- Published: June 12, 2022
- Updated: June 12, 2022
- University / College: Monash University
- Level: Undergraduate
- Language: English
- Downloads: 36
At Laban`s place Jacob works for 14 years to get both of his daughters as wives who together with his maidservants bore him twelve sons and one daughter. After twenty years Jacob returns to Canaan and meets his brother Esau who had already forgiven him. Jacob sons sell their brother Joseph to Egypt who later helps with food when hunger strikes Canaan.
The passage generates two major phenomenon; irony and radical reversals. The irony is seen when characters are extremely deceptive and end up earning privilege rather than punishment. For instance, Jacob deceives his father, Laban to Joseph and Rachel to Jacobs’s family. Irony and radical reversal too is evident when Jacob the lastborn is blessed instead of Esau the firstborn as it is the tradition. Esau receives a lesser blessing in addition to being excluded from the covenant forever. This passage is important as it shows humanity that choices have consequences. Esau lost his inheritance for choosing a bowl of soup; Rachel suffered for hiding the idols and Jacobs brother suffered for selling in Egypt.
Oppositions are also seen in intangible elements like the match between man and God, the contrast between famine and abundance. This passage is important as it shows the Gods way of working with humanity. It shows how God creates realms of contrasting reversals, symbols, and forces to suggest through whom and how His covenant is to be revealed.
Two questions
1. Why did Jacob make a coat of many colors for his son Joseph and what did it symbolize?
2. Why did the sons of Jacob prefer to throw Joseph into the pit first?
