So I've found a less preachy source for the Bible at biblegateway.com. Bible.com was getting really annoying with their popup ads imploring me to save children or whatever, so I switched. It's all the same public domain Bible anyway, but I'm sure you were all interested in this entirely pointless aside.
Anyway, without further ado, here's another five chapters of the Bible:
Genesis 34
It came to pass that Dinah, one of Jacob’s daughters by the ugly sister, decided to go exploring in the land. Shechem, who was the son of Hamor and the possessor of one of the more unfortunate names in the Bible, saw her and, seeing she was one fine piece of ass, boned her brains out. Evidently, she was a great lay, because he immediately fell in love with her and asked his father to arrange for her to marry him.
Unfortunately for Shechem, in those days sleeping with a woman and then asking to marry her later was frowned upon. So, when Hamor went to Jacob to ask for Dinah’s hand on behalf of his son, Jacob was not terribly pleased. Hamor, sensing that the whole “sex before marriage” thing was going to be a real sticking point in these negotiations, promised Jacob anything he wanted in exchange for an agreement by which their families would be able to swap women as it suited them. Jacob, sensing an opportunity, said that he would only agree to such an arrangement if all of the men in Hamor’s clan were circumcised. Strangely enough, this request did not go over too well. However, since Shechem was developing a serious case of blue balls, he eventually agreed to the mass circumcision just so he could get back into Dinah’s pants.
So all of the men in Hamor’s clan got circumcised. While they were all still in bed suffering from the pain of the procedure, Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi decided to go and take some revenge on Hamor, and proceeded to go into the city and kill all the men. They then went on to burn and loot the city and steal all the livestock of Hamor’s people. They also enslaved all the women.
For some reason, Jacob was somewhat taken aback by the fact that his sons had slaughtered every man in the village and taken every woman into slavery. In response to Jacob’s anger, his sons simply stated that if these people had not wanted to be slaughtered and/or enslaved, they shouldn’t have let one of their own treat their sister like a whore. Thus was the Biblical principal of “an entire fucking civilization for an eye” established.
Genesis 35
So God told Jacob to go to Bethel, because God was getting tired of visiting Jacob in that shithole he was living in at the time, and build yet another altar. Jacob, in the same state of panic the rest of us get into when the landlord calls up and asks if he can stop by, started running around ordering his people to clean the place up. He also ordered them to put away all those damn idols, as he felt God might be offended by all the little stone trinkets his "chosen people" were worshipping instead of him. Oh, and if they could take a damn bath and change their underwear for once, because the smell was even starting to scare off the flies, that would be great. And so Jacob’s people gave him all of their idols and earrings, because God hates pierced ears, and he buried them under a tree by the newly destroyed village of Shechem.
Jacob and his enormous clan embarked on their journey. The people in the towns they passed by were all too scared to attempt to screw with them, and so the journey was fairly peaceful. The Bible claims the reason these people were fearful was because of the fear of God, but it’s likely at least as attributable to the fact that Jacob’s clan slaughtered every man and enslaved every woman in the previous town they had hung out in.
Anyway, eventually Jacob came to Luz in the land of Canaan and built an altar. At that place, Rebekah’s nurse Deborah died and was buried.
At around this same time, God appeared to Jacob and told him his name was now going to be Israel, apparently unaware that the vampire/angel earlier had already told Jacob this exact same thing. God then went on to make the same promise of land to Jacob as he had previously made to Abraham and Isaac. Suitably impressed, Jacob built a pillar of stone and another altar.
So it came to pass that Rachel was pregnant, and went into labor. The labor was incredibly hard, and Rachel ended up dying in childbirth. As her last wish, Rachel asked that her son be named Benoni. Fortunately for the kid, Jacob wasn’t about to be told what to do, even by his recently deceased wife, and named the kid Benjamin instead. Rachel was buried on the side of the road to Bethlehem, and the rest of the clan went on their way.
After they had made camp, Reuben (the sandwich maker) slept with one of Jacob’s mistresses. Unfortunately, the mistress was something of a screamer and Israel (aka Jacob) heard the whole thing. At any rate, Israel now had 12 sons. This number, of course, would have absolutely no significance to anything at all, and is just mentioned here because the author of the Bible had some extra space to fill.
Jacob went to visit Isaac his father. Isaac lived to be 180, yet again ignoring God’s chosen lifespan of 120 years, and died. Jacob and Esau buried him, and the chapter ended.
