Page 35 - Pentateuch - Student Textbook

(v. 30). His name is changed to match the change in character. Jacob, still part deceiver, becomes Israel,
the one who struggles with God (v. 30). He “wept and begged for his favor” (Hos. 12:4), or God’s grace.

The history of Jacob moves to its close. He returns to find a changed Esau. He is not looking for revenge.
They embrace and weep (33:4). Jacob, instead of deceiving to get more for himself, acknowledges God’s
hand in his prosperity and wants to give to Esau (33:5,10). More pain is ahead. Jacob’s daughter Dinah is
raped, but the transformed Jacob does nothing due to an offer of marriage by
the man. In a plot to get revenge, two of his sons deceive the locals into laer'f.yI – Israel
becoming circumcised (34:13). While the men are healing, the two wipe-out the
city. Jacob objects, “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious
to the Canaanites” (34:30). His sons reply, “Should he have treated our sister bqo[]y: - Jacob
like a prostitute (34:31)?” Jacob returns to Bethel and meets Yahweh again. This
time God changes his name from Jacob, “deceiver” to Israel, “he who wrestles
with God” (35:10). All along Yahweh has been shaping Jacob, changing him through the events of life.
His wife Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin (35:16-20). His son Reuben sleeps with Jacob’s concubine
(35:21-22). Jacob buries his father at 180 years (35:23-29).

As with so much in his life, these last years are a mixture. In the middle of the pain and frustration, God
again speaks to Jacob. He revisits Bethel, getting rid of the household gods of his wives. God promises
once more to bless Jacob’s descendants, reaffirming him with the name Israel. He is deceiver no more,
yet he has testing, refining, to go through to the end of his life. Now, however, his relationship with God
is open whereas before YHWH stood “off-stage” using uncles and mandrakes and livestock to nudge
Jacob to Himself.

Joseph is loved by his father more than his brothers. Already
trouble is brewing, not unlike in the family of Jacob who loved
Rachel more than Leah (28:31). Joseph has at least two dreams
and spills the contents of them to his brothers. They will bow to
him. This second insult does not go well with his siblings. At the
first opportunity, they decide to eliminate Joseph. First, they are
going to kill him, attributing his death to wild animals. One
brother objects, so they put him in a dry cistern and eventually
sell him to a passing caravan of merchants on their way to
Egypt. Twenty shekels of silver are exchanged, and the brothers
return to their father Jacob with a bloody robe to substantiate
Fig. 20: Ancient cistern in Edom near Petra their story of a ferocious animal. The chapter ends with Jacob
grieving and Joseph sold to an official of Pharaoh (chapter 37).

Our minds naturally want to fill in some gaps. We can imagine a father doting on a young son. We can
see these brothers muttering among themselves about their uppity brother. We have no trouble hearing
Joseph down in the well pleading with his brothers as they sit about eating their lunch. We speculate
about motives. Reuben the eldest plans to rescue Joseph and take him back to Dad. Judah comes up
with the sales idea. From beginning to end, all are portrayed as typical humans, sinners like everyone.

The account now shifts to a strange series of events ending in a birth as a result of incest. Judah, the
fourth son of Jacob by Leah, marries and has three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. The first son marries a
Canaanite woman named Tamar. We must pause here to remember how much time has gone by. In six

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