From 1858 B.C. to 1711 B.C. Jacob. The start of God's people: Israel

Esau and Jacob turned out to be two very different individuals. Esau was naturally restless, adventurous, and even wild. He loved hunting and his father was fond of him because Esau made him delicious meals of the animals he had killed. On the other hand, Jacob was much quieter. He loved nature and was the favorite of his mother.

During the first 15 years of Jacob's life, his grandfather Abraham was still around. There is no doubt that both his grandfather and his father must have told Jacob a lot about the great promises that JHWH had made about their lineage. This lineage would grow into an enormous nation. Through this nation, all people on earth would be blessed.

Obviously, Jacob's interest in God's promise was greater than Esau's. According to the usual family laws of those days, it was the first born son Esau who would continue the line of births which ran from fathers to oldest sons. Normally speaking, this also meant that he would be the heir of the promise which God had made to his grandfather and his father regarding the numerous people and the seed.

But Esau lost the first born birthright and "sold" it to Jacob with God's help and blessing. As mentioned before, God made it known even before the birth of the twins that He rejected the elder one and that He wanted to carry out His plans for mankind's future with the younger one, Jacob.

When the two boys were still young, Esau went hunting one day. He was starving when he came home. When he saw that his brother was preparing a delicious dish, Esau asked him if he would give the dish to him. Jacob answered that he could get it in exchange for his firstborn birthright. Without much hesitation, Esau agreed to the deal.

When Isaac was very old and knew that his end was near, he wanted to give what Esau had a right to receive as the first born: his heritage, including God's promise with regards to the genealogical line of the family. To give this event a festive atmosphere, he asked Esau to go hunting for him first and make him a delicious meal one more time. Rebekah and Jacob knew that JHWH had decided that the firstborn birthright would not go to Esau but to Jacob. Thus, they decided to use a trick to get Isaac to give Jacob the blessing and the heritage which he wanted to give Esau. Jacob put on Esau's clothes so that his father, who was almost blind, would smell that he was approached by his older and not by his younger son. Jacob had a very smooth skin and Esau had a lot of hair all over his body. Thus, Jacob also covered his hands and his neck with hairy skins of animals, in case his father would touch him. Moreover, Rebekah prepared a goat for her husband and asked David to give Isaac the dish she had made.

In this way, Jacob pretended to be Esau. Though his father noticed that his elder son had returned from his hunt remarkably fast, he did not discover that he was being deceived. After finishing his meal, Isaac gave Jacob the blessing that was meant for his first born. This included the promise that Jacob's lineage would make their offspring a huge nation. Moreover, the promised seed would be a descendant of Jacob and not of Esau.

When Esau found out what Jacob had done to him, he was so angry with his brother that Rebekah advised Jacob to flee away from Esau and go to her brother in Haran (a town which was a few hundred kilometers north of Canaan). Jacob said goodbye to his father, who urged him to marry a woman who was a true worshipper of JHWH. On his way to Haran, JHWH appeared to Jacob and confirmed what he already knew. God considered him the son with the firstborn birthright and via his lineage, an enormous nation would come into existence. Within this nation, the seed (the descendant) of the promise would be born. Like his grandfather and his father, Jacob also heard God say the famous words to him: "through your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed."

Jacob was already 77 years old when he ran away from his father and mother and traveled to Haran in Mesopotamia. For about 20 years, he stayed with his uncle Laban. He fell in love with his uncle's daughter, Rachel. Laban promised to give Rachel to him if he was willing to work in his service for seven years. Jacob worked for his uncle and Rachel for the seven years mentioned. But in wedding night, Laban sent Rachel's elder sister Leah to Jacob's tent and only the following morning did Jacob discover how he had been cheated. He was now legally married to Leah and not to Rachel. Laban turned out to be willing to give Rachel to Jacob as his second wife, if he was willing to work another seven years for her. Jacob loved Rachel and was prepared to do this.

The birth of God’s people: Israel

As a result of all kinds of developments in the course of the years, Jacob not only had sexual relations with his two cousins but also with their two servant girls. From Jacob's relations with the four women mentioned, Israel, also known as God's people, was born. Leah was the first of the four women who got children: Ruben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. When Rachel discovered that she was barren, she asked her husband to have intercourse with her servant girl, Bilha. From this relationship, Jacob's fifth and sixth sons were born: Dan and Naphtali. When Leah found out that she had stopped bearing children, she gave her servant girl to Jacob. She gave birth to his seventh and eighth sons: Gad and Asher. Leah began to bear children again and gave birth to the ninth and tenth sons: Isachar and Zebulon. At last, the Bible now also mentions a daughter: Dinah.

When Jacob already had ten sons, his beloved Rachel finally got pregnant. She gave birth to Jacob's eleventh son: Joseph. On the whole, Jacob got 11 sons from 4 women in a span of 7 years. These sons (Rachel gave birth to the twelfth child later on) became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.

It is very clear that the Bible is not a dissertation on ethics, for instance marital ethics, but a history book which tells us frankly how things really happened and why they happened. The Biblical account of Jacob's married life is full of stories about deceit, human failure, grief, tensions (Rachel found it horrible that her sister could give Jacob children and she could not), slyness and tricks, and all sorts of ugly things that people and marriage partners can do to each other. (These exciting and far from pious stories are very interesting to read in the Bible itself. Read Genesis 29:1-30:24 about the origin of Israel's twelve tribes).