Genesis 36
This is another one of those insomnia-curing chapters. Esau took all of his family and cattle and whatnot and left the land where Jacob was staying, because the two of them together had too many cows for the land to support.
Also Esau begat Eliphaz, who begat Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. Esau also begat some other sons, and they begat a whole bunch of other people, all of whose names look like what you would get if a herd of cats walked over your keyboard. For 43 verses, people have kids and those kids have other kids, and the translator passes out from sheer boredom and the chapter ends.
Genesis 37
Jacob and his 12 sons lived in Canaan. One of his sons, Joseph, was 17 and was something of a tattletale. Pissed off that their brother kept telling their father every time one of them did anything wrong, his brothers began to hate him. After Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colors, his brothers hated him even more, despite the fact that with that many colors Joseph was going to have a hell of a time finding any clothes to match it, and he was just in for one fashion faux pas after another.
Not content to have his brothers merely hate him, Joseph started telling them about these dreams he was having. These dreams involved sheaves of wheat and the moon and stars and whatnot, but were all really just a thinly veiled prediction that Joseph’s entire family was going to end up bowing down before him, so maybe they should stop being so mean to him now. These dreams turned the run of the mill hatred of his brothers into murderous rage.
Later, Joseph’s brothers went off to Shechem to tend to their father’s flocks there. Jacob asked Joseph to go out and find out what they were doing wrong, and tattle on them. When Joseph got to Shechem, his brothers were nowhere to be found, but some random dude told him they had all gone to Dothan. So Joseph started for Dothan, probably already rehearsing how he was going to tell Jacob that his brothers weren’t where they were supposed to be.
Joseph’s brothers saw him coming from a long way off, and began to conspire against him. Lacking creativity, they decided to just kill him and throw him into a pit and tell their father that some nasty animal with big pointy teeth had killed him. Reuben, being the squeamish sort, said they shouldn’t actually kill Joseph, because he hated blood and really, wouldn’t it be better if they just threw him in a pit and left him for dead.
The other brothers agreed to Reuben’s request, took Joseph’s coat, threw him into a dry pit, and sat down for lunch. While there, they noticed some nomads on camels who were headed for Egypt with various trade goods. Seeing an opportunity to make some money, the brothers sold Joseph to the nomads for 20 pieces of silver.
Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was no longer there, and began to panic. Thinking fast, he took Joseph’s coat and dipped it in goat’s blood and brought it to Jacob. Jacob saw it, and with no further evidence jumped to the conclusion that Joseph had obviously been torn to pieces by some beast. Jacob went into deep mourning for his “dead” son, and pouted for many days. Meanwhile, the nomads sold Joseph to Potiphar, who was the captain of the guard for Pharaoh in Egypt.
Genesis 38
Judah, another of Jacob’s many sons, went searching for a wife, and found Shuah. It came to pass that they did bone, and she had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. When Er was all grown up, Judah found him a wife by the name of Tamar. Unfortunately, Er was evil enough to really piss off God, and God killed him.
Taken aback by the bloodlust of God, Judah ordered his second son, Onan, to go sleep with Tamar, and their kids would be Er’s kids, because Tamar had been Er’s wife first. Because that totally makes sense.
Anyway, Onan wasn’t a fan of this arrangement, and instead of impregnating Tamar, he pulled out at the last second and spilled his seed on the ground. God was so incensed that someone would dare waste sperm that he killed Onan too. So, Judah told Tamar to go live with her father until his third son, Shelah, was grown up. However, figuring Tamar was some sort of black widow, Judah made the decision not to let Shelah sleep with her no matter how old he got.
Eventually Tamar noticed that Shelah had grown up, and Judah was not making any move to give him to her, so she decided to dress up like a prostitute, cover her face, and wait for Judah on the side of the road, as she had heard that he was going to be travelling that road to shear his sheep in the near future. When Judah saw her, he asked if she was in the market for a little bouncy bouncy. Tamar asked Judah what he had to pay her in exchange, and he said he was a little light on cash at the moment, but he would totally come back with a goat after they were done. Tamar agreed, but only if Judah would leave his signet, bracelets, and staff with her as a promise to return with the sheep. Judah agreed, and proceeded to nail Tamar, impregnating her in the process.
