Rachel and Leah

Last week we talked about Jacob. Jacob had a twin brother named Esau that he basically tricked out of his inheritance and blessing, and Esau got so mad that everyone was worried Esau might murder Jacob. So Jacob was sent away to his uncle Laban.

Remember if you look at our family tree, Laban is Jacob's mother's brother. But if you remember our lesson on Rebekah, she left her brother and never went back, to marry Isaac. So Jacob was leaving his family and the only place he'd ever known to go live with an uncle he'd never met. But he thought he might die if he stayed so he had to go.

Today we're going to talk about this time period that Jacob spent with Laban--which we skipped last week--because today we will be talking about Jacob's wives, who are Laban's daughters. Please go get your Bibles.

So Jacob makes it all the way to Haran and finally sees a bunch of people. They are shepherds with flocks of sheep. But he notices that they're just kind of all milling about this well, which has a big stone over it, basically to keep it closed and protect it. Probably to keep stuff from falling into the well when they're not using it. But the effort of moving the stone is so great that basically they wait for all the flocks to arrive before they remove it. Because they would need a couple of strong people to do it and they don't want to have to do it more than once.

Jacob approaches these guys and asks them if they know his uncle Laban. And basically they're like "Yes, and his daughter is coming here with her sheep!"

Can someone now read Genesis 29:9-14

9 While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep; for she kept them. 10 Now when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, and the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of his mother’s brother Laban. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and wept aloud. 12 And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father.

13 When Laban heard the news about his sister’s son Jacob, he ran to meet him; he embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things, 14 and Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” And he stayed with him a month.

So when Jacob sees Rachel, he removes the stone blocking the water, even though it wasn't his job. Why do you think he did that? [Let them answer.]

He could have been trying to impress her. He could have been trying to do something nice for her to show he was a nice guy. We don't know. All we know is that he does that first and then he goes to greet her. And he greets her with a kiss. Now when Jacob is described as kissing Rachel here, don't think of it as a romantic kiss. Think of it more like a customary greeting, like how the French greet each other. Basically he sees her and is so happy to meet a family member and finally be at his destination that he cries.

So he tells her they're related and she runs home to her dad, Laban. And Laban is very happy to see him. Remember, he probably hasn't heard anything of his sister since she left all those long year ago, and now here is her son! It would probably be a reassurance to him that he didn't make the wrong decision sending his sister off, and Jacob's existence was proof she was still alive. So Laban invites Jacob into his home to stay.

Now can someone read verses 15-20

15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” 16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah’s eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. 18 Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” 19 Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

Basically Jacob is staying with Laban and helping out around the family business. And Laban thinks it's unfair not to pay him. So after that first month, when it's now clear that Jacob isn't going back home, Laban asks Jacob what a fair wage is. And Jacob offers to work seven years in order to marry Rachel.

Why Rachel? Because she's beautiful. It's interesting your versions of the Bible say her eyes are lovely, but every other version of the Bible I've read says it's "weak eyes" which is not meant as a compliment. So I checked my commentary and it seems the words used in the original language can go either way. However, most interpreters use the previous sentence that contrast the sister's age to say that this whole section is comparing and contrasting this sisters. If so, then this would be a contrast. Rachel was beautiful, and Leah was not [1].

However, even if we take it positively, that Leah really does have beautiful eyes, it's clear that for Jacob Rachel's overall grace and beauty out balanced Leah's eyes. After all, he loves Rachel not Leah.

Laban agrees to give Rachel to Jacob--you'll notice they don't ask Rachel her feelings at all on this matter. But Jacob has to work the seven years agreed. And in that last verse it says that the seven years only seemed a few days to Jacob because he's so in love. Have you guys ever experienced something like that? Where a long period of time seems short? [Let them answer.]

Generally when I'm looking forward to something, the time seems to take even longer for me! But clearly I'm not as patient as Jacob.

Alright, now let's see what happens after these seven years, if Laban holds true to his promise. Can someone read Genesis 29:21-27?

21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” 22 So Laban gathered together all the people of the place, and made a feast. 23 But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. 24 (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.) 25 When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” 26 Laban said, “This is not done in our country—giving the younger before the firstborn. 27 Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.”

So does Laban hold up his end of the bargain? [Let them answer] No! Instead of marrying Jacob to Rachel, he marries him to Leah!!!!!

Now how did he pull that off? Well you guys know what wedding veils are, right? Now days those veils are pretty lacy and you can see right through them. But back then, that wouldn't have been the case! The veils they wore were heavy and would have masked her entire face!

Also there would have been a lot of drinking during the wedding feast, so by the time Jacob and his new wife got back to their room and it would be time to lift the veil, Jacob might have been so drunk he wouldn't have known the difference anyway.

Needless to say Jacob is really upset, but how do you guys think Leah felt? Were not told what she agreed to or if Laban just did it. But I imagine it would be rather demoralizing for your new husband to wake up the next morning and be devastated to see you instead of your sister.

The Bible doesn't tell us how Leah felt, unfortunately. But for Jacob, it was just not acceptable. So he went to Laban and yelled at him. It's too late for them to do anything about it, once Jacob was married to and slept with Leah, there was no going back. There wasn't really divorce back then, and if Jacob did decide to leave her over this--to not continue the marriage--no one else would want to marry her. And for women in these ancient times, you couldn't really make a living on your own. But fortunately, it doesn't seem like Jacob even considered that. Instead he was just mad because he wanted to marry Rachel, and fortunately for him--I guess--he could have a second wife.

So Laban says he can marry Rachel, and even lets her marry her within the week! But he has to work another seven years. Does that seem very fair? [Let them answer]

Alright let's see what happens next, can someone read Genesis 29:28-31.

28 Jacob did so, and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife. 29 (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.) 30 So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban for another seven years.

31 When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

So Jacob gets to marry Rachel, and now he has two wives. And he loves Rachel more and favors her, which doesn't seem very fair to Leah, does it? As far as we know she didn't do anything wrong, just did what her father told her to. And God sees that. So he lets Leah have children and doesn't let Rachel. Why do you think he did that? [Let them answer]

Yeah because he saw it was unfair for Jacob to treat Leah like this, and knew that he gave her children Jacob would at least give her some attention. Whereas Rachel was going to get attention whether she had children or not.

But remember as we spoke talked about with Sarah, for women back then, a lot of their self worth was tied up in their ability to have children. So do you think Rachel was very happy about this situation? [Let them answer.]

Well let's see what the Bible says. Can someone read Genesis 30:1-5?

30 When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” 2 Jacob became very angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” 3 Then she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees and that I too may have children through her.” 4 So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife; and Jacob went in to her. 5 And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Even though Rachel is the wife that is loved, she is jealous of her sister. And she gets angry at Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!" This might seem like an over-reaction to you, but remember back then a woman who couldn't give birth was a shameful thing. The world was not at all as it is today. Now we know women are equal to men, and women are allowed to do all the same things men are. I don't have kids, and I'm not ashamed or sad, or thinking I would rather die! But for Rachel, having a baby would have been her only job. And she's failing at it and her sister is succeeding. It wouldn't even matter that Jacob loved her. His love isn't enough in the face of what seems to her to be this huge failure.

So Rachel does the same thing Sarah did. She gives Jacob her maid. Because remember, the child of her maid could basically be considered her child.

Rachel's maid, as we can see on our family tree, actually has two children. You would think that would be the end of this, yes? That Leah at this point already has four sons, and now Rachel has these two sons by her maid, that everyone would be happy, right?

Well let's see what happens.

9 When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10 Then Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son.

Leah has four sons. But she doesn't seem to be having any others. So does she say "Well four is enough! Let's stop here!" No! Instead she gives her maid to Jacob, so that her maid's kids can be counted towards her. It's like Rachel and Leah are having this Cold War arms race of babies, but Leah is clearly winning. Why would Leah want to continue to have more kids, do you think? [Let them answer.]

