Timeline of Jacob's Life

A table showing Jacob's age at various events in his life.

Event	Jacob's Age
Esau married two Canaanite women	40
Jacob flees Esau & Betrothal to Rachel	77
End of Leah's 7 years & Marriage to Leah & Rachel	84
End of Rachel's 7 years & Birth of Joseph	91
Jacob leaves Laban	97
Joseph is sold by his brothers	108
Joseph is brought before Pharaoh & Beginning of the 7 years of plenty	121
Beginning of the 7 years of famine	128
Jacob stands before Pharaoh	130
Jacob dies	147

My first thought on laying this out was "Why did Jacob wait so long to find a wife?" Evidently, like his mother Rebekah, he knew the Canaanite women were unacceptable, but he wasn't willing to strike out on his own without direction from his parents.

My second thought was "Jacob was 77 years old when he fell in love with Rachel," and she returned his love! People were longer lived, so he remained healthy and virile much later than men do today, but women also married young. Rachel was likely between 15 and 25, probably somewhere in the middle.

And my third thought was "All 6 of Leah's sons were born between when Jacob was 84 and 91. Could Leah really have had 6 children in just 7 years?" But my mother had 5 children in 5 years, so why not? Breastfeeding tends to suppress fertility, naturally spacing children out every couple of years, but it doesn't always work that way.

Things that make you go "hmm."

Thematic Connections: Jacob and Laban vs Israel and Egypt

The Flood, Sodom, and Egypt.

Lot and Rahab.

Joseph and Jesus.

Moses and Deborah.

Yom Kippur and the Blessing of Jacob and Esau.

There are parallels everywhere. Now check out this one!

Jacob and Laban	Israel and Egypt
Jacob was initially received by Laban with joy	Jacob was initially received by Pharaoh with joy
Jacob married the daughters of Laban	Joseph & other Hebrews married Egyptians
Jacob cared for Laban’s livestock & benefited	Israel cared for Pharaoh’s livestock & benefited
Laban prospered because of Jacob	Egypt prospered because of Israel
Laban hated Jacob when he saw how much Jacob prospered	Pharaoh hated Israel when he saw how much they prospered and multiplied
Laban cheated and oppressed Jacob	Pharaoh enslaved and oppressed Israel
Laban was impoverished by his enmity against Jacob	Egypt was devastated by their enmity against Israel
Laban treated his daughters and their children by Jacob as foreigners	Egypt treated the mixed multitude with Israel as foreigners
God told Jacob to leave Israel and went with him	God told Israel to leave Egypt and went with them
Jacob, with his wives and children, left Laban in a hurry with Laban’s wealth	Israel, with the mixed multitude, left Egypt in a hurry with Egypt’s wealth
Jacob crossed a body of water to escape Laban	Israel crossed a body of water to escape Egypt
Rachel stole Laban’s idols	Israel took Egypt’s idolatry with them into the wilderness
Laban pursued Jacob after 3 days and caught up with them after 7 days	Pharaoh pursued Israel and caught up with them at their 3rd-day camp
God intervened to keep Laban from harming Jacob	God intervened to keep Pharaoh from harming Israel
Laban claimed ownership of Jacob’s children	Pharaoh claimed ownership of Israelite children
Laban changed Jacob’s wages 10 times	Egypt was inflicted by 10 plagues
Jacob’s existence as a family separate from Laban was confirmed at a monument on a mountain	Israel’s existence as a nation separate from Egypt was confirmed on Mount Sinai
When Jacob went to Laban, he set up a single stone. When he left, he set up a pile of stones	When Israel entered Egypt, they were small. When they left, they were a vast multitude
God saw Jacob’s distress and passed judgment in his favor in the night	God saw Israel’s distress and passed judgment in their favor in the night
Laban blessed Jacob and made a covenant of peace with him	Pharaoh cursed Israel and he was destroyed with his army.

This pattern is the pattern of God's people in exile and in return. God dropped a pebble and the ripples extend from one end of time to the other.

A Chiasm: Until the Time of the Gentiles Is Complete

There is a large chiasm that spans the entire length of Torah portion Vayetzei, Genesis 28:10-32:2 (32:3 by rabbinic reckoning) with Jacob's encounters with angels on either end and the birth of Joseph in the center.

For the search engines:

A: 28:10-12 – Jacob encounters angels
---B: 28:13-19 – A covenant and a stone pillar
------C: 28:20-22 – God watches over Jacob
---------D: 29:1-12 – Jacob journeys and meets Laban
------------E: 29:13-14 – Laban lauds family ties with Jacob
---------------F: 29:15-30 – Jacob negotiates wages with Laban
------------------G: 29:31-30:24 – Rachel and Leah compete for children
---------------------H: 30:25-26 – Joseph is born & Jacob is ready to leave Laban
------------------G: 30:27-43 – Jacob and Laban compete for sheep
---------------F: 31:1-13 – Laban renegotiates wages with Jacob
------------E: 31:14-16 – Laban repudiates family ties with Jacob
---------D: 31:17-32a – Jacob journeys and is pursued by Laban
------C: 31:32b-43 – God watches over Jacob
---B: 31:44-55 – A covenant and a stone pillar
A: 32:1-2 – Jacob encounters angels

One possible interpretation for the focus being on the birth of Joseph and the desire for Jacob to return to the Promised Land might be in Jesus' statement concerning "the time of the Gentiles" in Luke 21:24.

Jacob has been exiled from the Promised Land due to a conflict with Esau (associated by the ancient rabbis with Rome) and scattered into the world, which is represented in this story by Laban. While in exile, Jacob has been cheated, shuffled about, and persecuted, yet he has prospered. His material wealth continues to grow against all reason and he survives against all attempts to assimilate or destroy him.