After the deed was done, Judah left, and Tamar ran off, changed clothes, and went back to her father’s house. Judah sent his friend to go find the hooker he had banged and give her the goat he had promised. However, his friend couldn’t find her, since she had run off. He asked around, but no one could remember there being any streetwalkers hanging around the place, and so he returned to Judah with the goat.
About three months later, someone told Judah that Tamar was the whore he had slept with, and furthermore she was pregnant. Judah, being morally opposed to abortion, decided to have Tamar burned instead. And so Tamar was brought to him. When she got there, she showed Judah his signet, bracelets, and staff, and told him that she was pregnant by the man who owned these things. Seeing that he was boned, Judah acknowledged that he was the father, and apologized for not giving her Shelah when he should have.
So it came to pass that Tamar had twins. During the birthing process, one of the twins stuck his hand out first, and the midwife tied a red string around his hand so that they would know he was the firstborn. After the string was tied, though, that twin brought his hand back in and the other was delivered first, followed by the one with the string on his hand. Because of this, the one without the string was called Pharez, and the other was called Zarah. Because that’s evidently what those names mean.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Genesis 32-33
This past week was finals week, so I haven't had a bunch of time to write anything not school-related. Since I don't attend a Bible School, this means the translation has suffered some. However, now summer is here, so with any luck I could actually get back to work on this thing.
I did manage to crank out two chapters. I had hoped to do more before posting, but I'm averaging almost 2 full hits a day on this thing, and I can't disappoint my fan. So, here they are.
Genesis 32
Jacob started to head back to his homeland, but at the last minute realized that his brother Esau was probably still trying to kill him, so maybe he should take a step back and figure out a plan first. So, he sent some messengers out to tell Esau that his baby brother Jacob was back, and he brought lots of animals and slaves just in case there’s a need for some bribery.
The messengers came back to Jacob saying Esau was so excited that his brother was back that he was coming to greet them with 400 of his closest and most heavily armed friends. Jacob, not wanting to lose all his stuff, split his entire party into two groups, so that if Esau decided to attack one, the other would have time to escape. Meanwhile, Jacob tried to lay a guilt trip on God, mentioning that God had promised him his seed would be a great nation, and that was going to be difficult to pull off if his brother slaughtered his entire family. So if God didn’t want to find himself on the wrong end of a heavenly lawsuit, he’d better get to saving Jacob’s bacon pretty damn quick.
Deciding that splitting into two camps was not enough, the next day Jacob sent several servants to meet up with Esau and offer him bribes of animals and slaves. That night, not having a lot of faith in his bribery attempt, Jacob sent his two wives and eleven sons across a river so that they wouldn’t be slaughtered. Meanwhile, Jacob suddenly decided his best course of action at this point would be to get involved in a wrestling match with some unknown stranger.
Jacob continued to wrestle the man until he (Jacob) had pinned him. The man begged to be let go because it was almost daybreak. From this we can surmise that Jacob was most likely wrestling a vampire. Jacob refused to let go until the vampire had screamed "Uncle". Um, I mean, until he had agreed to give Jacob a blessing. Same basic idea.
So this vampire, unable to get out of Jacob’s headlock, agreed to bless Jacob in order to avoid being burned to death by the rising Sun. Since a major theme of the Bible so far is to change someone’s name whenever anything significant happens the vampire changes Jacob’s name to Israel. Also, because the "Jacobite-Palestinian Conflict" would sound silly. Anyway, because during the wrestling match the vampire messed up Jacob’s inner thigh (kinky!), the children of Israel aren’t allowed to eat that part of any animal anymore.
Genesis 33
Despite all of Jacob’s efforts to avoid it, Esau and his 400 men eventually caught up with him. Jacob took Leah and her children and put them in front of Rachel and her children, so that the ugly sister would be more likely to be killed first. A true gentleman, that Jacob.
Jacob went and bowed down before Esau, who immediately embraced him and began crying like a little girl. It turns out that despite Jacob’s tomfoolery, Esau had managed to make a pretty good living for himself in the dot-com craze, and wasn’t interested in exacting revenge anymore. Jacob insisted that Esau take his many bribes anyway, and so Esau got a little bit richer thanks to the guilty conscience of his brother.
Jacob then pauses here for a brief public service announcement about the importance of proper animal care. He says that you must not overdrive your flock if it includes baby cows or sheep or whatnot, because they’ll die. Thanks for the tip.
So with the usual “if you need anything, just call” spiel, Esau left Jacob to his own devices. Jacob began wandering again and came upon a land which he called Succoth, presumably because living there succothed. Later, he wandered some more and eventually bought some real estate and built an altar on it, as was his custom.