The Bible doesn't tell us what Leah was thinking, but I think for Leah it was about having Jacob's attention. Without her children, without having more, Jacob would just hang out with Rachel all the time. After all, he loves Rachel not Leah. So if she stopped having more kids, would Jacob want to spend time with her? He could just spend time with his sons and not her. But mothers have a lot of control over babies, and for Jacob to hang out with a baby he has to hang out with it's mother.

It's all about who gets Jacob's attention and we'll see this in the next passage. Can someone read Genesis 30:14-17?

14 In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 15 But she said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” Rachel said, “Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.” 16 When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, “You must come in to me; for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night. 17 And God heeded Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Alright so what is happening here? Reuben is one of Leah's sons. He finds a plant called a mandrake. Now back in the day, mandrakes were believed to have some special properties that could help a woman get pregnant. I don't think this is true--like I don't think anyone today believes that--but back then women might use the plant to help them. When Rachel sees it then, of course she wants it! She still wants a baby! But Reuben takes it to his mother, Leah. So Rachel has to go to her sister and ask for it.

Leah responds rudely, though perhaps understandably. She says Rachel has stolen her husband, which is true when you consider Jacob technically married Jacob first. But Jacob loves Rachel, and therefore probably spends more time with her. So to Leah it seems that Rachel is taking everything away from her, though of course Rachel would feel the other way. That Leah has stolen Rachel's husband, since Jacob had worked those original seven years for Rachel, not Leah.

But Rachel is desperate so she barters. She offers Jacob. Basically when you had multiple wives like this back in the day, a husband would alternate which nights he was with which wife. So that night he was probably supposed to be with Rachel. But Rachel gives the night to Leah.

In the end, Leah gets pregnant, and Rachel is still not pregnant. So this deal doesn't really work to Rachel's benefit. But it does show how competitive these sisters are, and how even when it seems that everything should be okay, because they each have kids associated with them, it's not.

So Leah actually has two more sons and then a daughter. And Rachel still has no children. Until finally, can someone read Genesis 30:22-24

22 Then God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and opened her womb. 23 She conceived and bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my reproach”; 24 and she named him Joseph, saying, “May the Lord add to me another son!”

Finally Rachel has a son. And when Joseph is finally born, when she finally has a child of her own, is she like "Thank you, God! I'll stop asking now because you gave me this one precious child and that's all I need?"

No. She's not. Instead she says "May the Lord add to me another son." She just had a kid and she's already worrying about whether she'll have a next one!

We'll study much later, stories in the Bible where there are women who God only gives one child and they are extremely grateful, but remember Rachel is in a child bearing Cold War. She needs to catch up with Leah, and right now she's like six behind.

But I'll give you a spoiler, Rachel is never going to catch up. Rachel only has one other son and it's not for many years later, after she thinks Joseph is dead. But we'll study that next week.

Perhaps if Rachel had been more grateful God would have given her more children? We may never know. But she does at least have this one son, Joseph, and we'll study next week what happens to him.

So all this time Jacob is still in Haran, with Laban and his family. But eventually we know, as we studied last week, he returns to Canaan, right? Can someone read Genesis 31:1-3.

31 Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, “Jacob has taken all that was our father’s; he has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father.” 2 And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him as favorably as he did before. 3 Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your ancestors and to your kindred, and I will be with you.”

Jacob has been in Haran for a long time, and he's gained a lot of wealth in that time. But now it's time to go back. But Jacob is also married to both of Laban's daughters. Do you think he's going to be happy to see his daughters and all his grandchildren go away? [Let them answer.]

Yeah, I don't think so either. Can someone read Genesis 31:17-21?

17 So Jacob arose, and set his children and his wives on camels; 18 and he drove away all his livestock, all the property that he had gained, the livestock in his possession that he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.

19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father’s household gods. 20 And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean, in that he did not tell him that he intended to flee. 21 So he fled with all that he had; starting out he crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.

This section basically says that Jacob leaves without telling Laban, because he's afraid of what Laban will do if Jacob tries to leave. Laban may never let him go back to his father's family, back to his homeland, back to the land God has promised him. So Jacob leaves sneakily in the night. And everything would have been fine except what does verse 19 say? "Rachel stole her father's household gods."

So remember, back in this day no one followed God--our God--except Abraham and his descendents. Most people believed in many gods and spirits, and it was fairly common to have these household idols that you would worship as representations of these gods. This sort of practice even existed all the way to the Roman times. And people took these idols very seriously, because worshiping them was their only connection to their gods. So stealing them would be tantamount to grand larsony, stealing the most priceless and sentimental things people had.

Why does Rachel do it? Why would she steal her father's gods? Why do you guys think she did it? [Let them answer.]

I don't know and the Bible doesn't say. There are many theories. Perhaps they were made of gold, and Rachel wanted to sell them for money. Jacob seems to have a lot of money, but maybe she was worried something might happen on this long journey to a strange place. Maybe she didn't really believe in God--after all she had never seen them--and these idols held special meaning to her? Or maybe she was just really angry at her dad. Remember this is the man who made Leah marry Jacob instead of letting Rachel do it. Maybe she was so angry, she wanted to steal the most precious thing he had.

We don't know Rachel's motivation, we can only guess. What we do know is that Jacob didn't know she stole them, and Laban was furious when he found out. Can someone read Genesis 31:25-32?

25 Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsfolk camped in the hill country of Gilead. 26 Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword. 27 Why did you flee secretly and deceive me and not tell me? I would have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre. 28 And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? What you have done is foolish. 29 It is in my power to do you harm; but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Take heed that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.’ 30 Even though you had to go because you longed greatly for your father’s house, why did you steal my gods?” 31 Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. 32 But anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our kinsfolk, point out what I have that is yours, and take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods.

So he chases after Jacob, and when he finally catches up to him, he's like "You didn't even let me kiss my kid's goodbye!!!! And on top of that, you stole my gods!" And Jacob owns up to the running away like a thief in the night because he was afraid of what Laban would do, but he's adamant he didn't steal the idols. Because he doesn't know Rachel did it. So he says that if someone did, it's the death penalty for that person! Uh-oh. Jacob just signed a death penalty for his favorite wife, without even knowing it. Anyone think this is going to end well?

Well let's see. Can someone read Genesis 31:33-35?

33 So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. And he went out of Leah’s tent, and entered Rachel’s. 34 Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt all about in the tent, but did not find them. 35 And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.” So he searched, but did not find the household gods.

Laban searches the tens and finds nothing in Jacob, Leah, or the maid's tents. Finally he ends up at Rachel's. But she hides the gods in a camel saddle and sits on it. And when Laban enters, she should rise to greet him but she says to him, "I can't because I'm on my period."

Back then they didn't have all the feminime products we have. A woman basically used rags and stayed away from everyone else during her period. And anything she touched would be considered unclean. So Laban wouldn't even want to touch the camel saddle, basically thinking it would be covered in her blood.

So he doesn't find them and Rachel doesn't have to die.

And that's basically the story of Rachel and Leah. We'll talk more about their sons next week, and how Jacob's favoritism trickles down through his children and causes ramifications he couldn't imagine. But for Rachel and Leah, there is only this competition for their husbands affection.

There really isn't some sort of pat morale. Though I will say, thank goodness in modern American society a woman's worth is not tied to her ability to bear children and no one has more than one wife. Because it sure seems that both of those things just led to a whole ton of drama!

February 2017 Memory Verse

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
— Deuteronomy 6:5

Hopefully in the month of February, we will reach the story of Moses in the class and begin to talk about the Law. And since this is the greatest commandment, we will definitely want to talk about it. 

Mostly I chose this verse for two reasons. The first reason is: it's a foundational Bible verse. Like John 3:16 this is one of those often quoted verses that is central to not only our faith tradition, but others. The second reason is less noble. All of the Middle Schooler's complained that January 2017's verse was too long, and in the end no one memorized it. So I'm hoping with a shorter verse, more of them will actually participate.

Hawkeye: A Truly Terrible & Brilliant Idea

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Note: This post was written by me, but originally posted on the website Spellbound Scribes on January 6, 2014. It is a review of Hawkeye #1 by Matt Fraction and David Aja.

