Do you love a good fairy tale?

“Jacob and the Bean Stalk”

“When morning came, there was Leah!  So Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is this you have done to me?  I served you for Rachel, didn’t I?  Why have you deceived me?”

                                  Genesis 29: 25

         The story of Jacob in the Old Testament reads like a fairy tale.  Jacob and Esau were fraternal twins, and Esau was born first with Jacob hanging on to his heel.  They had a combative relationship even in the womb. When the time came for their father, Isaac, to die, Jacob conspired with his mother, Rebekah, (who loved Jocob best) to steal Esau’s rightful blessing.  Apparently, God conspired with them, too, since we later learn that God chose Jacob to carry the bloodline of the Hebrew people. 

         Esau was so angry with Jacob that he threatened to kill him, so Jacob ran away to Haran to stay with a relative, Laban, until the coast was clear.  And that’s where he met and fell in love with Laban’s youngest daughter, Rachel.  Jacob made a contract with Laban to work for seven years for Rachel’s hand in marriage, but instead of honoring that contract Laban tricked Jacob and gave him the oldest daughter, Leah, who we’re told had ‘weak eyes’.  Jacob had to work another seven years for Rachel.  But it gets worse—God, that old devil, decided to punish Jacob for not loving Leah, too.  God closed Rachel’s womb and opened Leah’s, so that she had many children and Rachel had none.

         This is better than day-time television, isn’t it?  I love the Old Testament stories for their human messiness.  Almost all of God’s chosen people are full of mischief.  This is also a good story about karma.  Trickery begets trickery, and lies beget lies, and God gets even with everybody.  You’ve got to love it. 

         The story of Jacob is a great and tawdry love story involving sister’s fighting over a man (imagine that), and everybody but Rachel having babies.  Jacob’s lineage included the twelve tribes and also, finally, a child by Rachel.  The lesson I take away from it is that anybody, regardless of how conniving and full of tomfoolery they are, can serve God’s purposes.  We all have a little Jacob in us—we love to get our way and no one is above a modicum of deceit to get it.  But, we do it knowing that we will pay the piper eventually.  God, the good angel, will see to that.

                                  Shalom,

                                  Jane