I did manage to crank out two chapters. I had hoped to do more before posting, but I'm averaging almost 2 full hits a day on this thing, and I can't disappoint my fan. So, here they are.
Genesis 32
Jacob started to head back to his homeland, but at the last minute realized that his brother Esau was probably still trying to kill him, so maybe he should take a step back and figure out a plan first. So, he sent some messengers out to tell Esau that his baby brother Jacob was back, and he brought lots of animals and slaves just in case there’s a need for some bribery.
The messengers came back to Jacob saying Esau was so excited that his brother was back that he was coming to greet them with 400 of his closest and most heavily armed friends. Jacob, not wanting to lose all his stuff, split his entire party into two groups, so that if Esau decided to attack one, the other would have time to escape. Meanwhile, Jacob tried to lay a guilt trip on God, mentioning that God had promised him his seed would be a great nation, and that was going to be difficult to pull off if his brother slaughtered his entire family. So if God didn’t want to find himself on the wrong end of a heavenly lawsuit, he’d better get to saving Jacob’s bacon pretty damn quick.
Deciding that splitting into two camps was not enough, the next day Jacob sent several servants to meet up with Esau and offer him bribes of animals and slaves. That night, not having a lot of faith in his bribery attempt, Jacob sent his two wives and eleven sons across a river so that they wouldn’t be slaughtered. Meanwhile, Jacob suddenly decided his best course of action at this point would be to get involved in a wrestling match with some unknown stranger.
Jacob continued to wrestle the man until he (Jacob) had pinned him. The man begged to be let go because it was almost daybreak. From this we can surmise that Jacob was most likely wrestling a vampire. Jacob refused to let go until the vampire had screamed "Uncle". Um, I mean, until he had agreed to give Jacob a blessing. Same basic idea.
So this vampire, unable to get out of Jacob’s headlock, agreed to bless Jacob in order to avoid being burned to death by the rising Sun. Since a major theme of the Bible so far is to change someone’s name whenever anything significant happens the vampire changes Jacob’s name to Israel. Also, because the "Jacobite-Palestinian Conflict" would sound silly. Anyway, because during the wrestling match the vampire messed up Jacob’s inner thigh (kinky!), the children of Israel aren’t allowed to eat that part of any animal anymore.
Genesis 33
Despite all of Jacob’s efforts to avoid it, Esau and his 400 men eventually caught up with him. Jacob took Leah and her children and put them in front of Rachel and her children, so that the ugly sister would be more likely to be killed first. A true gentleman, that Jacob.
Jacob went and bowed down before Esau, who immediately embraced him and began crying like a little girl. It turns out that despite Jacob’s tomfoolery, Esau had managed to make a pretty good living for himself in the dot-com craze, and wasn’t interested in exacting revenge anymore. Jacob insisted that Esau take his many bribes anyway, and so Esau got a little bit richer thanks to the guilty conscience of his brother.
Jacob then pauses here for a brief public service announcement about the importance of proper animal care. He says that you must not overdrive your flock if it includes baby cows or sheep or whatnot, because they’ll die. Thanks for the tip.
So with the usual “if you need anything, just call” spiel, Esau left Jacob to his own devices. Jacob began wandering again and came upon a land which he called Succoth, presumably because living there succothed. Later, he wandered some more and eventually bought some real estate and built an altar on it, as was his custom.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Genesis 29-31
Genesis 29
The next day, Jacob continued his journey, and eventually ran into a bunch of sheep hanging around a well that had a big rock on it. He noticed some people push the stone off the well, water their sheep, and push the stone back on top of the well. The stone, therefore, was primarily there to keep any drunken sheepherders from urinating in the well, which was a much bigger problem than you might think in those days.
Jacob went up to the men and asked where they were from, and by the way did they know Laban. As it turned out, they not only knew Laban, but also could introduce Jacob to Laban’s hot daughter Rachel, who just then showed up with some sheep.
In order to impress Rachel with his manly manliness, Jacob rolled the stone from the well and watered her sheep (strangely, not a euphemism). Then, he kissed Rachel, told her they were first cousins (which in those days was basically how you asked someone on a date), and she ran off to tell her father.
