Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [41]
What is Jacob’s Ladder?
Unhappy that Esau has brought home two girls from the “wrong side of the tracks”—Canaanite women—and fearful that Esau may still try to kill Jacob, Rebekah schemes to have her younger son sent somewhere out of harm’s way. In a story that mirrors the search for Isaac’s bride, Jacob also sets off for Haran to find a wife. The narrative follows Jacob on a long journey, like that of the Odyssey, although not quite as perilous. It is still another ancient poetic tradition: the hero’s wandering search, filled with mystical happenings and extraordinary events, and his eventual return home.
On the first night of his journey, Jacob uses a stone for a pillow and dreams of a ladder, reaching up to heaven. On it, angels are going up and down. God then speaks to Jacob, renewing the promise of land and descendants made to Abraham and Isaac. When Jacob wakes, he takes the stone he had used for a pillow and pours oil on it to sanctify this place that he calls Bethel (“House of God”) and promises that the Lord who spoke to him shall be his God. He also promises God, as Abraham had done, to tithe, or give one tenth of all he receives.
While artists of the Christian era usually depicted “Jacob’s Ladder,” immortalized in a widely sung hymn, as an actual ladder, the original word for “ladder” can also be translated as “ramp” or “stairway.” Long before Led Zeppelin, in another words, the Bible was doing “Stairway to Heaven.” In terms of archaeology, though, Jacob’s dreamlike image related more precisely to the stepped towers, like the ziggurat of Babel, in Mesopotamia. And when Jacob names the place Bethel, he confirms the connection to a “gate of god” (Babylon).
PLOT SUMMARY: JACOB AND RACHEL
Jacob wants a girl just like the girl that dear old Dad got. So he too goes to Laban, Rebekah’s brother, as Abraham’s servant did. And he also meets a beautiful girl at the well. Unlike Abraham’s servant, who carried a lavish treasure as a bride-price, Jacob is broke. He promises to work for Uncle Laban for seven years to pay for Rachel.
The plot thickens through a series of tricks played by each of the actors in this drama, which must have been popular as it was told around the campfires over the ages. On the morning of the wedding, Laban has his older daughter, Leah, dressed as the bride, veiled to conceal her identity, and she marries Jacob. After discovering this ruse, Jacob insists that he still wants Rachel, and promises to serve Laban for another seven years if he can have her too. Laban agrees and Jacob now has two wives and another seven-year hitch to serve. But he manages to keep busy in that time, siring a flock of children, even though his beloved Rachel is barren. First, Leah produces four sons. The envious Rachel gives her slave, Bilhah, to Jacob and Bilhah has two sons. Leah who had stopped at four, wants more sons, so she gives Jacob her maid, Zilpah. She too produces two sons. Leah isn’t finished after all and has another two sons and a daughter. Finally, Rachel’s infertility is cured and she has two sons, although she dies in childbirth with her second son. Before very long, Jacob has a baker’s dozen of children.
Jacob’s Children
Leah
Reuben
Simeon
Levi
Judah
Issachar (after she thought she was barren)
Zebulun
Dinah, a daughter
Bilhah
Dan
Naphtali
Zilpah
Gad
Asher
Rachel
Joseph
Benjamin (Rachel dies after giving birth to Benjamin)
How did Jacob become “Israel”?
Jacob, the trickster, gets his own revenge on Uncle Laban when they make a business deal regarding the herds that Jacob has been tending so successfully. Jacob and Laban agree that Jacob can keep all the spotted and speckled sheep and goats and all the black goats in the flocks. But in the night, the crafty Laban tells his sons to remove all the striped male goats, the speckled female goats, and the black lambs from the