob reached his uncle's house, he discovered the deceit & treachery of Laban. Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah... his daughter with the weak eyes.  A few chapters later, Laban had the nerve to call all of Jacob's possessions his own. Forget the labor of Jacob! For fourteen years, he labored for both of his wives and Laban called Jacob's possessions his. The story continues to tell us that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah and God saw this. He opened Leah's womb and gave her four sons in this chapter. But Rachel had none. 

A few Observations

Since God let Rebekah know when she was pregnant with twins and that the older would serve the younger why did she help God out and have Jacob deceive Esau? Why didn't she pray to God as she had done before and ask Him what she should do? The Bible is silent on this and we are left to wonder the whys of this story. 

Jacob seemed a little bit leery about lying to his father but his mother Rebekah encouraged him to do whatever she said. Once the deed was done, I noticed that when she told him that he should leave the house to protect himself for what he had done. In other words she shifted the blame on him and let him carry it as though he was the one who came up with the idea. Yet she was the one who chose to get him to lie. 

I noticed something else.  Later on in the story when Jacob saw Rachel he kissed her and wept aloud. However when his mother Rebekah saw Isaac she covered her face so there was something different in the tradition there. I wonder why. 

I also noticed when Jacob told Laban his story of how he deceived his brother, Laban responds,  oh you really are a part of my people. Since his sister was the one who encouraged Jacob to be deceitful, perhaps the whole store was recognizable and familiar to Laban. Perhaps, there might have been a similar story in their past. So, since Jacob was familiar with deceit, I'm sure he was not surprised when Laban deceived him. Perhaps, Laban is in essence acknowledging that there is lying and deceit on their side of the family. Perhaps, culturally, this was acceptable.

Beauty & Tragedy

This story also embraces a beauty & tragedy. Her name is Leah. She was born with some kind of physical issue with her eyes. Perhaps  society judged her appearance negatively and she was given to a husband who never had a heart for her. Even though her story is laced with tragedy, Jacob kept going back to her because she kept having children. 

Anyway, God saw this unloved woman and his way of having compassion for her was to give her several boys. I understand that having lots of boys in this culture was like winning the lottery... I know a bad comparison but I think it works here. Anyway, for a while Leah hoped that her husband would love her but he never seemed to come around. 

Finally, Leah decided to lift up God and praise him for her fourth son and named him  Judah. By doing this, she declared God as the one who orchestrated her life. As God tells his story through people, he chose Leah to bear Judah who eventually became part of the lineage of Jesus. Sometimes God picks the underdog or the most unlikely persons to bear his will and his message. And that is exactly what he did in this case. If someone was writing a romantic novel with an impactful ending such as the Messiah, most likely, the writer would have chosen the romance story of Jacob and beautiful Rachel but this was not the case. 

About Food

These chapters also do an excellent job of giving us ideas on what they ate. So far, we know that they ate goat with savory seasonings. At least this is what Rebekah prepared for Issac. She knew how to blend the spices exactly the way Issac liked it. Esau must have known too. His father asked him to prepare the fresh game meat just the way he liked it. Jacob knew how to fix lentils. His cooking enticed Esau to give up his birthright. In fact, the Bible says that he despised it for a bowl of lentils. We don't eat lentils too much today in the United States. It is still a savory dish in other cultures but generally speaking, we've lost the art of making it so scrumptious that we would want to sell our birthright too. 

Lessons

I'm guessing my lesson here is that God does not always pick what appears to us to be the right one. Nothing seem to be wrong with Esau but God looked on the heart of both of them. The Bible says he hated Esau and at this point, I am not too sure why. Perhaps this is something that I have yet to discover. On the other hand, the very name of Jacob meant heel grabber or deceiver. He is definitely not the one we would choose for the task of carrying the seed of the Messiah but it was God's choice. 

There is so much for me to learn. I am seeing in the story that God is not accepting those who appear to be pure but those are willing to follow him. He accepts those who he has plans for... or in other words he chooses... it seems. 

That's it for today.