So it came to pass that Jacob stayed at Laban’s place for a month. He spent most of that time working for Laban, presumably pushing boulders around since that was his one demonstrated skill. At the end of that month, Laban asked how much he owed Jacob for all the work, and Jacob said he would take one of Laban’s daughters. Laban, apparently a much better negotiator than Esau had been, told Jacob he could have one of his daughters for the bargain basement price of 7 years of hard labor.
Now, Laban had two daughters: Leah, whose only good quality was that she was “tender eyed”, whatever the hell that means; and Rachel, who was a mega-hotty. So, Jacob made the obvious choice and chose Rachel.
After the agreed upon 7 years, Laban was in a bit of a bind: Leah wasn’t getting any younger, and he hadn’t managed to marry her off yet. So, he decided to pull a fast one and put her in Jacob’s tent. When Jacob asked for his payment, Laban sent him to the tent. Jacob, not big on wasting time, immediately got busy with whatever female happened to be in his tent. Upon waking and finding the ugly daughter in his bed, Jacob was pissed off and went after Laban. Laban explained that if he gave away his younger daughter before the older one, he was never going to get Leah off his couch, so if Jacob could just take her, that would be great. In return, Laban would let Jacob have Rachel after just one week of hard labor, so long as he agreed to work for seven more years after that.
Leah was, other than her “tender eyes”, apparently a real two-bagger because Jacob agreed to work for seven more years just so he could have someone else to nail.
God, showing he cares for ugly chicks too, took pity on Leah and allowed her to pop out kids like a rabbit while Rachel was barren. Since the only reason anyone cared about their wives in those days was because they could bear children, Leah felt that Jacob would now love her more than Rachel.
So it came to pass that Leah had three sons: Reuben, who went on to make sandwiches for a living; Simeon, who went on to play defensive end in the National Football League; and Levi, who went on to make pants. For an encore, she popped out Judah, and then stopped having kids.
Genesis 30
Rachel got angry that she couldn’t bear any children, and blamed Jacob for it, even though he was obviously not the problem since Leah was over there popping out kids like crazy. So Jacob and Rachel had a big fight. Having learned nothing from the Sarai and Hagar situation several chapters back, Rachel gave Jacob her servant to screw so she could sort of have kids by proxy. Because apparently if your servant has kids by your husband, those kids are actually yours. Right.
Leah, not wanting to be upstaged in the whole baby-making game, gave her servant to Jacob too, and Jacob had the time of his life impregnating one servant after the other for the next several years.
Later, Leah’s son Reuben was harvesting wheat when he found a patch of mandrakes, which are a narcotic plant. Wanting to get high, Rachel asked Leah if she could have some of them. Leah, still pissed about her husband dumping her for her sister, refused to let Rachel have any of her son’s stash. Rachel, apparently the world’s first drug addict, offered to get Jacob to fuck Leah in exchange for some of that sweet, sweet mandrake.
When Jacob came back from the fields, Leah told him that she had purchased a night with him in exchange for feeding Rachel’s mandrake addiction. Apparently finding nothing unusual about this, Jacob went in and did the deed with Leah. After this, Leah, thanks to God’s meddling, bore 2 more sons and a daughter. Then, God got Rachel to have yet another son.
After all this baby making, Jacob went to Laban and asked to be released and allowed to take his wife and ludicrous number of children away to start a new life. Laban, not wanting to get rid of a good employee, begged Jacob to stay. Not having any more daughters to whore out, Laban agreed to pay Jacob by allowing him to take any of his cows that had spots, any of his brown sheep, and any of the speckled goats.
Jacob and Laban then separated to tend the flocks: Jacob the speckled and brown animals, Laban the not so speckled and not so brown. Unfortunately for Laban, Jacob was not only a scheming bastard but also an expert in animal husbandry. Through a scheme so convoluted reading about it would surely put you into a coma, Jacob assured that his flocks got stronger while Laban’s flocks got weaker. Thus, Jacob ended up with a bunch of animals and servants and was able to care for his giant flock of children.
Genesis 31
Eventually, some of Laban’s sons started to figure out that Jacob was intentionally breeding the animals in such a way that Jacob would always get the good animals and Laban the crappy ones, and that was totally going to mess up their inheritance.
Sensing that he was wearing out his welcome, Jacob decided he and his enormous family and tons of livestock should take off and go back to Canaan. In order to convince Rachel and Leah, he told them the story of how Laban had cheated him out of 14 years labor by giving him the wrong woman. For extra spice, he added some nonsense about a dream he had had in which God told him to leave. Rachel and Leah, reasoning that their inheritance was probably gone now anyway since Laban had sons and Jacob had just spent the past several years slowly taking away all of Laban’s shit, agreed to go.