In Haran, Jacob not only got 11 sons and a daughter. He also became very rich. Then JHWH ordered him to return to Canaan.

He did this, together with his wives, his children, and an enormous caravan of servants, camels, donkeys, sheep, and cows. He feared the meeting with his brother and to make peace with him in time, he sent a huge gift for Esau ahead of him: hundreds of camels, goats, and cows. This produced the desired effect. The meeting of the two brothers was very pleasant.

Just before his arrival in Canaan, Jacob had an encounter with an angel during the night and the two wrestled with each other. After this struggle, the angel blessed Jacob and changed his name into Israel. This means that after the passage in the Bible where Jacob fights with an angel (Genesis 32:24-30), the name Israel is used as a new name for Abraham's grandson, Isaac's son, and as the name of God's people: the descendants of Jacob's twelve sons.

Back in Canaan, Jacob, whose name was now Israel, lived for thirty years in different places. In this period, JHWH appeared to him again and repeated the promise that He would make his offspring a great nation which would eventually produce the seed (the descendant) who would annihilate Satan and his work. In this period, Rachel gave birth to her second son: Benjamin, Jacob's twelfth son. This birth completed the group of twelve sons who would be the ancestors of Israel's twelve tribes. Rachel's second delivery was very painful and she died because of it.

Shortly afterwards, Jacob's eldest son Ruben dishonored Bilha, Rachel's servant girl and the mother of his brothers Dan and Naphtali. To punish Ruben for this wicked deed, JHWH took his first born birthright away from him.

Jacob was very fond of his son Joseph, the child of his beloved Rachel. Joseph often had dreams which pointed towards the fact that later on, he would become a powerful man whom his father and brothers would have to pay tribute to. All this made him unpopular to his brothers who were jealous of him.

When Joseph was 17 years old, his father sent him to his brothers who were tending their flocks far away from Hebron, the place where they lived. Joseph found his brothers in Dothan, more than 100 kilometers north of Hebron. His brothers decided to kill him. After some hesitation, they changed their mind. Instead of killing him, they sold Joseph as a slave to a caravan of merchants who were on their way to Egypt. They dipped Joseph's upper garment into the blood of a goat and used the blood-stained article of clothing to convince their father that Joseph was killed by an animal. The father nearly died of grief.

In this manner, Joseph arrived in Egypt as a slave around 1750 B.C. He was sold to the chief of Pharaoh's bodyguards. In this function, he rose to a position of relatively great authority.

However, Joseph got into trouble when he refused to succumb to the sexual advances of the wife of the chief of Pharaoh's bodyguards. She eventually accused him of trying to rape her and in this way, Joseph got into prison. He then acquired a great reputation as an interpreter of dreams.

Later on, Pharaoh had dreams that deeply disturbed him. They brought Joseph to him and he succeeded in interpreting Pharaoh's prophetic dreams in a convincing way. He told Pharaoh that through dreams, his God JHWH had let him know that Egypt would first go through seven years of abundant crops, but those good years would be followed by seven years of crop failures and starvation. Joseph advised Pharaoh to store up as much food as possible during the seven fruitful years so that the country would be able to survive the seven unproductive years.

The Pharaoh was so happy with the interpretation of his dream and Joseph's practical advice that he appointed Joseph as Prime Minister. It happened in 1737 B.C. when Joseph was 30 years of age.

Around 1730 B.C., the seven fruitful years were over and the seven unproductive years began. Throughout the region, people were starving. This was also the situation in Canaan. In the end, Jacob was forced to send his sons to Pharaoh in Egypt to buy food. They were sent to Joseph. He recognized them and forgave them for the horrible way they had treated him. Joseph did this because he understood that it had been God's hand which had directed him to Egypt and made him a mighty man.

Joseph knew that the famine in Canaan would last for many more years. Thus, he advised his father and all his father's descendants to travel to Egypt and to live there in the country's most fertile region: Goshen, east of the Nile. In 1728 B.C., Jacob and all his offspring (70 people altogether) traveled to Egypt on carts that Pharaoh had provided for them and they settled in Goshen. When Jacob entered Egypt, Pharaoh himself was there to welcome him.

In 1711 B.C., Jacob died in Egypt, among the people who formed the beginning of God's people: the nation of Israel. He was surrounded by his twelve sons: the ancestors of Israel's twelve tribes. Just before he died, he voiced a blessing for each of his sons. The finest blessing was for his son Judah. He told Judah that the seed of the promise would be a male child who would be born later on in his tribe as one of his descendants. Jacob (who was called Israel after his struggle with an angel) died At the age of 147.

After Jacob's death, Joseph saw to it that all Jacob's descendants, the people of Israel in its initial stage, had a good life in Egypt. They were well-to-do and their numbers increased. They remained prosperous until Joseph died in 1657 B.C. at the age of 110. Before his death, Joseph expressed the hope that later on, JHWH would guide the people of Israel back to the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

(It is very worthwhile to read the story of Jacob's life and the stories about the birth of the nation of Israel in the Bible itself. You will find these stories in the book Genesis 25:19 to the end of the first Bible book.)