There are some ideas that are so amazing, so beautiful that you can’t help but grab the book and say, “Yes, this is the story I’ve been looking for all my life.”

And then there are some ideas where you just find yourself thinking, “What the hell was the creator on that he thought this was a good idea?”

A comic based on Hawkeye is one of those truly terrible ideas.

Hawkeye is probably the most mocked Avenger, and for good reason. Captain America is a freaking super-soldier--the peak of human capability and awesomeness. Thor is a good. Tony Stark describes himself best as a "genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist." The Black Widow is a super-spy, a combination of super-soldier serum and KGB training. The Hulk is the Hulk. And then there is this regular human with a bow and arrow running around. Yeah, Hawkeye's got nothing other than a carnie past to recommend him.

He’s the one Avenger who time and time again has not been able to support his own individual comic title. Everything about a Hawkeye comic was a bad idea.

Except…this isn’t really a Hawkeye comic. As in, it’s not about Hawkeye doing missions for SHIELD or the Avengers. Matt Fraction had another idea, the tag-line that would be on the title page of every issue:

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Hawkeye, Issue #1

A comic about what Hawkeye does with his downtime is not something anyone had ever seen before, and it turns out, it’s a completely brilliant idea.

Clint Barton isn’t Special

Clint Barton is not a super-soldier, he’s not a god or a genius, he doesn’t come from money, and he sure as hell has no idea what he’s doing.

Hawkeye is the Avenger who is trying to pay his rent, deal with life, and not die.

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Basically, he’s who you and I would be if we were an Avenger. And since we’re not Avengers, he’s the Avenger you and I could hang out with and not feel completely out of our depth.

And this issue shows us that in detail. Clint Barton needs weeks to recover from injuries in a battle that any of the other Avengers would have walked away from. He’s a guy who lives in a run-down apartment building and knows all of his neighbors. He’s a guy that sees a dog get hurt and can’t leave him there to die.

He’s just a good guy. Your average guy, sure, but he tries his best to do his best.

And that’s something we can all relate to.

“Paleolithic. I looked it up.”

Voice in comics is a much harder thing to pin down than it is in novels, because in comics you can have multiple voices: the narrator’s, the character’s, the artist’s, etc. But in the best comics they all meld together into something perfect and beautiful. Like in Hawkeye.

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Hawkeye, Issue #1

Clint is our narrator, and his voice is spot on: it’s the compelling voice of the every-man do-gooder that he is. A guy who came from nothing and in many ways still views himself as nothing. Perfectly underscoring that we have David Aja’s art and Matt Hollingsworth’s coloring. I can very much believe this is the world as Clint sees it: a world where he isn’t anything special to look at and a world that has perhaps a little more purple than it should. (I mean that last bit literally. Purple is Hawkeye’s favorite color, and man, the colorist for this comic is a master of coloring entire scenes using only varying shades of purple).

And that’s what a truly great voice does. It’s not just slang or word choice that pops off the page. A great voice filters the entire world as the narrator sees it. We come to understand the world as the narrator understands it. And that it was the creative team behind Hawkeye does. They give us the world according to Clint Barton.

Basically…

Hawkeye had everything going against it. This was a comic that when it first came out, people heard about it and laughed because who the hell thought a Hawkeye comic was a good idea? It is now the most popular Marvel comic, the one that everyone is talking about.

Every issue is as good, if not better, than the first. It’s one of the few comics where truly interesting things are being done with the medium. But none of those other issues would exist if the creative team behind Issue #1 hadn’t stuck the landing.

And stick it they did.

If I write a first chapter half as good as Hawkeye Issue #1, then I will have done a good job indeed.

Feed by Mira Grant

Note: This review was originally posted on my blog "Shelf of Friends" on February 28, 2012.

Statistics:
Title: Feed
Author: Mira Grant
Pages: 571
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic (Zombie)
Age Range: Adult
Publication Date: 5/1/2010
Publisher: Orbit
Series Name: Newsflesh Trilogy

What's it about?

It's been twenty years since the zombie apocalypse, and zombies are now a way of life. Georgia and Shaun Mason are siblings who can't even remember a time before zombies. They live in a world that's been changed, but not that much. There is still politics. And candidates still go on campaign tours for the job of America's president.

When the Masons are selected to follow the campaign of a presidential candidate as reporters, they jump at the career-making opportunity. But going on campaign means leaving the safety of the fortified cities where non-zombies live in fear. They must brave the zombie ridden countryside of America on this campaign to the White House.

The Masons expect political drama and zombie threats. What they don't expect is to uncover an assassination plot and a dark government conspiracy that threatens them all.

Zombies? Really?

Yes, zombies. Don't roll your eyes. This isn't another zombie apocalypse novel where the main characters are minding their business and then--bam!--zombies. Rather this is a novel where zombies have been around for twenty years, and people have survived. Life goes on. A lot of zombie novels and movies are extremely bleak. Either everyone pretty much dies as zombie food (and then becomes a zombie) or the world breaks down into a Mad Max level of disorder. Mira Grant doesn't present that sort of bleak outcome. Zombies are an obstacle, and like any other obstacle people learn to deal with them.

Granted zombies aren't like you're regular vermin that people deal with in our modern era. The book presents a constant fear, a constant danger in the background mindset of everyone. Sure life goes on, but it's a life where anyone around might become a zombie at any moment. It's not just a bite that can turn you into a zombie (though a bite guarantees it). At any moment a person could just randomly become a zombie, because the zombie virus is present in everyone at every moment.

The book also presents interesting mutations of the zombie virus that affect people without turning them into a zombie, and I love that. Because viruses rarely stay in one form. I love the Georgia's eyes are extra sensitive to light because she has a mutated form of the zombie virus. I think that's fantastic. (And that's not a spoiler. That's like chapter one.)

So yes, this book is about zombies. But it's zombies as you've never seen them before. I promise.

Wait...a presidential candidate campaign? Is this just a political novel in disguise?

No! Be not afraid! This novel isn't preachy. Don't worry about it preaching politics you don't believe in at you. Don't worry about your children being brainwashed to one side or the other of the political spectrum. Unless you have really strong feelings on how the government should behave in the case of a zombie apocalypse.

The presidential candidate the Masons are following is a Republican, and he's also a genuinely good guy. But there weren't any rants on Republican values or anything like that. It's mostly concerned about politics in a post-zombie world. Policies are keeping people safe from zombies, searching for a cure, etc. And the Masons bring a healthy dose of skepticism to the campaign. They don't blindly follow this presidential candidate. Georgia openly tells the the candidate that if they're looking for people to write propaganda they've found the wrong reporters. The Masons are there to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

If this was a movie, what would its rating be?

I'm fairly certain that zombie movies are almost always rated R. Zombies pretty much equal violence. Though the language of the writing isn't coarse, the characters sometimes use rather coarse language, including the f-word. But there isn't any sex. I can't even recall any kissing other than the candidate kissing his wife in a sentence here or there. These people are too concerned with surviving zombies and uncovering conspiracies for any lovey-dovey stuff.

Overall, how was it?

Let me see: politics, conspiracies, and ZOMBIES! I loved it. Articles written by the reporter main characters are interspersed throughout the novel which give it an extra feel of reality. And I was surprised how quickly I became attached to the Masons, and the risks that Mira Grant was willing to take with them.

This is a fantastic novel with an end even I didn't see coming. If you like zombies or conspiracies or fast paced novels with a strong voice, Feed is the right book for you.

Jacob

Last week we talked about Rebekah, the wife of Isaac. She was a faithful woman who moved across the world to marry a stranger, because it was what God wanted her to do. She was also the mother of two sons. Does anyone remember their names?

[Let them answer.]

That’s right, Jacob and Esau. Now who remembers which of those two was the older son and which was the younger?

[Let them answer.]

