From his birth Jacob is locked in a struggle for supremacy with his brother Esau, whose heel he grabs. R. Alter observes, “In this instance, the etymology is transparent: Ya’aqob (Jacob) and ‘aqeb (heel). The grabbing of the heel by the younger twin becomes a kind of emblem of their future relationship, and the birth, like the oracle, again invokes the struggle against primogeniture” [1]
Jacob tempts Esau into trading his birthright (bekorah, 25:29ff.) and then deceives his father, Isaac, into granting the blessing (berekah) to him instead of Esau. Of, course this does not exculpate Isaac, who ought to have known better but was blinded by love for his firstborn — Esau, the twin covered in red hair — the man after the flesh.[2] In contrast Jacob was a “plain” or “simple” man (tam); this does not mean that he was domesticated or ordinary, for Jacob certainly had his share of charisma, but rather the Hebrew tam suggests integrity or even innocence.[3] Both the OT and the NT make it clear that Yahweh “loved” Jacob and “hated” Esau from the very beginning, even before birth. Yet both men displayed times in their lives when they neither deserved either Yahweh’s love or His hatred – “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid”.[4]
The “love-hate”[5] relationship between the two brothers is also reflected in the lives of the two sisters, Rachel and Leah, who become the progenitors of the twelve tribes. It is surely ironic that Laban justifies his wedding night deception with the words; “It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the first born” (Gen.29:26).
Jacob’s actions had far reaching consequences for his whole family; resulting in his own deception[6] and the sale of his favourite son Joseph (the firstborn of Rachel) into Egypt. Rachel’s own struggle with her sister ended in death – the birth pangs of Messiah; Ben-oni, the ‘son-of-sorrow’ who became Benjamin the ‘son-of-the-right-hand’. Jacob’s whole life is one of struggle and hardship; this is even reflected in his first encounter with Rachel, which reverses the usual norms surrounding the betrothal convention (the woman drawing water for the man):
In this case, not only does the bridegroom take care of the drawing of the water, but he has an obstacle to overcome – the stone on the mouth of the well. This minor variation of the [betrothal] convention contributes to the consistent characterisation of Jacob, for we already know him, as his name at birth (Ya’aqov) has been etymologized, as the “heel-grabber” or wrestler, and we shall continue to see him as the contender, the man who seizes his fate, tackles his adversaries, with his own two hands. If the well of the betrothal scene is in general associated with woman and fertility, it is particularly appropriate that this one should be blocked by an obstacle, for Jacob will obtain the woman he wants only through great labour, against resistance, and even then God will, in the relevant biblical idiom, “shut up her womb” for years until she finally bears Joseph. There is even some point in the fact that the obstacle is a stone, for, as J.P. Fokkelman has noted, stones are a motif that accompanies Jacob in his arduous career: he puts a stone under his head as a pillow at Beth-El; after the epiphany there he sets up a commemorative marker of stones; and when he returns from Mesopotamia, he concludes a mutual nonaggression pact with his father-in-law by setting up on the border between them a testimonial heap of stones. These are not really symbols, but there is something incipiently metaphorical about them: Jacob is a man who sleeps on stones, speaks in stones, wrestles with stones, contending with the hard unyielding nature of things, whereas, in pointed contrast, his favoured son will make his way in the world as a dealer in the truths intimated through the filmy insubstantiality of dreams.[7]
However, Jacob also had a dream vision, the vision he received at Beth-el being as substantive as any that Joseph received.