Figuring just leaving wasn’t good enough, Rachel decided to steal Laban’s idols (most of the people back then were primitive and foolish, and so worshipped little trinkets rather than the invisible man in the sky most people worship these days)
Jacob and his huge family, his servants, and all of his animals somehow managed to sneak away unnoticed. After three days, someone finally realized that the place was a lot less crowded than it normally was, and told Laban that Jacob had escaped. Furious, Laban got together a posse and went after Jacob.
After seven days, Laban’s group overtook Jacob. That night, God came to Laban in a dream and warned him not to talk to Jacob. Laban, not a big God fan, went and talked to Jacob anyway. He berated Jacob for taking off without even saying goodbye. After 20 minutes of trying to guilt trip Jacob, Laban suddenly decided to take God's advice and shut up.
However, Laban was still righteously pissed that someone had taken his idols. So, he went from tent to tent trying to find them. Rachel, not wanting to get caught with someone else’s gods, hid them in the sofa and sat on them. When Laban came to search her tent, she said she couldn’t stand up because she was on the rag (seriously!), but Laban could feel free to search the place.
Jacob, not happy that Laban had decided to ransack his camp, lit into Laban and unloaded a bunch of accusations on him. After a big fight, Laban agreed to split the land up and let Jacob go. So the two built a pile of rocks, and agreed that one side was Laban’s and the other Jacob’s, and if any one crossed into the territory of the other, they were going to be in a world of pain.
After a good night’s sleep, Laban kissed his daughters and ludicrous number of grandchildren, and went back home
The next day, Jacob continued his journey, and eventually ran into a bunch of sheep hanging around a well that had a big rock on it. He noticed some people push the stone off the well, water their sheep, and push the stone back on top of the well. The stone, therefore, was primarily there to keep any drunken sheepherders from urinating in the well, which was a much bigger problem than you might think in those days.
Jacob went up to the men and asked where they were from, and by the way did they know Laban. As it turned out, they not only knew Laban, but also could introduce Jacob to Laban’s hot daughter Rachel, who just then showed up with some sheep.
In order to impress Rachel with his manly manliness, Jacob rolled the stone from the well and watered her sheep (strangely, not a euphemism). Then, he kissed Rachel, told her they were first cousins (which in those days was basically how you asked someone on a date), and she ran off to tell her father.
So it came to pass that Jacob stayed at Laban’s place for a month. He spent most of that time working for Laban, presumably pushing boulders around since that was his one demonstrated skill. At the end of that month, Laban asked how much he owed Jacob for all the work, and Jacob said he would take one of Laban’s daughters. Laban, apparently a much better negotiator than Esau had been, told Jacob he could have one of his daughters for the bargain basement price of 7 years of hard labor.
Now, Laban had two daughters: Leah, whose only good quality was that she was “tender eyed”, whatever the hell that means; and Rachel, who was a mega-hotty. So, Jacob made the obvious choice and chose Rachel.
After the agreed upon 7 years, Laban was in a bit of a bind: Leah wasn’t getting any younger, and he hadn’t managed to marry her off yet. So, he decided to pull a fast one and put her in Jacob’s tent. When Jacob asked for his payment, Laban sent him to the tent. Jacob, not big on wasting time, immediately got busy with whatever female happened to be in his tent. Upon waking and finding the ugly daughter in his bed, Jacob was pissed off and went after Laban. Laban explained that if he gave away his younger daughter before the older one, he was never going to get Leah off his couch, so if Jacob could just take her, that would be great. In return, Laban would let Jacob have Rachel after just one week of hard labor, so long as he agreed to work for seven more years after that.
Leah was, other than her “tender eyes”, apparently a real two-bagger because Jacob agreed to work for seven more years just so he could have someone else to nail.
God, showing he cares for ugly chicks too, took pity on Leah and allowed her to pop out kids like a rabbit while Rachel was barren. Since the only reason anyone cared about their wives in those days was because they could bear children, Leah felt that Jacob would now love her more than Rachel.
So it came to pass that Leah had three sons: Reuben, who went on to make sandwiches for a living; Simeon, who went on to play defensive end in the National Football League; and Levi, who went on to make pants. For an encore, she popped out Judah, and then stopped having kids.