Yes, Esau was older than Jacob. Today we’re going to study Jacob, who is the younger son. The fact that Esau was older—though barely because remember they were twins-- is important because back in this era it was usually the older son who inherited most things from the father. This is a concept called “birthright.” Which basically boils down to the fact that because Esau was the oldest son, he would get the majority of the inheritance from their father. The younger son wouldn’t get nothing, but it would be an uneven split. The older son might get two-thirds of the land, animals, and money while the younger would get one-third. Doesn’t seem very fair, does it? But until very recently that was pretty much how these sorts of things were run.

Now last week we talked about how Jacob and Esau were both favored by different parents. Who remembers which parent favored Esau? [Let them answer.] Right, Isaac. So it was Rebekah, the mother, who favored Jacob. Because of this, and because perhaps Isaac wasn’t perhaps the best judge of character, Rebekah helped Jacob get Isaac’s blessing.

This blessing of Isaac, as we talked about last week, was basically a religious thing. It was NOT the birthright. Which is a little confusing because they both start with B. So I want you to remember: [write this on the board] birthright equals wealth, blessing equals religious.

With this in mind, I want you guys to go grab your Bibles. We’re going to turn to a story that is just before Jacob gets the blessing from Isaac.

This is the first story in the Bible of Jacob and Esau interacting as adults. The only interaction we’ve seen before this is of when they were born, which we talked about last week, and how from the moment they were born they were basically fighting. So can someone please read Genesis 25:29-34.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. 30 Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!” (Therefore he was called Edom.) 31 Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

So remember Esau was an outdoorsy huntsman type, while Jacob was the kid more likely to stay inside and cook stew. Esau comes in from a long day working outdoors and is basically starving. He thinks he might die if he doesn’t eat that stew Jacob is making, which is a little over dramatic, don’t you think?

If you were Jacob would you let your brother eat the food you’re making? If he came in all over dramatic like this? [Let them answer.] As we can see, Jacob doesn’t just react by giving his brother food out of the goodness of his heart. Nope. He does the opposite, he says something crazy. “First sell me your birthright.” What? That would be like saying you’re not going to let your brother have some food until he gives you the entirety of his college savings account.

Would you make that deal? Would you give up all the property and money and stuff you’re going to get for a bowl of food?

[Let them answer.]

Well Esau does make the deal! And he can’t have thought Jacob wasn’t serious because Jacob makes him swear to it. And back then a swear—which is an oath—was a very serious thing. There was no backing out of it. It meant 100% you were going to do this thing.

And Esau agrees to that! Do you guys think this was a very smart move?

[Let them answer.]

So basically in this story, Jacob takes Esau’s birthright. In the story we talked about last week, Jacob took Esau’s blessing. This means for all intents in purposes, Jacob has become the older son. He’s getting the money and the divine covenant with God.

Esau doesn’t seem very upset about Jacob taking his birthright, but last week we talked about how Esau was so angry at Jacob over stealing his blessing that he wanted to murder Jacob. I think this shows a credit to Esau’s character. Not the murderous part, but rather the one of these things he cared about more was not the wealth but about the religious blessing. Esau knew the blessing was more important than the birthright. But Esau gave up his birthright willingly for instant gratification, and that’s not cool.

The result of all this is Jacob runs away to go spend some time with his mother’s family. Remember Rebekah had a brother named Laban, who lived far far away. Jacob is heading there when we get to the next section.

Can someone read Genesis 28:10-15

10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed[c] in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Jacob goes to sleep and has a dream. What does he dream? A ladder, or stairway, to heaven. If you’ve ever heard anyone refer to Jacob’s ladder—this is it. This is Jacob’s ladder. Jacob sees this stairway where he is at the bottom and at the top of it is heaven, and going up and down it are angels.

The imagery of this staircase or ladder is also super important. It harkens back to the story of the Tower of Babel and harkens forward to Jesus. Can someone here tell me the story of the Tower of Babel? [Let them answer.] Right, people were basically trying to build a tower to God. God stops them, basically calls them out on their pride to think they could do such a thing, and scatters them across the earth. Could we build a tower to God if we wanted to? If all of humanity got together, would that even be possible? No! We can’t build a tower to heaven! Heaven is most likely not contained in our universe—it’s not some place we can get in a spaceship and fly to. It’s outside of that. We are literally by ourselves in capable of getting to God by our own means.

So in a sort of reverse Tower of Babel story instead of man building a stairway to God, God reveals a stairway from himself to man. God could just stay in heaven, but instead he comes down to Jacob. Your version of the Bible say the Lord stood beside Jacob—so even though in the dream he was looking up into heaven, God wasn’t in heaven but rather right next to Jacob, beside him. My version of the Bible says that the Lord stood above him—in heaven basically. I looked in my commentary and it said that the actual words in Hebrew allowed for either interpretations, so I can’t say for certain which is right. But I like the idea of God standing beside Jacob. God is in heaven, yes, but he is also beside us, helping us through our journey.

We couldn’t build a tower to him, but he makes a way for us to get to him. For Jacob that is this ladder. For us, do you know what it is? [Let them answer.] Right, Jesus. Jesus tells people this directly in John 1:51. I’ll read it, you don’t have to flip there.

51 And [Jesus] said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Jesus is making a direct reference to this story, the heavens being opened and the angels ascending and descending but not on a ladder. On the Son of Man, which is Jesus. Jesus is our ladder to heaven and God.

Okay but back to Jacob. God is standing next to Jacob and what does he say to him? He basically reiterates to him the promise he made Abraham, he basically tells Jacob that the covenant is now between Jacob and God. I think this is important, because Jacob took a birthright and blessing that by birth order weren’t his to take. God could have said, “No, these were not yours to take, and I’m establishing my covenant with Esau. I’m not punishing Esau for your trickster ways.” But instead God re-establishes his covenant with Jacob, giving Jacob his seal of approval despite the fact that Jacob stole these things from his brother, which endorses the idea that it was God’s plan all along for Jacob to take these things.

I think if God hadn’t done this, Jacob would have wondered his whole life if he was really the inheritor of the Abrahamic covenant. Instead of letting his wonder, God literally meets Jacob where Jacob’s at—in the middle of nowhere—and has a talk with him. I think this tells us a lot about how much God cares about individuals, which is a lot—more than we can imagine.

Alright so Jacob wakes up and does he think he had a super crazy dream and it’s not real? Let’s see. Can someone read Genesis 28:16-22

16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” 17 And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you.”

Jacob wakes up and is basically like “woah, this is a holy place and I didn’t even know it!” So he gets up and makes a pillar, which is basically like a column of rocks and pours oil on it—which is not like gas oil but more like essential oils or olive oil or perfume. This is expensive stuff to just waste on pouring on rocks. But to him it’s not pouring on rocks, it’s basically him honoring God in the best way he can.

Then Jacob makes a vow to God. He is the only one of the “patriarchs” that is (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) to make a vow to God. In all the other stories, basically God promises the patriarchs something and they’re like “cool.” Here, God promises Jacob stuff and Jacob responds by promising God that if God keeps him safe and allows him to return home one day, God will be his God. Is this Jacob testing God? Saying “You need to keep me safe or else I’ll never make it back to the land you promised me so I can fulfil your covenant, so you better keep me safe!” Maybe. Or maybe Jacob is making a pledge to God, saying that God will be his God. We’re not certain. But regardless, Jacob doesn’t seem content to just let God state how it’s going to be. He feels a need to respond and give his own vow back to God. And I think this is a defining characteristic with Jacob. He responds to God, he converses with him, and as we will see later he even struggles with God.

Okay for this week we’re going to skip Jacob’s time with Laban, because we’re going to talk about that next week when we talk about Rachel and Leah. For now we’re going to skip ahead. Jacob makes it to his uncle’s place. He gets married to a couple of women, though not exactly by choice, and then after twenty years he’s ready to head back. He’s a different man now than from the one who left his home. He’s not a running away son, but rather a man with his own household returning home. He has a family—not just wives but a lot of kids. He has wealth he earned while working under his uncle. And it’s been a long time. So he decides it’s time to head home.

