okay, so the wagon went off the road a little bit but we are back on and reading away (caught up for 3 days:) So the past 3 day's readings were scandalous in todays standards.
Genesis 25 - 31.
Sarah has died and Abraham has taken another wife named Keturah...although the first verse calls her his wife, every other time that she is mentioned about 4 more times, she is referred to as a concubine...not sure why this is. Anyways, she and Abraham have many more children (including Isaac) in order to further the world's population and then Abraham dies and is buried in a cave.
The next section talks about Isaac and how he pretended that his wife was his sister while they were in a foreign place, and the king finds out and gets mad that he lied and said she was his sister (sound familiar??) Before Isaac dies he wishes to bless his firstborn son with prosperity, however Jacob fools his father into thinking he is Esau and steals the blessing himself.
Jacob is told to go to his uncle's house and to marry one of his daughters (his cousin?), so he starts traveling and then Jacob has his intense dream on his way there, involving a stairway to heaven (wasn't there a TV show about that? oh no, it was Highway to Heaven... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_to_Heaven)
Jacob makes it to his uncle's place and proceeds to kiss his cousin and tell his uncle that he wants to marry her in order to sleep with her....direct to the point. They make a deal that Jacob needs to work 7 years for his uncle then he can marry his cousin. He does the time and when it comes time to marry Rachel, his uncle did the bait and switch and gave him the less desirable cousin to sleep with (it was dark and he had been waiting 7 years, it's understandable) Jacob is angry (obviously) and his uncle says, well I will give you the cousin you really want, you just have to work another 7 years for me without pay. Jacob agrees to this (she must have been a babe) and so 7 years later he marries the attractive cousin. Then comes the time to have kids, the attractive one is unable to bear children because God is keeping it from her, and so Jacobs other wife has 4 or 5 kids before Rachel (attractive one) gets upset that she cant have kids, so what does she do? She has her servant marry Jacob so that her team can have kids...then his other wife provides her servant in order to bring more children, then God decides that Rachel can have kids also......sounds almost like the Maury Povich show, but it seems that Jacob has the funds to provide for his 4 wives and all their kids......sheesh. This reality seems very strange in today's world as the people with many wives are considered as sinning, not sure if God said enough is enough, or if he decided that this was sinning after all, or what these people were thinking. Oh, and before we get to the next part, the wives are out in the field and the unattractive one (Leah) finds some Mandrakes in the field and Rachel wishes to have some of these Mandrakes for herself...I know you are thinking, "what the heck is a mandrake???" well I had the same thought, so I looked it up..."A mandrake is a plant of the Nightshade family used primarily for its anaesthetic and supposedly magical properties. It is closely related to the deadly nightshade or belladonna and can cause delirium and hallucinations if ingested in sufficient quantities. The mandrake is also said to act as a fertility aid for women." So we now have included drugs in our story as well!
Ultimately Jacob and his wives decide that they have overstayed their welcome (as their wealth...sheep and goats...) has increased greatly over their uncle/father/father-in-law's wealth) and they steal away without anyone knowing...seems hard to do getting 30 people and sheep and goats and camels out without dad finding out....dad does find out 3 days later, and provides chase because someone stole his gods....I guess we haven't had the 10 Commandments yet huh...dad goes through everything they own looking for these gods and cant find it, well Rachel (the attractive one) has them stashed in her camels-back and tells her dad, oh I cant get off my camel because I am on my period (so we have idols, lies, stealing...makes for a great story, but I think they had a lot of sheep to sacrifice for their sins!) Jacob doesnt know that the gods are under his wife, and tells his father in law uncle that he is off his rocker and they don't have them...so they make a covenant and name the place after their covenant, and after spending the night on the mountain they went their separate ways.
My take on this is that those Old Testament people of the Bible are crazy! We have laws against that kind of stuff today, and I've got to say I am pretty glad about that!
outie
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