Stairway to Heaven
It is noteworthy that Bethel is a reversal of Babel. The following table shows the contrasts:
| Babel (Genesis 11) | Bethel (Genesis 28) |
|---|---|
| Let us build…a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven (v. 4) | A ladder and the top of it reached to heaven (v. 12) |
| The Lord came down (v. 5) | Angels ascending and descending on it (v. 12) |
| The Lord scattered them abroad … upon the face of all the earth (v. 8) | Thou shalt spread abroad to the east, and to the north, and to the south (v. 14) |
| Babel — a false “gate” and a false temple | This is none other than the house of God (Bethel), and this is the gate of heaven (vv. 17, 19) |
The theophany at Babel shows striking similarities (and contrasts) with the first Beth-el account. Although the name Babel[8] carries the folk etymology of “confusion”, it is probably related to the Sumerian babilla, “gate [residence] of the gods” (NIDOTTE), and this is picked up by Jacob in Gen 28:17. Jacob obviously saw a Babylonian ziggurat reaching up to heaven, similar to the one described earlier in Genesis 11.[9]
The reason behind building the Babel tower was hubris “to make a name” and this anticipates the renaming of Jacob in the other Beth-el account (Gen 35:10). It is clear that we are meant to draw the theological conclusion (which does not dawn on Jacob until Genesis 35) that he could not achieve the blessing by his own strength, or by deception; Yahweh had promised to make Abraham’s “name great” (Gen 12:2 again contrasting Gen 11:4) but could only do so to Jacob after he had undergone a change of character. In one fell swoop the narrative unites Genesis 11(and 12) with both Beth-el accounts.
It is fitting that Jacob has a dream that reverses Babel, that the vision promises to bless him and make his name great, like that of Abraham. However, the dream has an implicit warning for Jacob — self-sufficiency will not work. Over the next 20 years God will protect Jacob and enable him to return to the land with a large family and the many possessions that he had gained through his struggles — however, first he must encounter his nemesis and confront the reason for his hasty departure.
[1] Robert Alter, Genesis, Translation and commentary (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), 128.
[2] Isaac, “trembled with a great trembling greatly” (lit. Hebrew of Gen.27:33) when he realised that he had blessed Jacob instead of Esau. The “trembling” was not caused by anger but by fear – he knew that he was frustrating God’s purpose.
[3] “In biblical idiom, the heart can be crooked (‘aqob, the same root as Jacob’s name – cf. Jeremiah 17:9), and the idiomatic antonym is pureness or innocence – tom – “of heart” (as in Genesis 20:5). There may well be a complicating irony in the use of this epithet for Jacob, since his behaviour is very far from simple or innocent in the scene that is about to unfold.”, Alter, Genesis, 128.
[4] Paul bases his argument on “election” in Romans 9 on Malachi’s prophecy in Mal 1:2-3. The quotation from Malachi (“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”) was spoken many years after the lifetimes of both sons, and can only refer to the races descended from the two brothers, see: Geoff and Ray Walker, Romans, in the light of John’s Gospel, (Norwich: Bible Student Press, 1995). The Jewish argument that Paul was countering seems to be that they were an elect race because of descent from Abraham – yes, this might be true says Paul, but God is able to cast off even the children of Abraham; this happened with Ishmael. But, the Jewish objector counters: “Ishmael was the son of a slave, not the son of Sarah, for, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called”, therefore, of course God chose Isaac. True, says Paul, but what then of Jacob and Esau? These were born together, both in the bonds of God’s covenant, yet even before their birth the election of one and the blessing of the other race was declared. He can elevate a nation to high estate and cast them down again.
[5] Just as the Lord had “loved Jacob and hated Esau”, so Jacob “loved Rachel” (Gen 29:18) and “hated Leah”, a fact noticed by Yahweh (“The Lord saw that Leah was hated” – Gen 29:31, 33), who then proceeded to bless Leah with children while the “loved” wife remained barren.
[6] Alter observes that just as Jacob had tricked his father Isaac with a garment of goat’s hair, so Jacob himself had been tricked by his sons with Joseph’s garment soaked in goats blood – later Joseph himself is imprisoned when he is falsely accused of adultery by the wife of Potiphar, who offers the garment she snatched from Joseph as evidence, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 181.
[7] Alter, Art, 55.
[8] For a discussion see, Allen P. Ross, “Studies in the Book of Genesis Part 4: The Dispersion of the Nations in Genesis 11:1-9” Bibliotheca Sacra 138 (1981): 119-38.
[9] Allen P. Ross observes that although the actual word for ziggurat is not employed it represents the same idea; see Allen P. Ross, “Studies in the Life of Jacob Part 1: Jacob’s Vision: The Founding of Bethel” Bibliotheca Sacra 142 (1985): 224-37 (229).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One