In this 20 years he’s not seen his parents or his brother Esau. They would’ve had no way to communicate with him short of sending a messenger which was not cheap or easy to do. So Jacob is heading home, but doesn’t actually know if any of his family is still alive. And he doesn’t know if Esau has forgiven him, or if after 20 years, Esau is still angry and might just murder him on site. Can someone read Genesis 32:9-12

9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. 11 Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. 12 Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’”

Jacob is praying here to God. And he’s basically saying he has returned home as God has requested him. He’s also praising God for his constant presence in Jacob’s life and all the blessing he has given him—how when he left his home he had almost nothing and now he’s returning with a whole household of his home. But despite all of that, he is still afraid Esau might kill him, even after twenty years. So he’s basically praying that God will protect him. But not just him, also his family which includes his wives and children.

So Jacob decides to send ahead some servants with presents for Esau. Then the next day he goes out to meet him. What do you guys think is going to happen. Is Esau still mad? Would you still be mad? [Let them answer.]

Well let’s see what Esau does, can someone read Genesis 33:1-3

33 Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. 2 He put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. 3 He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother.

Okay so here Jacob sees Esau coming with an army! Jacob though knows he has to meet with his brother if he’s to come home, to the land God has given to him, so he splits up his family and the order is important because as we’ll see later, Rachel and Joseph are his favorite. So he puts them in the back, just in case Esau is going to murder them all, they might have a chance to escape. But Jacob goes out in front, well ahead of everyone, so that if Esau just wants to murder him and let everyone else pass, he pretty much can. Jacob is preparing for the worst.

Now can someone read Genesis 33:4?

4 But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.

 Esau is happy to see him! This is not what Jacob expected at all! The two brothers reconcile, after a lifetime of strife. That alone is a miracle.

But it’s not the most miraculous thing to happen to Jacob by far. We’re going to go back slightly to something we skipped over, because there is one last important story of Jacob I want to cover today. Can someone read Genesis 32:24-30

24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

This is probably the most famous story about Jacob, and probably the one that makes the least sense. What is going on here?

Jacob is alone, he’s sent his family ahead to camp in a previous verse, and then suddenly a man appears and they wrestle til daybreak. This implies they wrestled—basically fought—all night. This strange man then hurts Jacob, dislocating basically one of his legs from his hip, which I can’t even imagine how painful that would be. But it seems despite that Jacob still doesn’t let go! He’s not willing to give up in this fight! But the sun is rising and this strange man is basically like “I need to leave now.” Mostly likely because he is trying to hide his identity, because before the sun rises, in the dark before there are like street lights, it would be very dark indeed and Jacob wouldn’t be able to see the strange man’s face.

But Jacob refuses to let the other man go until he blesses him. Why? Why would Jacob ask a strange man to bless him? Does he think this man might be Esau who attacked him in the night and he’s trying to force his brother to make amends? Or does he suspect the true identity of this strange man is divine, and a divine blessing is always a great thing? I don’t know.

The strange man responds by changing Jacob’s name to Israel. Now that’s a name we’ve all heard before, right? It’s the name we now know the land of Canaan as, the land that belongs to the Jewish people, God’s chosen people, a name that comes from this idea of “the twelve tribes of Israel.” This is the Israel all those words are referring to. This man, Jacob, who we’ve been studying about.

The strange man changes his name and says he does so because “you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” When has Jacob striven with man? [Let them answer.] Write he has had many problems with Esau. And as we’ll see next week, he has problems with his uncle, Laban. So he’s definitely striven with man. But when has Jacob striven with God? Right here. This is it. This isn’t just a strange man. This is God, or at least an angel representing God.

Jacob sure does seem to think it is God though because he says in verse 30, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

This is actually a big deal. Very few people get to see God the Father. Of course, a lot of people get to see Jesus! Who is God! But Exodus 33:20 God says “You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live!” Perhaps this is why the figure Jacob was wrestling was concerned about leaving before dawn, because is Jacob saw God’s face in the morning light it would kill him! Or maybe this was just an angel representing God, that Jacob wrestled.

Either way, Jacob gets blessed and honored for this, for wrestling with the divine, and not letting him go even when asked. What do you guys think of this? This idea that Jacob wrestled God? [Let them talk and answer.]

I don’t have a clear-cut answer for you guys, but what I think it means is that it’s okay to struggle with God. We should spend our entire lives searching for God, seeking him, seeking to be closer to him. It’s a lot easier for us than it might have been for people back then, because we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jacob wouldn’t have even had the Old Testament! Just his few encounters with God! You and I have the whole Bible and we have our own bridge to God—which is Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But if in your life and your seeking to become closer to God, sometimes you struggle, that’s okay. It’s okay to question, it’s okay to doubt, and if we take a cue from Jacob, it’s okay to wrestle with God. The key is, we don’t give up.

Jacob didn’t give up. He wrestled that strange man until the man basically said, “Let me go!” And that’s how our seeking of God should be. Don’t let go. Seek, search, and struggle all you want, but never stop and don’t let go of God. 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Note: This review was originally posted on my blog "Shelf of Friends" on February 21, 2012.

Statistics:
Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Pages: 432
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Age Range: YA
Publication Date: 9/27/2011
Publisher: Little, Brown, & Company

What's it about?

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well."

The above line is how the book begins, and really it's an apt summary of the novel. But this isn't angels and demons in a Biblical sense. These angels and demons are creatures of another world (or perhaps dimension is the better word choice), creatures locked in a war thousands of years old. Not a war of good and evil, but a war that is very common in our own world: a war between a more technologically advanced race and their "barbaric" neighbors.

But that's just the background of this novel. This story is really about Karou, an art student in Prague. She seems like an ordinary student, despite her cobalt blue hair that seems to grow that way straight from her head. She works hard at learning her art. She's trying to get over a boy who refuses to recognize he's been dumped. And she has a job--a job that involves collecting teeth for the monsters who raised her: Issa who is half human and half serpent, Twiga who has the neck of a giraffe, Yasri with a parrot-beak and human eyes, and Brimstone the Wishmonger, with his giant ram's horns. Brimstone collects teeth of all sorts, animal and human, and grants those who bring them to him wishes.

Karou runs errands for Brimstone and his seemingly monstrous crew, and despite their strange look they are her family. The reader can easily see how Karou loves her and they love her in return--despite the fact Karou seems to be merely human.

But then mysterious hand prints are discovered burned into the doors that lead to Brimstone's dimension. And suddenly, Karou is alone with no access to her monstrous family.

There is a war going on between Brimstone's people and the people who left the hand prints on the door, and Karou is stuck in the middle. She embarks on a journey to figure out how to get back to Brimstone, while discovering the angelic enemy. And Karou begins to discover she may be more involved with this war than she ever knew.

It's Ya. Tell me about the boy!

Akiva is not a mere boy. Akiva is an angel, one of the very angels fighting against Brimstone and his more demonic seeming crew. He is beautiful--as only an angel can be--but also like an angel he is deadly. He is a trained killer, having spent all of his life in a war against the demons.Karou and Akiva first meet as enemies, but Akiva's strange attraction to her--this seemingly ordinary human girl--is what saves her life. The dangerous, mysterious Akiva does seem rather cliche for a paranormal romance at first, as does their strange attraction to each other which seems almost against their will. But there is more going on than there seems to be, and Akiva hasn't always been a dedicated soldier to the war.

I'm always willing to give strange attraction story lines a pass at first when magic is involved (because magic can create strange attractions people can't explain in many fictional scenarios), as long as by the end of the story the magic is explained and makes sense. And in this case, it makes sense, though it does take over half of the book for it to actually make sense.

What makes this book different from every other YA paranormal romance?

I don't read a lot of paranormal romance, so I can't honestly say what differentiates it from the rest. But for me it has to be the world building. First off, the magic! At first, all the reader knows is that you can trade Brimstone teeth for wishes, and like Karou, I wondered "what the heck does Brimstone need all those teeth for? And how does teeth power wishes?" Well, I'm not sure the book ever really explained how teeth powered wishes (maybe the second book), but when I discovered what the teeth was used for...well, it was unexpected. And fantastic. And make perfect sense for these monster who are fighting a war against angels. Which brings me to my second point.

