Day 10 - Genesis 30-31

It's funny how, despite the penchant of certain sectors of Christian society to point to the Bible when it comes to figuring out issues of family and relationships, scripture is chock full of stuff that most people would scoff at, even if they were fans of the daytime talk shows that would be salivating to feature during Sweeps Week.

Strangely enough, it may be that people with family troubles should look to the Bible's famous families, although it may be more of a "look what these people got up to - feel better" type of approach rather than a "let's be more like them" thing. One can only hope.


On a superficial level, hearing the stories, it can be easy to grab the characters that get their names thrown around in the foundational stories of the faith and put them on pedestals. The danger with that is that some day you might get around to closely reading some of those stories, one of two things may happen. Either you may end up discounting large portions of the stories because they're in direct opposition to the character presets that you've already slotted the figures in to, or the crash may be worse than the high, and you may end up having more distaste for the characters that let your lofty expectations down than they may deserve, even with their weird and (only sometimes borderline) immoral behaviour...

Take this whole chapter about the sons of Jacob. It really seems like the traditional/standard way of approaching/telling this story is a bit like a skipping stone that just touches down on the text briefly before carrying its own narrative over the inconvenient bits of the story to the next point along the way.

Jacob married Rachel, and Jacob became the father of twelve sons, who would go to be the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel.

All true, but leaves out all the really juicy (and, I'd imagine, really awkward for Jacob) bits. All of this is with the full disclosure that I'm far from an expert on the sociology or marital standards on the ground in the ancient near-east. All of this may have been perfectly normal, but it still seems like it may have been a touch over the top even then and there...

The way it actually pans out is that, yes, Jacob marries Rachel (in exchange for seven years of manual labour for her father, after already having spent seven years in servitude to him, only to be given Leah, whom the Bible all but out-and-out names The Ugly One, although he doesn't notice until the morning after... so... there's that...) and he eventually becomes the father of those twelve guys (although the kids are actually split between his two sortof-understandably embittered wives, who, when they run out of steam, throw concubines at Jacob, and count the kids of those concubines as their own while they obsessively keep score to see who's done best by their man). Does this seem over-the-top weird to anyone else?

So some of the names are well known (more on the names in a bit), and others not to much, but here's how it breaks down by woman, as opposed to the more typical "fathered-by-Jacob" method of lumping them all together (yes, I know that this particular day's readings were chapters 30-31, and many of this list come from ch.29, but they all still fit together. Hence, being discussed today):

Leah:

1. Reuben
2. Simeon
3. Levi
4. Judah

Bilhah (pinch-hitting for Rachel):

1. Dan
2. Naphtali

Zilpah (pinch-hitting for Leah):

1. Gad
2. Asher

Leah:

1. Issachar
2. Zebulun

Rachel:

1. Joseph

Not to throw spoilers in there, but Rachel would add one more later, but that still brings her tally up to two - the last two, no less. So there's that.

Also, the timing is a heck of a thing, too, since by the time Leah has Issachar (whose... origins... were the result of her actually buying a night with her husband from his other wife for the cost of some plants picked in the fields by her oldest son) Reuben's obviously out and about picking stuff to be sold in exchange for what Jacob's got going on. Which is weird on a number of levels.

It's almost as if an over-arching theme of the Bible is that people are not the ones you should be using as benchmarks when trying to model your life choices. Funny thing, that.

The other thing proved by this story is that people in the time of Jacob really could name their kids anything they wanted. Seriously. Reuben is literally named "Look! It's a boy!" Running down the rest of the list, in order, we have Heard, Joined To, Praised, A Judge, Wrestling, Troop, Happy, There Is Recompense, Exalted and Jehovah Has Added. Good thing they sound way better in Hebrew.

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I have no idea what's going on in the passage about the rods and all the goats mating, other than there seems to be an understanding of genetics that significantly pre-dates Mendel and his peas. Other than that, it's all very strange to me. Anyone with farming insight/animal husbandry experience care to elaborate here for me?

Also, I'm casting around for an appropriate "more sheep than you can shake a stick at reference, but it's not coming to me. Too good an opportunity to fully pass up, though...

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Finally, I can't decide if it's disheartening or encouraging that male squeamishness around mysterious woman bits and their regular operation apparently dates back to the time of the patriarchs. If I may paraphrase/summarize:

Laban: "Hi Rachel, it's me - your dad. I'm looking for some priceless idols that I'm so positive you stole from me that I've chased your across the desert for days on end, and have now searched everywhere else in this camp except for your tent. I'm going to look around, and if you've got them I'm going to kill you, with the permission of your husband."

...

Laban: "Now that I've searched your entire tent and the only place they could be is that saddle bag you're sitting on, for some reason..."

Rachel: "Sorry dad, can't stand up... lady issues."

Laban: "I'll just be on my way then. Sorry to bother you."

(31:32-35)