Genesis 30
Rachel got angry that she couldn’t bear any children, and blamed Jacob for it, even though he was obviously not the problem since Leah was over there popping out kids like crazy. So Jacob and Rachel had a big fight. Having learned nothing from the Sarai and Hagar situation several chapters back, Rachel gave Jacob her servant to screw so she could sort of have kids by proxy. Because apparently if your servant has kids by your husband, those kids are actually yours. Right.
Leah, not wanting to be upstaged in the whole baby-making game, gave her servant to Jacob too, and Jacob had the time of his life impregnating one servant after the other for the next several years.
Later, Leah’s son Reuben was harvesting wheat when he found a patch of mandrakes, which are a narcotic plant. Wanting to get high, Rachel asked Leah if she could have some of them. Leah, still pissed about her husband dumping her for her sister, refused to let Rachel have any of her son’s stash. Rachel, apparently the world’s first drug addict, offered to get Jacob to fuck Leah in exchange for some of that sweet, sweet mandrake.
When Jacob came back from the fields, Leah told him that she had purchased a night with him in exchange for feeding Rachel’s mandrake addiction. Apparently finding nothing unusual about this, Jacob went in and did the deed with Leah. After this, Leah, thanks to God’s meddling, bore 2 more sons and a daughter. Then, God got Rachel to have yet another son.
After all this baby making, Jacob went to Laban and asked to be released and allowed to take his wife and ludicrous number of children away to start a new life. Laban, not wanting to get rid of a good employee, begged Jacob to stay. Not having any more daughters to whore out, Laban agreed to pay Jacob by allowing him to take any of his cows that had spots, any of his brown sheep, and any of the speckled goats.
Jacob and Laban then separated to tend the flocks: Jacob the speckled and brown animals, Laban the not so speckled and not so brown. Unfortunately for Laban, Jacob was not only a scheming bastard but also an expert in animal husbandry. Through a scheme so convoluted reading about it would surely put you into a coma, Jacob assured that his flocks got stronger while Laban’s flocks got weaker. Thus, Jacob ended up with a bunch of animals and servants and was able to care for his giant flock of children.
Genesis 31
Eventually, some of Laban’s sons started to figure out that Jacob was intentionally breeding the animals in such a way that Jacob would always get the good animals and Laban the crappy ones, and that was totally going to mess up their inheritance.
Sensing that he was wearing out his welcome, Jacob decided he and his enormous family and tons of livestock should take off and go back to Canaan. In order to convince Rachel and Leah, he told them the story of how Laban had cheated him out of 14 years labor by giving him the wrong woman. For extra spice, he added some nonsense about a dream he had had in which God told him to leave. Rachel and Leah, reasoning that their inheritance was probably gone now anyway since Laban had sons and Jacob had just spent the past several years slowly taking away all of Laban’s shit, agreed to go.
Figuring just leaving wasn’t good enough, Rachel decided to steal Laban’s idols (most of the people back then were primitive and foolish, and so worshipped little trinkets rather than the invisible man in the sky most people worship these days)
Jacob and his huge family, his servants, and all of his animals somehow managed to sneak away unnoticed. After three days, someone finally realized that the place was a lot less crowded than it normally was, and told Laban that Jacob had escaped. Furious, Laban got together a posse and went after Jacob.
After seven days, Laban’s group overtook Jacob. That night, God came to Laban in a dream and warned him not to talk to Jacob. Laban, not a big God fan, went and talked to Jacob anyway. He berated Jacob for taking off without even saying goodbye. After 20 minutes of trying to guilt trip Jacob, Laban suddenly decided to take God's advice and shut up.
However, Laban was still righteously pissed that someone had taken his idols. So, he went from tent to tent trying to find them. Rachel, not wanting to get caught with someone else’s gods, hid them in the sofa and sat on them. When Laban came to search her tent, she said she couldn’t stand up because she was on the rag (seriously!), but Laban could feel free to search the place.
Jacob, not happy that Laban had decided to ransack his camp, lit into Laban and unloaded a bunch of accusations on him. After a big fight, Laban agreed to split the land up and let Jacob go. So the two built a pile of rocks, and agreed that one side was Laban’s and the other Jacob’s, and if any one crossed into the territory of the other, they were going to be in a world of pain.
After a good night’s sleep, Laban kissed his daughters and ludicrous number of grandchildren, and went back home
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