The war. I loved how the war was based on perhaps one of the most common and ancient situations in our world's history. This wasn't some esoteric or ridiculous reason for war. No apples of beauty or Helen of Troy here. It made perfect sense, and the demon's need for teeth fit right into it. Which is how thing should work in great world building. Everything should be tied in together for the world and societies to make sense.

I eagerly await the next book which promises to spend more time on the other world/dimension and less in ours. We got a great window into the demon's world in this book. They were presented as extremely sympathetic, whereas the angels were not. I hope that a deeper look into this world will give us a fully realized angel society that is equally sympathetic. Because that makes for the greatest stories, where you feel sympathy for both sides who are locked in this endless battle.

If this was a movie, what would its rating be?

The book takes place during a war, so there is violence. I would only describe it as PG-13 violence though. There are a few distinct violent scenes: one-on-one fights, bloody battles, and an execution. But there is no glory in the violence, and if anything the main characters are tired of war and wish the battles could end.

I can't remember any cases of bad language, so it's probably in the PG or PG-13 range.

This book does have several sexual situations. None of it is descriptive. It's very PG-13 fade to black, but it is a paranormal romance so the feelings and desires that accompany these situations are described in detail. Karou clearly thinks having sex before marriage is ok (and before the events of the book she did sleep with her boyfriend though she regrets it because he's a jerk), but I love Brimstone's response when he discovers it. He says, "Stop squandering yourself, child. Wait for love." And that it something I can get behind. Don't squander yourself. Wait.

Overall, how was it?

I've never made a secret of the fact I'm not a huge fan of paranormal romance, and I'm going to be honest, I spent over half of the book waiting for some huge plot driven story line that never came. But this story left me with the promise of more plot in the sequel. Because there is a war going on, and the events of this book most definitely made one side more likely to come out victorious. I can just imagine that in the next book we're going to see politics and battles that lead towards the end of the war. So in many ways this book was only a set up book for bigger events to come.

But if you like stories about angels, books about romance and past lives, or beautifully written stories with fantastically built worlds, you'll probably like this story.

Rebekah and the Patriarchal Narrative

[Note all verses in this post are in the English Standard Version.]

I recently posted here my lesson on Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, famous for generally two things: (1) following a strange man back to a strange land to marry a stranger and (2) devising the plan for her favored son, Jacob, to steal his father Isaac’s blessing from her least favored son, Esau.

I feel like most Christians have agreed on the first famous act: that Rebekah was an incredibly faithful woman--a woman willing to follow God's call to leave her family behind, move halfway across the world (okay, an over-exaggeration but without mail or anything it would certainly feel that way), and marry a complete stranger. I'm pretty sure my faith isn't that strong, so Rebekah puts me to shame.

When I was being taught this story as a kid, this first act was viewed as faithful...with possible underpinnings of "of course a woman doing as she's told and being willing to follow God makes her great!" But this characterization of Rebekah being faithful was always altered dramatically when I was presented of the story of Rebekah devising the plan for Jacob, not Esau, to get the blessing.

Honestly this story was presented to me as thus: Rebekah was a devious woman who deceived her poor old blind husband so her favored son could be chosen. And poor Esau didn't even do anything wrong. Poor Esau. Poor Isaac. Even a little bit, poor Jacob because his mom made him do it. Evil manipulative Rebekah. And it’s not just my teachers who served up this interpretation. For better preparing my lessons on the women of the Bible, I often turn to resources, and in this one I turned to Liz Curtis Higgin’s Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible. In the book, she presents Rebekah as not just a deceiver, but a great betrayer. She betrayed her poor feeble husband. And Jacob’s taking of the blessing is likened to Judas betraying Jesus [1]. Strong words. This was a book I studied in college Bible study, which simply reiterated what I had been taught in my grade school Sunday School classes.

So when I was preparing this story for my Middle Schoolers I was prepared to have to do a lot of...explaining...and reminding the girls that just because the woman so far that we've studied have been characterized by basically being mean to each other and laughing in the face of God, women aren't actually inherently bad. I was prepared to have to deal with this fact that all the women of Genesis from Eve on are basically petty and bad.

This was what I thought. From what I'd been taught.

In my study of Sarah a few weeks ago, I discovered that Sarah's act of laughter at learning about Isaac wasn't actually an act of disbelief. That there was no evidence to support she knew of God's promise or that these men were angels. To her they were just random men predicting a post-menopausal woman would have a child--which would make me laugh too. I was also easily able to balance Sarah's faults of her meanness to Hagar with her faithfulness to Abraham, and how she honestly thought she was doing the best for her family. Sarah, I hope, came across as a three-dimensional woman with flaws and good points.

But with Rebekah I thought the only balance would be her early faithfulness in marrying Isaac. That everything after would just be bad.

So I prepared my lesson, easily handlings the act of faithfulness, and not struggling until I got to the idea of a baby holding another baby's heel. I pulled out my commentary to see what it said about the matter and learned something--that heels could symbolize betrayal and deception. And since I already had my commentary out I decided to read ahead and see what it thought about this business of Jacob stealing Esau's birthright.

I discovered something startling.

That Rabbinic tradition holds that Isaac was blind in more than one way. Not just physically blind, but blind to his favored son's shortcomings [2]. That Esau was not perhaps the best man, and Jacob was the more righteous of the two.

What?

Is there support for this? For Esau being not as righteous as Jacob? Well, let’s look at who Esau is. He’s a man willing to sell his birthright for a bowl of soup. This is Genesis 25:29-34.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.)31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

This can possibly indicate a couple of things, but what it doesn’t indicate is that Esau didn’t think Jacob was serious. Jacob makes him swear it—a serious business in the ancient world. Esau would know Jacob was deadly serious. So we’re left with the idea that either Esau is not very bright or he just doesn’t care about his birthright. Lack of brightness is not a sin; however, lack of caring about your inheritance from your father, the son of Abraham, through whom God has established his covenant, well that’s a little more problematic.

The other thing we know about Esau is when Jacob stole the blessing, he wanted to murder him (Genesis 27:41):

41 Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

Now I don’t know about you but this doesn’t come across to me as a metaphorical “I’m going to kill my brother” like we might say now, when really we mean we’re going to yell at them and nurse a grudge until it wears off. I get the feeling Esau was actually going to murder him. And this is supported by the fact that Rebekah immediately sends Jacob away. She sends him away—back to her brother Laban, half a world away—because she is afraid Esau might murder him (Genesis 27:42). And let’s not forget that murder of a brother is a serious issue in Genesis. There’s this whole story in Genesis 4 colloquially referred to as “Cain and Abel” in which an older brother killed a younger brother. Cain killed Abel, and God had this to say about it:

10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 

To say God was displeased with the murdering of a brother seems an understatement. He gave Cain a curse so great that Cain said it’s too great to bear.

And I’m not saying stealing of a blessing is not a serious issue, one worthy of anger, but murdering your brother seems like a reaction not in keeping with God’s idea of how one should behave.

At the very least Esau is a careless young man with anger issues. Is Jacob a perfect man? No. He has his own issues—his willingness to take advantage of his hungry brother clearly shows that. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hosea 12:2-4, which does condemn Jacob’s struggle with his brother.

The Lord has an indictment against Judah
    and will punish Jacob according to his ways;
    he will repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel,
    and in his manhood he strove with God.
4 He strove with the angel and prevailed;
    he wept and sought his favor.
He met God at Bethel,
    and there God spoke with us

I’m not a strong enough Biblical scholar to say too much on this, and I don’t have a commentary on Hosea. However, it seems clear to me Jacob’s struggle with his brother is condemned but his struggles with God—his wrestling of an angel and his seeking of favor—are lauded. But I also feel those things are connected in these verses. He strove with his brother and with God—it’s the same inquiring and unsatisfied mind that led to both. Jacob was a flawed man who sought God. (Which isn’t to say Esau couldn’t have been the same, but I don’t think Jacob is ever described as having murder in his heart.) And if I look back at those verses about Cain, it seems that is a sin God takes quite seriously.