Today, multitudes of gentiles are being grafted into the nation of Israel. Jacob would even stop this if he could, but he has no control. The great expansion of Israel's children by adoption from the nations is an act of God, like the conception of Joseph. These new Israelites are rediscovering the Hebraic roots of their faith, repenting from idolatry, and learning to keep the Laws of God.

Jerusalem is still under the control of gentiles and Israel is still mostly scattered among the nations, but that time may be drawing to a close. (I'm not saying that it is, only that it may be.) If so, then as Ephraim and Menasseh are filled, Joseph is being prophetically born, and Jacob is preparing to return home.

The mass exodus from the nations will not be without tribulation. The people of God will be pursued by the nations they are leaving and, as in the Exodus from Egypt, they will bring the remnants of their inherited idolatry with them.

Nevertheless, God will be with Jacob and will see him back to the Promised Land successfully. As Paul wrote in Romans, individual branches might be pruned, but the whole tree will be saved because God has promised it.

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Check out my growing list of chiasms and parallelisms here.

For more on chiasms--including how to identify, map, and interpret them--check out The Chiasm Course!

Jacob, Rachel, & Leah: Whose Eyes Were Veiled?

Genesis 29:23 …he took Leah his daughter…

It appears that this maneuver was Laban’s idea, but Jewish tradition says that Rachel and Leah willingly cooperated. Jacob and Rachel had devised a secret sign for just this situation, so that Jacob would not be fooled. Rachel, knowing that Leah might never be able to marry and have a family, had compassion on her and revealed the secret sign to her. Even so, it seems difficult to believe that Jacob could make such a mistake, especially after having lived with both of these women for seven years. But there are several other factors to consider:

1. There was almost certainly a substantial amount of alcohol consumed during the celebrations.
2. Rachel and Leah probably both wore veils, even in public, and which they might not have removed even on their wedding night until after the last lamp had been put out.
3. The interior of an animal skin tent at night can be exceptionally dark.
4. Jewish tradition says that Rachel and Leah were twins and so could have been very similar in height, weight, and build.
5. God had promised to look after Jacob until he returned to Canaan, and Jacob’s blindness could have been induced by God to ensure the execution of a divine plan.

In support of the fourth and fifth items above, there is another tradition that says Esau should have married Leah while Jacob should have married Rachel. Since Jacob received Esau’s blessing from Isaac, he also had to be the father of all twelve of the tribes of Israel. Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah had been marked as the mothers of the nation of Israel, and no other woman would do. Therefore Jacob had to marry all four of them, and God made sure that it happened. But why did Rachel and Leah go along with this idea? I have heard some women say that they would rather be the third or fourth wife of King David than the first wife of Nabal.

The rabbis say that Jacob married so late in life because he had been studying under Shem, the son of Noah. I do not know if that is true, but it would certainly make Jacob a more attractive prospect than most other men. Having spent the last seven years in such close proximity to Jacob, Leah might have already harbored a strong attraction to him. She was also a godly woman and probably very respectful of her father’s wishes, however conniving he might be.

Rachel was more likely than Leah to find another husband if Jacob rejected her and could have felt some compassion toward her sister in her unfortunate situation. She was also a godly woman and probably experienced a great deal of conflict in her loyalties, as she was not yet fully married to Jacob.

Joshua and the Family Stones

Photo from Ben P L

Tonight I was reading about Joshua and the parting of the Jordan River when I was struck by the similarity between the twelve men carrying the river stones on their shoulders and the High Priest carrying the two stones on the shoulders of his uniform and the twelve stones on his breastplate. In both cases the stones represent tribes. The Priest's shoulder stones have the names of six tribes inscribed on each of them. (See Exodus 28) Each of the stones on the breastplate represent an individual tribe as do the stones carried out of the Jordan. It occurred to me that stones might represent tribes or nations in other contexts as well. Take a look at these possibilities:

Gen 28:11-15 Jacob gathers up some stones to use as a pillow. Who uses stones for a pillow? He lays his head on the stones, and in his dream God tells him that his descendants will be as the dust of the earth and will be scattered throughout the world. God also tells him that he will be returned to this land someday. The first part of that prophecy was fulfilled when the two kingdoms were scattered by Assyria, Babylon, and Rome. They have been living among the nations of the world, for the most part as if asleep (the stones for pillows!) and unaware of who they are. The second part of the prophecy was fulfilled in one sense when Jacob personally returned to Canaan. It will be fulfilled much more dramatically when all of Israel is called out of the nations and returned to the Promised Land someday.

Gen 31:51-53 As Jacob left Laban to return to Canaan, Laban chased him across the dessert. When he caught him, they set up a pillar and a pile of stones, proclaiming them to be witnesses to a peace treaty setting a border between their lands. Later, after Israel escaped Pharaoh, the River of Egypt was set as the boundary between their lands, and the events were witnessed by God's pillar and by the nations of the world.

Lev 14:33-53 There is way too much to talk about in this passage, but here is one very interesting bit: The priest orders the house to be emptied and locked. On the seventh day he returns to judge the stones of the house. Those that are infected are cast into “an unclean place” while fresh stones are brought in to replace them. Sounds like something someone once wrote about olive branches, doesn't it?

It seems obvious to me that stones, especially in the Torah, represent people groups, whether nations, tribes, cities, or families. Gold is divinity and purity. Silver is blood and atonement. Bronze is judgement. Iron is destruction. Wood is humanity or flesh. Coverings are spiritual authorities. Blue is divine, red is flesh, and purple is God made flesh.

I love this stuff. I could be wrong...but I don't think so.