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