Maybe the Rabbinic tradition of Esau’s lack of moral fiber isn’t entirely without merit.

This all leads me to so much thought. As I was taught this story, Isaac was right because he was the man, even though he was just as guilty of favoritism as Rebekah. Even though it didn’t seem he consulted his wife about who should get his blessing. The prior characterization of Rebekah in this story is that of faithfulness. Not deceit. So why suddenly would she become deceitful? Because she favored Jacob? Her love of her son was greater than her love of God? That seems unlikely. After all, this was a woman willing to leave her entire family behind for God. And sure, the love of a child is greater than the love of a sibling or parent (so I’m told), but…leaving your whole family behind to travel basically by yourself to a strange nation to marry a complete stranger because God told you so is a far greater act of faith than anything Isaac has done in Genesis.

Or is it more likely that it was Isaac whose love for his son blinded him to God’s will? That Isaac was blind to his favored son’s ways? After all, we’re talking about Isaac here, the man who didn’t learn from the stories of his father, and pulled the same “lie and say my wife is my sister” business (Genesis 26:7). Isaac who the Bible says favored Esau because Isaac “had a taste for game” not because Esau had a stellar character (Genesis 25:28). Isaac is far from a perfect man.  So maybe, Isaac wasn’t just blind literally but blind metaphorically. But Rebekah, the mother who raised them, saw all. And since she was merely a woman, Isaac wouldn’t listen to her.

Everything going forward in the Bible from here hinges on Jacob being Israel, that he is the father of the Jewish people. He had the blessing, not Esau. And is it really possible that a mere mortal woman could thwart the God Almighty’s plan? Or is it more likely that Rebekah was still as faithful as ever, not blind to the truth, and she did what she had to do to stay faithful to her God—to ensure God’s blessing and the divine inheritance from Abraham continued through the son worthy of that blessing.

Who chose Jacob as the father of Israel? God or Rebekah?

Or as an early Christian leader, (we’re talking 350-ish AD), John Chrystostem put it: was it “a mother’s affection, or rather God’s design?” [2]

The apostle Paul supports this reading, that it is God who chose Jacob and Rebekah’s actions were in accordance with God’s plan, in Romans 9:

10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!

But it’s perhaps the book of Malachi, which Paul is referencing here in Romans 9:13, which is most condemning:

2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob's brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’” 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”

It seems pretty clear that God chose Jacob. That Rebekah could not have thwarted God’s plan. If God wanted Esau to be the progenitor of his chosen people, he would have chosen him.

It seems to me Rebekah made the right call, made the faithful call, and did what God wanted her to do. She did not deceive her husband for her own gain, but to save him from his own folly. She did not just secure a future for her favored son, but secured a righteous future for all her descendants to come. Rebekah is not the villain of this story; she is the hero.

I think my Sunday School teachers growing up taught me wrong. That they were deceived by the idea that a man who leads and makes a choice—like Isaac choosing Esau—is doing right, while a woman who makes a choice and uses the only means she has (deception in Rebekah’s case) to bring about God’s plan is doing what is wrong. But the text does not support this.

My eyes have been opened.

It’s amazing what you can learn teaching Middle School Sunday School.

References (other than the Bible):
[1] Higgs, Liz Curtis. "Chapter 5: Rebekah the Mother." Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible: Flawed Women Loved by a Flawless God. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook, 2007. N. pag. Print.

[2]Mathews, K. A. Genesis 11:27-50:26. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005. Print. The New American Commentary.

 

Rebekah

So last week we talked briefly about Isaac. Who remembers who Isaac is? [Let them answer]. Yes, Abraham's son, the chosen one who God's covenant would go through. So Isaac grows up to be a young man and Abraham is getting very old. Basically Abraham begins thinking, "Hmm, it's time for my son to settle down and get a wife and this whole "Abraham will be the father of many nations" thing to begin!" And of course the first step to that is Isaac needs a wife.

But who remembers where Abraham is living? [Let them answer.] That's right he's living in the land of Canaan. Now who else lives in Canaan? Does anyone know? [Let them answer.] Basically there is a bunch of people who generally we can just refer to here as "Canaanites" but they're not all....pleasant people. Does anyone know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? [Let them answer.]

Basically Sodom and Gomorrah were towns in Canaan that were so full of sin that God destroyed them. We didn't go over that story in this class, but it took place before the events of this one. You guys remember that Abraham had a nephew, Lot? He was living in Sodom when God sent some angels to see if the city was worth saving. These angels get there and Lot's family is literally the only family to offer them hospitality. The rest of the city basically only offers them violence--like basically tries to murder these angels and Lot for not giving the angels up. So God tells Lot's family to flee the city, and then destroys the place with fire from heaven.

That is how bad some of the surrounding area is. So it's no wonder Abraham doesn't want his family to marry into these other people. Not to mention these other people wouldn't believe in God. So Abraham tells one of his servents to go alllll the way back to Abraham's home town and find him a girl from there--preferably from among his family. Like cousins and second cousins.

Yeah marrying a cousin seems weird to us, but back then, it wasn't considered wrong to marry a cousin, unlike it is today. In fact it really wasn't considered wrong to marry a first cousin until like 100 years ago, and that's because we didn't know the genetic repercussions of this sort of intermarrying. Basically marrying your cousin can causebirth defects because you guys likely would have the same recessive genes, which means while you may not be sickly even though you have some recessive gene for a sickness, if you and your wife have the same recessive gene, your kid might be. However, back then, this wasn't really a concern. Because they didn't understand about genetics, and possibly because the population was so small there may have been less genetic abnormalities.

So yes, Abraham basically wanted his servant to go find a cousin for Isaac to marry. So the servant travels alllll the way back to Ur.

Can someone read Genesis 24: 10 -14

10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, taking all kinds of choice gifts from his master; and he set out and went to Aram-naharaim, to the city of Nahor. 11 He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water; it was toward evening, the time when women go out to draw water. 12 And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. 13 I am standing here by the spring of water, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 Let the girl to whom I shall say, ‘Please offer your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”

So what's happening here? The servant has made it al the way back to Ur and he's finally at the town and he's basically like "HOW AM I GOING TO CHOOSE FROM ALL THESE WOMEN?" How will I know which one God wants me to bring back?

Now as we've discussed before, hospitality back in the day was a big thing. So this servant guy is not crazy to ask these random women for water. Basically according to the hospitality ethics of the time, if a stranger asked you for water you were honor bound to provide it. However, she would NOT be required to provide water for the animals. Basically this servant is looking for God to point him to a girl with a kind heart who is willing to go the extra mile and hoping that God will allow that to be the girl he's supposed to bring home for Isaac.

So can someone now read Genesis 24:15-20

15 Before he had finished speaking, there was Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, coming out with her water jar on her shoulder. 16 The girl was very fair to look upon, a virgin, whom no man had known. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up. 17 Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me sip a little water from your jar.” 18 “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. 19 When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” 20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels.

Bingo! This is the girl! Not only did she give him water, but she offered water to his camels. But even though the Bible already told us in verse 15 that she's the grand-niece of Abraham (draw the family tree up so they can see how it all works together), the servant didn't know that. He has to ask to make sure. Can someone read verses 23 - 28

 23 and said, “Tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?” 24 She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” 25 She added, “We have plenty of straw and fodder and a place to spend the night.” 26 The man bowed his head and worshiped the Lord 27 and said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the way to the house of my master’s kin.” 28 Then the girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things.

So she confirms she is indeed in the family of Abraham and offers him a palce to stay, and what does he immediately do? He praises God! And what does she do? She runs home to tell her family!

So Rebekah has a dad and a brother who are still alive. And basically as soon as Rebekah brings this servant there they offer him hospitality. But the servant immediately wants to get to business and explains the whole situation--how Abraham sent him to find a bride for his son Isaac and how the servant thinks Rebekah is that bride.

