Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [42]
When the newborns arrive, the magical sticks have produced many striped, spotted, and speckled young. Jacob continues this process until he has successfully bred a strong herd of livestock that will be his, getting the better of his deceitful uncle.
Laban and his sons aren’t happy about Jacob’s ruse, and God sends an angel to Jacob, warning him to leave Laban’s house. After twenty years of service to his uncle, Jacob sets off with his wives, children, and flocks, without telling Laban. Before leaving, Rachel steals her father’s “household gods,” the small, wooden or stone carved idols people kept around the house for good luck. Laban catches up to Jacob and his caravan and begins to search for anything Jacob might have stolen. Rachel sits on her father’s gods, and when they come to search her she tells them she is menstruating and can’t get up.
These “household gods” were idols, typical of the cults worshiped in Canaan and elsewhere in Mesopotamia. Small carved statues or fertility symbols, they were typically placed throughout a home, just as people still hang pictures of saints or crosses. The episode in which the menstruating Rachel hides these idols would have been told by the Israelites with derisive mockery as Rachel sat on the idols in her time of “uncleanness.”
Jacob and Laban are reconciled and the father sends off his daughters. As Jacob journeys homeward, he must pass through his brother Esau’s territory. Uncertain as to how his brother will receive him, Jacob splits his camp in two and sends messengers ahead with gifts for Esau. He will either win Esau over or lose only part of his camp. But before meeting Esau, Jacob has a strange encounter in the night. Left alone, Jacob wrestles with an unnamed man. Like all great heroes, Jacob possesses nearly superhuman strength and fends off this mysterious stranger until the man strikes his hip, dislocating it. Jacob still refuses to let go until the man blesses him. The “man” asks his name, and when Jacob tells him, he replies, “You shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” The name “Israel” is translated as “the one who strives with God” or “God rules,” and the name would later be applied to the tribal confederacy formed from the twelve tribes, linking these groups not only by religious faith but by ancient blood ties.
One of the starkest revisions in the modern historical view of this “twelve tribes” picture is that local tribal groups in Canaan—later Israel—existed before they were given these names. According to recent archaeological and historical evidence, the “twelve tribe” explanation of these peoples’ origin came much later to strengthen the unity of the confederation of local tribes—who may have had no connection to Jacob—that became the kingdom of Israel around 1000 BCE. According to J. R. Porter, “The tribal names were originally geographical names of parts of Palestine, but in Genesis they become the names of persons. The names of the tribal ancestors are all given popular etymologies, which in no way correspond to historical reality.” (The Illustrated Guide to the Bible, p. 47) For instance, the tribe of “Dan,” according to Cyrus Gordon’s The Bible and the Ancient Near East, originated from another of the “Sea Peoples,” the group known as the Danuna. (p. 96) There is plenty of evidence, even within the Bible, that many of the “Children of Israel” were already well established in the “Promised Land” before the Exodus from Egypt under Moses (see Exodus).
After wrestling with God, Jacob meets Esau, coming toward him with four hundred men. But instead of trouble, Jacob finds only welcome and forgiveness from his older twin. Esau embraces his brother, they kiss and weep together. The brother who was cheated, Esau, is usually remembered for his gullibility, but