Now back then Rebekah's dad and brother, who's name is Laban, would have been perfectly within their rights to make this decision without consulting Rebekah at all. Women were basically considered property, to only be transfered to a new house upon marraige. And basically they do tentatively agree with the servant upon hearing this story, because they are not about to go against what it clearly God's will. But let's read how exactly this goes down. Can someone read verses 54 through 61.

4 Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank, and they spent the night there. When they rose in the morning, he said, “Send me back to my master.” 55 Her brother and her mother said, “Let the girl remain with us a while, at least ten days; after that she may go.” 56 But he said to them, “Do not delay me, since the Lord has made my journey successful; let me go that I may go to my master.” 57 They said, “We will call the girl, and ask her.” 58 And they called Rebekah, and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will.” 59 So they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. 60 And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“May you, our sister, become

    thousands of myriads;

may your offspring gain possession

    of the gates of their foes.”

61 Then Rebekah and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man; thus the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.

So Rebekah's family agrees she should go off and marry Isaac but they ask for ten days, probably to say goodbye and maybe prepare some stuff for her to take into her new life. But the servant is antsy and is basically like "I need to get back to Abraham now." This makes the family hesitant, because remember that's super faraway. As we discussed before, they're basically marrying their daughter off to someone who lives on Mars--some place for them that is that far away. Basically they will never see her again if they send her off there. So while they were willing to do it with the appropriate amount of time to say goodbye and emotionally prepare everyone, they're not willing to do it just all of the sudden. So they decide to ask Rebekah.

Now if you were Rebekah how would you feel about this? Going off with a strange servant who claims to be the servant of a grand uncle you've never met to marry a guy you've never met? Would you be willing to do that? [Let them answer.]

Yeah, I wouldn't be super comfortable with that either. But Rebekah, she says she's willing to go! She realizes this is God's will and knows that sometimes God asks us to do stuff that doesn't always seem that fun--like move far far away from your family. But she's willing to do it since it's what God asks of her. That's a large amount of faith Rebekah must have!

So her family quickly says goodbye but doesn't send her off along. They send a nurse and some maids with her.

So needless to say when Rebekah gets all the way back to Canaan, she and Isaac get married. And eventually she also gets pregnant! Can someone read chapter 25:24-26

24 When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

So Rebekah gives birth to twins! Fun fact this is the first set of twins in the Bible, but not the only set. But there is a lot going on here. First off the first son, Esau. He is described as "red" and "hairy." When the Bible describes someone as red it's more they're saying a "ruddy complexion" which is synomous with a healthy complexion [1]. This same word was used to describe King David  [1 Samuel 16:12]. So it could also mean handsome. "Hairy" as well would not necessarily be derogatory for hair growth is valued, and once again a sign of health [1].

So the whole Jacob grabbing the heel thing. This is more than just a baby being born grabbing another baby's heel. This is a Biblical omen. Jacob's grabbing Esau's heel is an attempt to superseed him and also "conveys the idea of deception, betrayal, and opportunism" [1]. It's used sometimes in the Bible to indicate a trusted friend's deception which we can see in Psalm 41:9 [1]. I won't make you turn there. I'll read it:

Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,

    who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.

So this idea of Jacob grabbing Esau's heel may not be literal, I mean Jacob may not actually have been born holding his brother's heel. He may have been. I'm not a doctor. I don't know if that's physically possible or not. But regardless this symbolizes that from the day they were born Jacob was wanting to be the oldest--even though Esau was born first--and foretold that Jacob was going to turn against his brother.

So how does this relate back to Rebekah, their mother? Flip back to Genesis and read the next two verses: Genesis 25:27-28.

27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Isaac loves Esau but Rebekah loves Jacob. Basically there is blatant favoritism in this story. Do you guys ever feel like your parents have a favorite? [Let them answer. They probably do sometimes feel that way.] Well let's see what the Bible thinks about this favoritism, how it's going to go for Jacob and Esau.

Can someone read Genesis 27:1-4

When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. 3 Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. 4 Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”

Okay so Isaac is old and basically going blind. And since he knows he might die soon he basically wants to give his blessing to his oldest and favorite son. So what is a "blessing?" You know I scoured the internet, looked in my commentary, and read all the footnotes in my Bible and I'm still not entirely sure. What I do know is that it's not quite a birthright or inheritence. It's probably something more spiritual, more to do with passing down Abraham's legacy from Isaac to one of his son's. Just like Abraham's legacy of being God's chosen people only went through Isaac and not Ishmael, it seems like the blessing might be Isaac's choosing of which of his son's would be the chosen one through him God's convenant would continue. Now did he only have to bless one of them, couldn't he have blessed both?

Honestly I don't know. We do know that Jacob later blesses all of his son--all TWELVE (Genesis 49:28)--and they are all pulled into the covenant of God and that the Jewish people descended from those twelve sons. However, maybe Isaac didn't know he could split up his blessing? Maybe God told him he could only choose one? Or maybe he just preferred Esau so much he didn't want Esau to share it? I don't know. But what we do know is that he only picks one, and of course he picks his favorite son.

Can someone continue reading verses 5 - 10?

5 Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father say to your brother Esau, 7 ‘Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I may bless you before the Lord before I die.’ 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you. 9 Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes; 10 and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.”

Rebekah hears what Isaac is going to do, and since Jacob is her favorite son, if she gets to choose who the Abrahamic tradiation goes to, of course she's going to choose Jacob! So she concocts a plan. She's basically going to have Jacob pretend to be Esau and steal the blessing from his brother.

This is a huge coup. Like huge. Rebekah is basically going behind her husband's back to do what she thinks is right without talking to him. Now Rabbinic tradition holds that Rebekah being not blind and as old as Isaac saw more than he did. That Isaac's blindess was not just literal but also metaphorical in that he was blind to Esau's faults. That Esau was in fact wicked and she saw that, and that's why she did this, so that the blessing would go to the good son. But the Bible doesn't really tell us that. All we really know about Esau is that well he's a bit of jock--likes to go hunting and is a strong man--and that he has a bit of a temper on him.

Regardless, Jacob was Rebekah's favorite son and she made a decision here--a decision that affect the future irreplacably, for good or for ill.

Next time you think maybe women don't have a lot of agency or don't affect things in the Bible, that most of these stories seem to revolve around men, I want you to remember Rebekah. Because it's Rebekah's actions that shaped everything else that is to come. It is Rebekah who determined which son God's chosen people would be descended from.

And it's Rebekah who saved Jacob when his father and brother heard of what had happened. Basically Jacob gets the blessing from Isaac--who remember is old and blind and can't really tell--and Esau comes home and reveals that he never got a blessing, which makes Isaac realize what happened. Both are furious. Can someone read Genesis 27:41-45?

41 Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” 42 But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. 43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran, 44 and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— 45 until your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send, and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

So Rebekah sends Jacob away to her brother Laban, probably saving his life but as we'll see next week also giving Jacob the opportunity to meet the woman he would love.

This is the reason when I asked myself whether I wanted to focus on Isaac or Rebekah this week, I chose Rebekah. Because even though it was Isaac who was the son of Abraham whom God's convenant went to, it's Rebekah who determined the future of all the Hebrew people. Rebekah who through her faithfulness followed a strange man to a strange land to marry a stranger. Rebekah who took her children's destiny into her own hands, not letting a man make that determination for her--for good or for ill.

And if we go by the idea that Scripture should interpret Scripture, then Rebekah's decision is a good decision. Paul talks about this in Romans 9 and says that Rebekah's decision here was as God would have had it. If you read Romans 9:10-14, which I'll read for you it says:

Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac. 11 Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, 12 not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.” 13 As it is written,

“I have loved Jacob,

    but I have hated Esau.”

14 What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!

Paul is saying that this is all by God's design. That Rebekah made the choice God wanted her to make.

So next time someone tells you that women in the Bible have no power, that God never uses women, remember Rebekah. Rebekah always took the initiative, whether it was offering to water camels or choosing which one of her sons would carry his father's legacy. She was a headstrong woman who did what she thought was best for not just for herself but in God's eyes. And nothing after this chapter in the Bible would be the same without her decision. Because God used her to change the course of history.